2005 is the year that radio frequency identification (RFID) technology will really start to take hold, according to experts and early adopters from a variety of industries.
Companies such as Tesco have been talking about the efficiency benefits of RFID for some time.'Tesco and Wal-Mart hope to increase the accuracy of stock and, in some cases, track cases through the store, then link through to electronic-point-of-sale systems. But there are many capabilities required to make this work, and there is a huge emphasis on the retailers to change their systems.
Airbus is another organisation that has embraced RFID, most recently equipping its A380, the world's largest commercial jet unveiled last month, with 10,000 RFID chips. Now the company is turning its attention towards suppliers.
They have implemented a process involving suppliers last year, and this year they're adding forums to show them the best way to implement the technology. Airbus RFID strategy is quite mature, and its use has produced unforeseen efficiencies to the company's stock maintenance and tracking.
Now Airbus suppliers attach RFID tags to oxygen masks, so they can be checked by reading the tags without having to remove the masks from their plastic housing above each airplane seat. This was previously a manually intensive job.
The implications to manufacturers working with RFID in industries as diverse as retail, healthcare and aerospace are becoming clearer, and standards and integrated strategic approaches throughout an industry's value chains need to be established, according to delegates at the conference.
