Two emerging giants - China & India are moving at differet pace in adopting RFID technology. China is on top of the RFID revolution. The Chinese have been at the helm of the electronic and semiconductor revolution. They may also be at the top of the radio frequency identification (RFID) revolution, thanks to the 2008 Summer Olympics and Wal-Mart.The first is understandable. The Chinese government has plans of showcasing the Chinese achievements to the world through the Olympics in 2008. Hence no cost or effort is being spared to harness the very best in technology to the Olympian event. Yet having Wal-Mart driving technology in China is another matter. The mega-retailer has directed its suppliers to use RFID tags on cartons and pallets, in which the products are packed, supplied to them. Wal-Mart's RFID implementation (currently in the United States) is going to be in stages, but other retailers such as Tesco and Metro AG have given similar directions to their suppliers.The catch here is that China has become the factory to the world. Its manufacturers supply directly to Wal-Mart and other such retailers. They also supply to the suppliers of Wal-Mart and others, which buttons up roughly 50% of all products being sold by the mega-retailers worldwide. Naturally, given the depth of China's involvement in global manufacture, the retailer's directions to its suppliers in the US on RFID tags will have a major impact on China in course of time. "The Chinese are not unfamiliar with RFID technology. However, the true impact of Wal-Mart's direction to its suppliers would be felt in 12 months' time in China,say analysts.Chinese suppliers would end up using about 5 trillion tags annually to supply to Wal-Mart alone during the next two years,according to industry estimates. The chinese government and business are all set to embrace RFID in a big way.
In contrast RFID is slow to take off(Reg.Required) in India. Key Concerns -Lack of worldwide consensus is absent on the frequency standards used for various applications. The US and North America operate on the 915 MHz frequency (UHF); Europe operates on UHF as well as a different frequency range; Japan on the microwave (Gigahertz) range, while Asia works with still another range. "In India, one has to get a special license from the Wireless Protocol Commission (WPC) to use the 915 MHz range and therefore these readers cannot be imported easily into India. Regulations such as these need to be standardized to enable popular adoption," says G.B.Prabhat,Director, Consulting & Enterprise Solutions of Satyam. Moreover, there has not been any explicit allocation of spectrum in the context of UHF RFID in India.He adds,"From the Indian industry point of view, the Wal-Mart mandate will not have a significant impact. However the spin-off effect of the mandate has led to this technology being in the news often and hence companies have started taking interest in this space".Prabhat opined that, knowing the conservative IT spending trends in the industry, Indian companies would go in for RFID only if they are convinced that they will get an RoI that they are comfortable with. "We expect RFID adoption in India to take place in a phased manner rather than after a dramatic fashion," he added.In the final reckoning, then, Indian industry hasn't been all too enthusiastic in taking to RFID, favoring instead a wait and watch approach though in terms of technology development, pioneering spirit hasn't been wanting. I beleive that the gap between china and india is widening every lost opportunity to be at par or ahead of china in terms of technology advancement and economic progress is not being seized by India, the runner in the race.

RFID Deadlines Intensify Need To Manage Product Information via Informationweek

Enterprises face dual 2005 deadlines relating to RFID and supply-chain data synchronization. Those that haven't moved forward with a product-information-management strategy will be under-prepared to realize RFID's value.A couple of key supply-chain imperatives are forcing many big companies to deal with two major issues concurrently--RFID and global data synchronization--while still conducting day-to-day operational activities.As various 2005 RFID mandate deadlines--from Wal-Mart, Target, and Albertson's--approach, enterprises are likewise making investments to meet the Wal-Mart UCCnet global data synchronization (GDS) 2005 mandate.These dual 2005 deadlines don't give enterprises much time to evaluate the linkage between a tag's 96-bit electronic product code (EPC)-based identifier and the global trade identification number (GTIN)-based structured and unstructured information associated with that product.Suppliers are in varying states of readiness for the 2005 deadlines. Some suppliers are focused on improving RFID tag read rates by adjusting the tags' orientation and pallet configurations. Others are working to ensure that retailers who subscribed to product data actually receive and implement that product data into their operational systems.Additionally, some suppliers are working on the product data-unification process that's needed to pull together product data stored in a variety of systems for synchronization and haven't embarked on their GDS or RFID initiatives. Furthermore, there are enterprises that have only focused on meeting the minimum UCCnet GDS mandate requirements and haven't embraced the full capabilities of a product-information-management solution.Of all of these groups, we believe enterprises that haven't moved forward with a product-information-management strategy will be under-prepared for RFID's long-term process-improvement contributions. These enterprises will be unable to convert EPC codes into the semantics needed for conversation between a retailer's and suppliers' operational systems since these operational systems aren't EPC-based and are more likely GTIN- or UPC-based. Both retailers and suppliers will need to create an environment that converts EPC-based activity into meaningful product information. The problems of implementing RFID to meet 2005 deadlines are indeed formidable.The long-term success of RFID initiatives is based on the linkage of the RFID sensing capabilities of the enterprise with the overall product information consumed in the transactional systems of the enterprise systems. That's because these enterprise systems--not tags on products--manage day-to-day business processes.

End -of-Road for IT Creativity via Infoworld

Distinctive systems once provided competitive barriers," Nicholas Carr says,..."But barriers have eroded as accessibility, affordability and standardization have increased," Carr adds. Don Tapscott counters by saying that IT can spark business model changes that can help companies gain strategic advantages over competitors. Nicholas Carr continues his passionate theme by saying that The economies of scale that standardized open systems provide has outweighed the costs of the temporary advantages that proprietary systems offer and this further commoditises the value of IT to business. Tapscott rightfuly counters,"New business processes can help drive new business models that are even harder to replicate, and can transform the whole culture of a company, which is even more difficult, and may be even impossible, to replicate"."The Internet is a platform for programmability and on that platform companies can make innovations.Today's Internet has become a "hypernet". "Billions, trillions of objects around the world are now smart communication devices.The most important point is not about technology, it's about how IT enables new business models and designs." The final comments from Don Topscott are quite insightful -"By giving up on IT innovation you're not giving up on just IT but on business innovation as a whole."

