More wireless products and services are gaining acceptance as critical tools in the supply chain. While barcode scanning represents most data-capture applications today, there are several other options, and most of them are much more sophisticated and flexible. At the same time, new and emerging standards are helping to ensure cross-vendor interoperability and promote greater use of wireless technologies in supply-chain applications.
“More options exist than ever before,” says Todd J. Carey, regional director of the west region for Barcoding Inc. “WLANs (wireless local-area networks), Wi-Fi, cellular, and GPS have remained the wireless cornerstones in supply-chain technology. But the trend we’re seeing is more of our customers considering smart phones, iPads, and netbooks for management and supervisors for auditing, surveys, and other simple field functions where the working conditions can be somewhat controlled.”
Symbol Technologies says that devices need to offer multiple data-capture technologies right out of the box—or the ability to add technology to the device at a later time. For example, according to Motorola, if you need barcode scanning and radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology today, it is much more cost-effective to purchase a single multipurpose device to reduce device and management costs. But if you only need barcode scanning today and you’re just beginning to explore the possibility of adding RFID in your warehouse or yard, you should be able to purchase a device that offers the flexibility to add RFID functionality later to protect your investment.
RFID is already a major factor in supply-chain applications. Reportlinker estimates the value of the entire RFID market for 2010 at $5.63 billion, up from $5.03 billion in 2009. This includes tags, readers, and software/services for RFID cards, labels, fobs, and all other form factors.
And RFID just keeps growing. The U.S. General Services Administration, which manages more than 11% of the government’s total procurement dollars and $24 billion in federal assets, installed a passive ultra-high-frequency (UHF) RFID system based on the EPC Gen 2 standard at its western distribution center in California in July to track the movement of pallets, boxes, and bags through loading docks and into trucks. The GSA expects to expand the system to tag all items.
Wal-Mart, which has already received so much publicity about its use of RFID technology across its entire inventory management and supply-chain system, is reportedly ready to begin testing the placement of RFID tags on individual clothing items. Wal-Mart employees will then be able to use a handheld scanner to gather data that will help the huge chain restock its clothing inventory in real time.
Nearly half (49%) of the companies currently using, developing, or evaluating RFID expect their RFID budgets to increase in 2010, according to a study released earlier this year by ABI Research. Michael Liard, director of the study, says that all of the organizations with rollouts currently in progress intend to increase their RFID budgets next year. Only about 11% of those surveyed said they intend to cut their RFID budgets in 2010.
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