Applications of RFID in Supply Chains

Applications of RFID in Supply Chains

Gary M. Gaukler [e-mail] RFID and Supply Chain Systems Lab
Dept. of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Texas A&M University
College Station, Texas 77843-3131, USA

Ralf W. Seifert [e-mail] IMD - International Institute for Management Development
Chemin de Bellerive 23, PO Box 915
CH-1001 Lausanne, Switzerland

Copyright
This paper is published as a book chapter in “Trends in Supply Chain Design and
Management: Technologies and Methodologies”, edited by Hosang Jung, F. Frank
Chen, and Bongju Jeong, published by Springer-Verlag London Ltd.

Abstract
In this chapter we first give an introduction to radio-frequency identification
(RFID) technology. We discuss capabilities and limitations of this technology in a supply chain setting. We then present several current applications of this technology to supply chains to demonstrate best practices and important implementation considerations. Subsequently, we discuss several issues that may hinder a wide-spread RFID implementation in supply chains. We close by deriving several consequences for a successful implementation of RFID, and we give guidance on how a company might best benefit from this technology.

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G.M. Gaukler and R.W. Seifert

1.1 An Overview of RFID Technology
At its core, RFID is a contactless interrogation method for identification of objects.
Besides the applications in supply chain operations that this chapter is going to focus on, some of the everyday uses of this technology are in ID cards, sports equipment, windshield-mounted toll tags, and gasoline quick-purchase tokens.
RFID has also begun to be used in keychain auto anti-theft devices and toys (most notably, Hasbro Star Wars figures), and even on paper tickets for the 2006 Soccer
World Cup in Germany (Odland 2004; Want 2004).
1.1.1 RFID Hardware
An RFID system essentially consists of three parts: the RFID tag itself, the RFID reader device, and a backend

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