Companies Adopting RFID Despite Challenges

Many companies across a variety of industries are either deploying radio frequency identification systems or plan to adopt the product-tracking technology.Concerns over the high cost and lack of good integration tools and standards remain a key concern. A lot of companies are working in deadline mode. Their chief concern is to comply with the mandates and to remain eligible as a supplier to these big outfits. Many companies have adopted a "slap-and-ship" approach to RFID, in order to meet the mandates at minimal cost.The term applies to companies that stick an RFID electronic tag on a case or pallet before shipping it to the retailer, but do not use the technology themselves to track goods.Companies across industries are expected to gradually adopt RFID as the technology matures, because of its ability to cut costs through more efficient handling of shipments and inventory. There's widespread belief that as the technology takes hold and tracks goods from manufacturers to consumers, there will be major benefits through efficiency. Nevertheless, enterprises should wait to reap the cost-cutting benefits of small projects, before expanding them into more warehouses and other facilities within a supply chain.

Modernizing supply chain solutions through the convergence of computing

Moore’s law is at the core of the new RFID phenomenon where two things are guaranteed: The RFID chips will get smaller and cheaper; and as the technology gets more reliable, standards will emerge and proliferate in ways that could only have been imagined 30 or so years ago when early RFID pioneers started to experiment with the technology. Dr. Moore’s observation of a generation ago makes it a certainty that it’s only a matter of time until the full promise of the technology is realized.The previous technologies all had one glaring limitation that RFID is intended to solve: accurate knowledge of the goods’ location, particularly as they near the point of manufacture/sale. The knowledge of where the goods are in the supply chain from manufacturer to distributor vary, and some have used bar codes and some fairly laborintensive business processes to develop reasonable accuracy here.RFID approaches offer the potential to save significant labor cost during the middle stages of the supply chain. The critical information gap occurs on either end between the times when the goods leave the distributor’s truck and when they are actually built or sold. This is often referred to, tongue in cheek,as the last 100 meters. This is where the hype is focused.Simply having the information is important; how it is shared and with whom will dictate the ultimate economic benefit.What You Should Do RFID is an exciting component of a larger industry trend toward the convergence of computing and communications and pervasive, or autonomic computing. Within this macro trend wireless communication is emerging as a critical communication model that is required to derive the ultimate value since it untethers the users and the systems. Any business with a supply chain should take the following steps:
• Get smart on the technology. It’s not rocket science, although it’s close,
and it’s important to understand what it is and isn’t all about;
• Benchmark your current supply chain and understand if/where having better
information about inventory levels, workflow, and forecasting could drive business
benefit;
• Determine if there is a process that would benefit from using RFID, do a rough ROI
analysis, and if the indicators look positive, then kick off a pilot; and
• Don’t wait, and don’t limit your thinking to mandates or simple
compliance.

Radio tags for China's products, blood and people - RFID is a big opportunity in China.

The Chinese have been at the helm of the electronic and semi-conductor revolution. They may also be at the top of the radio frequency identification (RFID) revolution, thanks to the 2008 Summer Olympics and Wal-Mart.The Chinese government has plans of showcasing the Chinese achievements to the world through the Olympics in 2008China has become the factory to the world. Its manufacturers supply directly to Wal-Mart and other such retailers.They also supply to the suppliers of Wal-Mart and others, which buttons up roughly 50% of all products being sold by the mega-retailers worldwide. Naturally, given the depth of China's involvement in global manufacture, the retailer's directions to its suppliers in the US on RFID tags will have a major impact on China in course of time. "The Chinese are not unfamiliar with RFID technology.Within the retail trade environment, RFID tags are expected to replace the bar code. This is the code displayed on the sides of product packages. It contains the price and product identification number, which a shopkeeper is able to read by running a scanner or reader up and down the bar code. The bar code facilitates transactions, rules out human error, and allows the shopkeeper to know exactly what quantum of a product he or she has sold at what price.the Chinese government is alert to the possibility that it is a matter of time before its suppliers will be forced to tag their supplies with RFID tags, and have started to prepare for this eventuality. The utility of RFID technology in the retail sector apart, the Chinese government is also expanding RFID use domestically. It has already announced its national ID card program, which is estimated to consume about a billion RFID-enabled cards. The country also has plans of introducing RFID-enabled chips to track blood bags to deal with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis. These are the bags that contain the blood donated by people for use by others. Since the Chinese consume 47 million bags of donated blood annually, this could be a source of another RFID tag consumption.RFID is not a technology or product. It is a revolution."

RFID - No choice, No privacy, No benefit, No way by Rajat Paharia

Rajat Paharia tracks the evolution of various forms of tracking devices that seemed to hold promise in the run up to the full blown RFID RFID devices that we see currently.Rajat here outlines a framework to evaluate RFID applications.This is worth examing,as it is important that a universally acceptable framework should evolve to assess impact of RFID applications.Several experiments with implanted chips have been tried in the past; years back wired ran this storyabout Kevin Warwick who implanted a silicon chip inside his body six years back and made a team of scientsts track him on various measures. Interesting area with potential for significant upside in business applications and social life.

Welcome to this post

I intend to post RFID related developments in this blogsite regularly - Sadagopan