October 20, 2004 at Stony Brook
University; Stony Brook, NY
AIDC 100’s no-holds-barred,
highly interactive conference on
RFID & Bar Codes was held at
Stony Brook University’s Charles
B. Wang Center on October 20.
The following paragraphs
highlight some of the
presentation content, but cannot
do justice to the substance
provided or the electricity
generated in a number of
spirited exchanges between
speakers and attendees
throughout the day. Session
facilitators, Dr. Daniel Engels,
Research Director at MIT’s Auto
ID Labs and John Hill, Principal
at ESYNC, were kept busy
balancing the endless flow of
questions with the objective of
allowing speakers to make it
through their entire
presentations. The bottom
line? The rumors of bar coding’s
demise have been greatly and
sadly exaggerated. RFID is
coming; in fact, for many
container and high value item
identification applications, it
is already here. Nonetheless, a
number of challenges, both
technical and political, must be
resolved before we can expect to
see widespread deployment for
item, case and pallet
identification in the global
supply chain. And, even when
the challenges have been
addressed, it is clear that the
technology will not fix poorly
conceived business processes or
infrastructure. The message for
users? If you have not done so
already, initiate your
investigation of RFID in a
measured fashion that
articulates specific objectives,
identifies opportunities that
cannot be addressed with other
AIDC technology and establishes
a supportable value proposition
for moving forward. And
certainly, at this juncture,
don’t even think about throwing
the bar code baby out with the
bath water!
Dick Meyers, AIDC 100
chairman, welcomed attendees and
opened the program by
acknowledging the great promise
of RFID for the supply chain,
but he quickly added that it
will be many years before bar
coding disappears. He expressed
the hope that the forum would
provide a clear vision of where
the two technologies fit within
the supply chain, while laying
the foundation for leveraging
the lessons learned during the
early days of bar coding to
accelerate development and
cost-effective application of
RFID. Emphasizing the
importance of open and honest
dialogue between trading
partners, he urged attendees to
focus on building a business
case for RFID deployment based
upon proven performance
capabilities, not speculation.
Kathy Smith, Special
Assistant for End-to-End
Customer Support in DoD’s Supply
Chain Integration organization,
is responsible for developing
policy for RFID implementation.
Her presentation, which
highlighted DoD’s experience
with RFID for container and high
value item tracking since 1994,
stressed the importance of
optimizing the supply chain
business process to leverage the
potential of any technology.
RFID’s ability to provide asset
visibility from source to the
battlefield is a critical
component of DoD’s
knowledge-enabled logistics
program. Kathy outlined DoD’s
requirement for EPC-compliant
supplier tagging of specific
item cases and pallets shipped
to two locations (DDSP & DDJC)
beginning in January 2005,
expanding to all items and
locations by 2007. Program
details can be found at
www.dodrfid.org/supplierimplementationplan.htm.
Mark Reboulet, USAF,
“Radio Frequency
Identification (RFID) and the AF
Passive Military Shipping Label
Test”, presented an
overview of RFID technology
deployment and testing in the
Air Force, including an
excellent example of the
complementary use of bar coding
and RFID for munitions
tracking. Bar codes attached to
individual munitions are scanned
as they are loaded into a
container and the data is
transferred to an active 433 MHz
RFID container tag for container
tracking. This month the Air
Force will be tagging container
shipments to Ramstein AFB
(Germany) to evaluate technology
performance through the extended
supply chain. Additionally, an
RFID-based real time locating
system (RTLS) has been installed
at Robins AFB.
Steven Braun, Hospira,
highlighted the critical role
bar coding plays in reducing
errors in hospital medication
dispensing and then outlined his
company’s approach to using the
technology as well as its value
as a competitive
differentiator. Among the many
points made in Steve’s
presentation, Hospira’s
formation of a
multi-disciplinary team to
assess bar coding options,
select the symbology (RSS) and
craft a deployment plan was
particularly noteworthy. He
also emphasized the importance
of standards that address the
requirements of specific
applications in specific
industries for specific types of
products. Although Hospira’s
bar coding program is delivering
a significant return on
investment, Steve indicated that
the company is also looking at
“ready today” applications such
as patient, controlled product
and high-value equipment
location tracking. He added,
however, that the FDA must
clarify its position on the
technology to drive industry
adoption and predicted that
measurable ROI is likely to be
eight to ten years away.
