In April 2004, Wal-Mart announced a pilot project, requiring Wal-Mart 100 suppliers to use RFID technology before January 2005 - all Supply of the Wal-Wal-Wal-Mart Supermarket and Sam member stores Wireless RF Identity (RFID) tags must be used on the box and pallets. Now Wal-Mart claims that the project has been 100%, which also shows the huge influence of this retail giant.
Badri Devalla, Chief Structure Designer, INFOSYS, said, "If it is not because Wal-Mart, we will not exchange this topic here." Infosys is a global consultation and information technology service. the company. Davera delivered a speech on the prospect of RFID technology at the near future Wharton's emerging technology conference. Davera pointed out that this technology has gradually succeeded - he pointed out that the automotive industry and the US Department of Defense have conducted several years of exploration and research in the RFID technology, and finally Wal-Mart's giant Mac, the introduction of this technology. Consumer Goods Industry. "The initial supplier strives to achieve RFID compatibility, but now many suppliers will stop this to take millions of dollars," This is just a certain amount of cost, or we can find a way From among the benefits? '"
Interestingly, although RFID technology is considered one of the current hot technologies, this technology has been in considerable period of time. Davera said that Harry Stockman invented this technology in 1948, but until the end of the 1990s, this technology is still basically in the infrastructure improvement period. The three components of RFID technology include: tags (a digital memory chip with integrated radio transmitter transponder), reader (perceived label presence, devices that receive and process tag data) and computer host (for collecting from label reading) The data of the device and transmits RFID data to the core service system through the middleware). These information is irrelevant before the powerful enterprise-class computer has been published, so there is no reason to collect data collection. Davera said, "After the Y2K millennium, we have discovered the new type of data, the new type of data."
He predicts that the next 3 to 6 months will be critical because the industry will take the mergers and acquisitions of technical suppliers and software vendors. Davera's colleague Sajjad Jaffer said, "This is very similar to the Internet boom. Everyone is observing who will complete the next leap." Because the relevant standards have basically been in place - EPC global The EPCGLOBAL NETWORK has established RFID technology standards and has developed related software. Suppliers can freely explore the true "emerging" technologies called Davera.
One cow can not be less
Davera said that there are two ways to choose more than "即 拍 即", and there are two ways to choose from: closed-loop strategy (which focuses on the company's internal) and supply chain strategy (higher requirements for collaboration, possibly Includes packaging suppliers, contract manufacturers, third-party logistics companies and retailers, etc.). The internal closed-loop system is characterized by a good entry choice because the company can avoid problems such as industry standards and external partners. He added that the number of examples of this technology is applied. For example, Infosys uses RFID technology to track laptops in many offices in the world. Car companies use RFID technology in its manufacturing facility to track specific components. The US Department of Defense is tracking armed vehicles and mobile attacks in Iraq. USDA is implementing each of the United States to allocate a unique ID number, which can track and monitor cattle through RFID technology, and the purpose is to quickly discover the farm of the disease in the disease.
Davera believes that outwardly expands to the supply chain area to make RFID technology relatively more complicated, but this is the area where you can get huge benefits. He also pointed out that the current Wal-Mart approach involves the retailer-vendor value chain transport link. (The supplier is required to use the RFID tag on every pallet sent to Wal-Mart store.) RFID technology's "highest essence" is the ability to track and monitor every product component in the manufacturing process. . This may involve parts from all over the world, complete assembly in China, packaging, transportation routes Europe, and then sell in the United States. Davera pointed out that every node in the above supply chain may have an error, which will stop the entire process. Establishing RFID technology to track and monitor the entire process will be the next "heavyweight application". However, in order to apply this information, heavyweight applications require some support for heavyweight programs. Morris Cohen, is currently a joint director of the Fisman-Davison Service and Operation Management Research Center of Wharton. He said that he myself is very impressive for RFID, especially when this technology involves visibility in the supply chain. He pointed out that relevant studies have shown that inventory records are amazing, so any information that can inform us that the real situation inventory in the store and warehouse is very valuable. However, the information itself does not solve the problem of supply chain. He took the package industry as an example. You may have 100 easy expired goods on the shelves of the store; some of them have been produced for 2 days, part of 10 days, and some have been 14 days. He explained that it can be exactly known that the information of each item is of course good, but we don't have a ready-made system to make full use of this information. "People who promote this technique continue to claim how valuable all this information is available in real time. We can roam in the data, but from the long-term, only know this is not enough." He added, can Mastering better information, but "can find out how to apply this information more valuable."
Gerard Candon, Professor, Operation and Information Management, also held a similar realistic attitude to RFID technology in the supply chain, and he rushed to the so-called so-called a needle to solve it. The "Silver Bomb" program for supply chain puzzles puts forward a warning. Kai Caica said, "I think many people have a fantasy that can be tracked if every stock product in the supply chain can be tracked, so that the level of inventory management will be raised to a new one. Level. "However, based on the research of information sharing in the supply chain, more information does not necessarily bring benefits to the company. His research shows that it is really possible to shorten the delivery date for the company.
For example, order processing is a key part of the delivery time. In the 1980s, the retailer delivered an order to the supplier in a fax or letter; the supplier sent the order to the warehouse after entering the order, and the warehouse was sent after picking out the relevant product. After that, the relevant process uses electronic data exchange technology to complete the order of orders in electronically. Now we have more information more than before, but all this does not necessarily convert to the most important elements in order processing.
