International retail giant Wal-Mart About RFID plans to dramatically change again in the near future, the original plan requires looseness of the main supplier to use RFID technology before January 1, it is reported that some suppliers can delay this period to this year mid-year. Behind this change, I have seen the road to "RFID Paradise" is full of difficulties. This is not proven to expose the problem of maturity of reliability, system integration, and technical itself.
The plan of international retail giants Wal-Mart's RFID seems to have been changing. Initially, it requires its largest a batch of suppliers to put electronic labels for all goods sent to their Texas Logistics Center before January 1 this year. But then it reduces the requirements, and only the supplier can put an electronic label on 65% (average) items. Today, when this last term has arrived, we have heard the voice of Wal-Mart compromise, in some "Extening Circumstances", Wal-Mart has allowed some suppliers to limit this period Postponed until 2005. And this new term will not change again. We are unknown.
Through this RFID program dramatic change, we can feel that this path to "RFID Paradise" is full of difficulties. This is not proven to expose the problem of maturity of reliability, system integration, and technical itself. Therefore, in this topic, we compile, organize some of the "ComputerWorld" report, in order to analyze the reliability of RFID chips, and complex RFID data flow for RFID Introduction, to read another side of the RFID application to readers. As IDC analyst Frank Gens said: Although our enthusiasm for RFID will continue to rise, its practical application will experience a more complex and more longer process than many people expected.
Unstable reading rates make us very clear, the letter R in RFID does not mean reliability.
RFID tag encounters trouble
RFID faces a lot, from label failure to temperature, humidity, etc., the label cannot be read, and then wireless RF interference, etc. As the goods are handed over in the warehouse - in this process, the label may be damaged or thrown out of the queue, so that the label cannot receive the reader signal - these challenges will continue. There are other problems: the forklift cutting cable, the label printer cannot keep up with the speed of the conveyor belt, and the adhesive that is tongabed with the container with the container has expired in low temperatures.
Kara Romanow, the research director of the AMR Research Company, said: "This technology still has a lot of immature places." She pointed out that the label posted on the goods has 10% to 12% when the goods arrive at the destination. " Failure ", this means that they are in a state where they cannot work. She said, even if the invalid label is cleared, the average read rate of other tags is only 80% to 90%. Part of the reason is because the label fault, more is from incompatible label / reader combination and the product is not suitable for using RFID.
Despite so many problems, if you are talking about the company's strategy of the company's strategy, the senior vice president of the company's strategy, the vice president of Henkel Consumer Adhesives, Ohio, is responsible for the RFID user who is responsible for the company's strategy. They are optimistic about the prospect of RFID. They agreed that the RFID system does have the defects of reliability, some of which are not eradicated, but the potential return is huge, so, considering the RFID-based supply chain considering these problems, even if It takes 5 to 10 years to see the benefits of it.
Approximation
Obrock's company is testing RFID with Wal-Mart. He said: "The equipment is getting more and more reliable, technology is getting more reliable, and the label is constantly improving. At the same time, we are increasingly understanding technology to retail The relationship between the packaging sold by the merchant. "Obrock and other experienced users suggest that companies can learn about the relationship between RFID and their respective products and processes, then build a predictable and resolve Reliability problem system. For example, experienced users have discovered some ways, they asked label manufacturers to provide additional labels to make up for those missable labels. In addition, many printers today also contain reliability test equipment, which can reject invalid tags, thus minimizing a tab only for one container. Of course, this does not solve the problem of testing in the label, and it is invalid. This is because users who need higher reliability assurance must negate their quality assurance issues directly to label manufacturers, and pay their margins to ensure that the label can work normally. This additional cost is still acceptable for the founder atul Salgaonkar of RFID Solutions LLC, California. Because the company develops RFID systems primarily for customers in pharmaceutical and health care, it is extremely important in these two industries.
Salgaonkar suggests that manufacturers sell different labels, these prices can reflect differences in reliability. The first step in label manufacturers should do is that the error faulty rate that occurs over time, the manufacturer does not do this. At the same time, Salgaonka also recommended that customers giving the pallets not posting a label but possessed two labels, this is very good for their customers, because this is equivalent to providing additional cost guarantees for high-end products.
As Texas Instruments and Hitachi Data Systems enters this business, some observers believe that the reliability of labels is no longer an important factor. At the ARC Advisory Group, the ARC Advisory Group in Massachusetts is responsible for the service manager of the supply chain management. Steve Banker predicts: "Reliable label issues are very chance to solve the second quarter of next year."
For retailers, they can actually accept certain levels of incorrectness. Obrock said: "They think that if there is 80 packages in the pallet sent to them, only 79 are read, then they will understand 100%." In fact, Banker expressed doubt: the technology Whether the level of pallets can reach 100%, in the level of pallets, sealed articles, and other interference reasons may result in readability. He said: "The retailer will have to make a trust leap, that is, if they can read 19 of the 20 SKUs on the pallet, then they are confident that the 20th is also in it."