Dr. John Hamilton
delivered the luncheon keynote
on Business Strategy and the
RFID Challenge. Dr. Cook,
who serves as Associate
Director of the Consortium for
Supply Chain Management at the
John Cook School of Business,
St. Louis University, echoed
other speaker calls for sanity
in assessing RFID’s
potential as a supply
chain performance improvement
enabler. The process, he said,
must begin with a clear
understanding of the RFID value
proposition, including how the
technology might contribute to
short and longer-term
competitive differentiation. He,
too, agreed that RFID will not
replace bar coding and that the
two technologies will continue
to co-exist for some time to
come.
Jim Dean and Dick Pocek
of Energizer Holdings, Inc.
built a strong case for working
with a third party logistics
provider on RFID testing and
deployment to ready the company
for initial compliance with the
Wal-Mart mandate, while
minimizing the technology’s
potentially disruptive effect on
regular operations. Partnering
with Exel Logistics, Energizer
has conducted extensive tests of
RFID performance on various
carton types, the effects of tag
placement and orientation as
well as different tag and
antenna configurations. Seeing
significant downstream potential
for RFID in manufacturing,
warehousing, container and yard
management, reverse logistics,
asset tracking and, eventually,
at the point of sale,
Energizer’s approach has enabled
them to meet initial
requirements, reduce risk and
keep their options open for
broader deployment as the
technology evolves.
Richard Rees, President
of Scanology (Edinburgh,
Scotland), and John
Greaves, Deloitte Global
RFID Technology Integration,
addressed the question “Is EPC
Really Global”, suggesting on
the one hand that the concept is
certainly “global”, but on the
other that there is considerable
work to be done to ensure that
standards are harmonized to
facilitate, rather than
constrain its exploitation.
Citing the fact that 70% of
EPC’s current membership is from
the USA, Rees stated that EPC is
“not yet global” and won’t be
until specification issues are
resolved with ISO, the
International Standardization
Organization, and other
stakeholders including the
Chinese. Greaves concurred, but
cited broad overseas disinterest
in EPC and the failure of the
European and Asian vendor
communities to proactively
address it as a major hurdle.
Both speakers emphasized the
importance of investigating the
likely impact of the flood of
RFID data upon existing
communications networks and IT
infrastructures, urging
prospective users to begin such
investigation now.
Craig Harmon of Q.E.D.
Systems tells it like it is!
And, it was difficult to quarrel
with his perspective entitled
The Emperor Has No Clothes,
a comprehensive review of RFID
technology, standards,
intellectual property and
related issues. Craig provided
an in-depth examination of the
technical and political
challenges and minced few words
on current performance issues
and the fundamental importance
of standards. Must reading for
neophytes and practiced hands,
the presentation concluded with
the prediction that the 860 to
960 MHz bandwidth for passive
tags and 433 MHz for active tags
coupled with global endorsement
of ISO 18000-6 and 18000-7
standards would prevail. He
further suggested that both DoD
and Wal-Mart will drive
EPCglobal to détente and
proactive collaboration with ISO
– and that the RFID market will
grow at a rate of 30 to 35%
through 2009.
Tom Miller, President of
Intermec Technologies
Corporation, Mike Lowry,
President & CEO, Lowry Computer
Products, Kevin Jost,
President & CEO, Hand Held
Products and Steve Lambright,
Vice President of SAVI
Technology, teamed for a panel
discussion on the subject of the
provider’s perspective with
particular emphasis on “Are
user expectations realistic?”
and “Is the RFID channel ready
to provide the services
needed?”. From the discussion,
with the notable exception again
of applications in
manufacturing, container and
high-value or mission-critical
item identification, it appears
that RFID channel investment is
being approached cautiously.
Issues related to building a
resource pool, both technical
and sales related, appear to be
significant – and, with
performance and standards issues
still in flux, it is difficult
to plant a stake in the ground.
“The promise is there, but none
of us is making any money on the
Wal-Mart program.”
Mark Roberti, founder and
editor of the RFID Journal,
provided an insightful
wrap-up on the day’s
presentations acknowledging that
although the media can on
occasion be faulted for
oversimplifying the challenges
associated with the introduction
and adoption of new technology,
it plays a pivotal role in
providing the visibility
essential to building awareness
and demand. He then challenged
attendees, particularly
suppliers, to look for
opportunities to continue the
dialogue initiated at Stony
Brook to ensure broader
understanding of the potential
as well as the limitations, not
only of RFID, but also of other
AIDC technology and systems.