Kai Caizhi believes that "information technology can tell us the location of the product in the supply chain, but effectively use this information is really difficult. You don't need to become smarter; however, you must become more quickly." He pointed out, If the order time can be reduced from 2 days to 1 day, this will have a real impact. "I think of RFID as an accelerated ability to deliver the speed in the supply chain, which is similar to the impact of electronic data exchange technology. If [RFID] can do this, then it will increase the supply Inventory management level in the chain. "
Smart shirt
Although the RFID tag remains primarily on pallets (at least for Wal-Mart's pilot project), other retailers have further labeled labels on a single item. MARKS & SPENCER MARKS & SPENCER, started RFID in April 2003, and applied RFID labels on the company's suit, shirt and tie in its store. One year later, Martha Department stored this practice to 9 stores, and announced in the near future will be promoted from the spring of 2006 to 53 stores. RFID technology helps Martha Department goods track the stock of goods in its store to ensure that Martha customers can choose from any time. As a response to the customer feedback, Martha Department Store provides "explanation of single sheet" in all stores using RFID tags. In order to respond to the concerns of customers, in addition to describing the role of the RFID tag, the single piece is also described in the "Smart Tag" called Martha Department:
· There is no battery in the label, it is completely harmless, and it can be discarded after purchasing;
· When checkout, the store does not scan the label, so it will not establish association between clothing product information and customer information saved in the RFID tag;
· Customers do not need to retain this label in order to get returns or return.
Wal-Mart's privacy policy declarations can be found on the company's website that these statements pay more attention to specific concerns of personal privacy. The part of the policy declaration is as follows: "In terms of application RFID technology, we are only committed to improving the product's availability to benefit customers. The RFID tags used by Wal-Mart will not perform additional data for consumers and their procurement behaviors. Collection. These tags contain a product code and the unique serial number of the tag product, but will not contain any information about the consumer. Wal-Mart does not use RFID technology to track consumers, but by improving the supply chain process To better serve consumers. "
This does not mean that Wal-Mart will rule the possibility of labels applied to single item. When the above pilot project is introduced at the press conference on April 30, 2004, Wal-Mart still retains the possibility of applying labels to closer to consumers. The executive vice president and CIO Linda Dillman said, "We can certainly understand and depth agree with consumers' concerns in privacy." "This is why our customers can understand the RFID tag Not included, no additional data about consumers. In fact, in the foreseeable future, there will be no label readers on the main sales floor of the Wal-Mart store. However, there are still many consumption in the future. We hope that our customers can share our enthusiasm for EPCS (electronic product code). "She continued," If we look forward to five years or ten years, then we will provide faster return With warranty and reduced queuing wait time. Moreover, this technology can also play a positive role in product recalls and combating counterfeit medicines. "
Privacy concerns
According to Dellman, consumers are currently similar to the panic emotions encountered by RFID technology to introduce barcodes in the 1980s. However, her own calm attitude does not represent the attitude held by many consumer organizations. Many consumer organizations claim that they concerned about RFID technology may threaten consumer privacy and citizens' freedom. Consumer Anti-market violation privacy and number organization (Caspian) is one of the most active organizations, and they call for strict supervision to apply RFID technology on single item.
In November 2004, Caspian issued a statement with the US Citizen's Free Association, the Electronic Pioneer Foundation, Electronic Privacy Information Center, and other organizations called for the application of the RFID tag to a single item before completion of the formal technical assessment. They also actively advocate the Federal Label Legislation - RFID Right To Know Act. This bill requested merchants to disclose all consumer goods with RFID facilities. Caspian encourages consumers to vote with their own wallets before these protection measures, and jointly boycott Gillette and other companies, and support the joint resistance of TESCO in the world. Tesco is a UK retailer with RFID tag technology. This organization called for the slogan of jointly boycott: "Don't let Tesco voyes you!" Although personal privacy issues are the core of the retail industry privacy problem, but Kai del added, the company's mutual supervision may also have some positive Effect. He pointed out that this transparency may form new and more creative cooperation between the company and the company. He mentioned the income sharing contract, and the supplier was charged based on the level of the wholesale price - basically, discussed the use of the fee, which provided RFID. For example, in the movie rental industry, a company can sell 1,000 disc items to a video chain by basic fees, and then charge usage based on the number of leasing. You may have encountered this situation: The chain of the chain claims that the total rental is only 3,000, and the movie distributor believes that this number is more likely to be around 30,000. He said, "If there is no corresponding monitoring means, it may generate disputes. With the help of RFID, the solution to monitoring problems is much easier."
Go to tomorrow
At the same time, the potential application type of RFID is also constantly increasing. In an article on March 7, 2005, an aviation industry was reported to the aviation industry's interest in the aviation industry, and they can track luggage, especially if they can reduce the number of luggage loss. The only puzzle is a single airline "in the RFID baggage tracking system.
Infosys' Jenver does not expect a development tend to have a business that the merchant does not select the RFID project just to see how future development. He pointed out that "I think there should be a healthy skeptic in the market." He said, "If you look at the model of technology development in the 1990s, we will find that some companies try to go because of technical feasibility. An integrated product such as the coolest oven / telephone. "RFID's innovation ingredients are excessively valued, so that people consider the cost of entry and their true business value. He said, "Consider the company who uses RFID technology must ask yourself:" How will this technology help me be the market leader in the area? 'We believe that the consideration of business value should be far better than to meet a retailer The short-term benefits brought about by forced the order. "He also added that RFID should be part of the company's 5 and 10 years.