Packaging problem
However, the following will be constructed and developed by the development of the product of the product being labeled. Eric Peters, a CEO of RFID Manufacturer, RFID, who is located in Menlo Park, California, said: "In dry items, people can get close to 100% read rate, some speeds can reach 600 feet per second. He said, however, for metal containers and items containing liquid, the read rate is lower, between 60% and 75%, and even some metal containers are only 15%.
The companies must have innovative spirit to overcome these issues. Peters said that when the US Department of Defense encountered trouble when the RFID tag was encountered at the 55 Glen Metal Drum Barrel, they eventually solved this problem by placing the windshield behind the label, which Interference has fallen to a minimum.
For Henkel's metal belt products, the label must be attached to a very special location on the box, or the reader can receive the reflection on the metal strip. At the same time, a completely different types of labels can better solve the problems encountered by the company's shelf bus. The cost is also in this place: each company needs to invest research funds, and all the products have tried all kinds of different labels and labels, and they have to archive these results and are convinced that employees have complied with clear instructions. These companies ultimately require a variety of different labels, a variety of different format factors, or a variety of different antennas to accommodate their different product lines. Of course, this will naturally increase costs. Virginia BearingPointwcng is responsible for the Global RFID Solution Manager Brian Higgins said: "If you scatter the label purchase ability to 10 different labels, then you can't get quantity discounts." In addition to increasing costs, use different The label also interrupts the operation and the complexity of the operation. Romanow pointed out that custom labels are more expensive than 30 cents. She said: "Once you start to customize the label, no matter what business case you deal with, you will actually lose money."
The current challenge is how to find the smallest centimeter, or the most suitable label of the most wide Skus. Therefore, when users are involved in all such experiments, they must be carefully graspful / price ratio balance. Higgins said: "Of course, there are many ways to enhance reliability. However, challenges are how to maintain sex / price ratio balance to make this method."
What will happen next?
Even if you have made all the experiments and let the RFID pilot project started and running, then you haven't come to celebrate, because there will be more troubles. "The pilot project is good, you can reach 100% read rate, each can get the highest 5 points." Trenstar's Adams said, "But when you turn to the conveyor, you have to read 1800 Containers, this is completely another situation. "
ADAMS is clear what you are saying. TrenStar is a mobile asset management company that is responsible for tracking hundreds of thousands of containers with RFID tags. The company is very satisfied with the reliability of its RFID system, so the company writes a key performance measurement standard to the customer contract, promises to reach 98% to 99% read rate. However, the only way it can do this is to make it network intelligence, thus rapidly discovering departure and degradation, so that someone can respond quickly to these situations.
Adams said: "Reliability more is the quality assurance process you have developed, so once you have problems, you can discover this problem before it is completely derailed."
TrenStar's RFID system includes a range of checkpoints, and each checkpoint shows whether the container read is accurate when the container passes. If a checkpoint is missing, the system will remind the problem that can perform the actual investigation is a one-time abnormality or a system problem, such as cable cuts or battery out. Adams said: "Our business logic is: If this happens, take such a measures or email this person. However, if this situation has been 100, then the problem is upgraded."
From warehouse to employees
The RFID reliability problem finally introduced an important issue: how to ensure the integrity of the data collected by this technology. Few the company has developed the RFID data to the point to its warehouse and the ERP system, so it is now necessary to determine if the data is accurate.
However, companies like Henkel have been prepared for various issues that may arise. Obrock said: "If I have 80 packages, the number read is only 76, in addition, if the reading rate of each pallet is like this, then how should I handle this? What about data? "Although you can understand it to reach 80, hypothetical misunderstandings, however, what if the number of tray is less than 4 containers, what is the situation? The truth is that before using this new data, you must review all the assumptions you made in the business rules, and, with the advancement of technology, you must also conduct a constant review of these assumptions. "You can't ask your data person to assume that the data is less than 10%, because after 8 months, it is actually only 3%." Obrock said, "You must regularly reap over it once, to determine and actually The difference between the situation and modifies how to use this data. "
While reliability and readability are unlikely to be the most important factor affecting RFID, how much the data will be finally affected. One of the reasons is that we need a lot of data.
"In many pilot projects, people just put 5%, 10% and 20% of RFID tags for all of them." Higgins said, "When you can only get a small part of data, you must develop any plans It is very difficult. "
Second, experienced users are very interested in progress made by RFID reliability, and they point out that if there are more users to conduct experiments and learning, especially in most cases, experiments are on the basis of experience. Early stages of completed, then these users will receive a better return.
"Those who have tried three years ago will still lead to other people for 3 years. Other people will work together, but these people will master all this at their own price." Obrock said, "Once some retail Merchants and manufacturers have mastered all this, I may not share all my knowledge with you, because these knowledge will become a core knowledge. "
