Posted on 05/21/2006 9:35:29 AM PDT by Nachum
The roots of radio-frequency identification technology stretch at least as far back as World War II, when transponders helped distinguish between Axis and Allied aircraft. Over the years the concept has been greatly miniaturized, landing RFID technology in such settings as animal tags, toll-collection devices, passports, keyless entry systems for cars and wireless credit cards.
But perhaps none of these projects will have as much impact for consumers as the adoption of RFID in the supply chains of huge retail stores.
Mega-retailers led by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) have gotten their biggest suppliers to add RFID chips to pallets and cases shipped to stores. Now, rather than having people with bar-code scanners walk around to take inventory, RFID readers in warehouses can automatically tally items on the fly.
RFID is expected to yield substantial savings largely by reducing the frequency of the following scenario: A customer goes to a store for an item, only to find its shelf empty, even though replacement stock lurks somewhere in the back. It's one of the costliest problems in retail.
Simon Langford, Wal-Mart's director of logistics, distribution and replenishment systems, explains that a bar-code scanner can register that certain items have entered a store's back room. But not until one of the items gets scanned at checkout does the store typically get an update. In between, the item might be on a store shelf or still sitting among back-room clutter.
In the more than 500 stores where Wal-Mart has integrated RFID, radio tags give additional insight - they inform employees when supplies enter the storeroom, when they leave it for the sales floor and when their emptied cartons are taken to the trash.
A University of Arkansas study last year determined that these stores saw a 16 percent reduction in the times that products were missing from shelves. But Langford said that figure understated RFID's true power, because the study included popular items that sales staffers already were sure to replenish. When the research examined only items that Wal-Mart sold less than 15 times a day, the out-of-stock reduction was 30 percent.
Wal-Mart hopes to see even greater improvement soon by giving employees handheld RFID scanners that will direct them precisely to cartons of products they need to bring from the storeroom.
Eventually, individual products in Wal-Mart and other stores are expected to get their own RFID tags to give stores even clearer views of their inventory.
"That's really where the supply chain gets most messy," said Kevin Ashton, who helped drive RFID development at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and now heads marketing for ThingMagic LLC, a maker of RFID readers.
Some high-value items like TVs and pharmaceuticals already have their own tags. But most item-level tagging is a decade away.
First, tag prices must drop below their current 5-to-7 cent range. Work also still needs to be done to master wireless interference issues that can arise in RFID-dense environments. And developers have to assure the public and retailers that data on the tags are secure and not invasive.
"We're seeing the RFID industry get a little bit more mature every day," Ashton said. "We don't view the RFID market as some overnight sensation."
Remove it -- disable it -- you bought the product, you're allowed to do whatever you want with it as well as its packaging. The "chip" isn't that difficult to find in most products, even books.
Don't call me dude, and don't call me Francis either.
Then imagine a pantry which refuses to stock the items you would have, because you have exceeded your state permitted allotments of saturated fats, sugars, and have insufficient fiber on hand....
Well, they don't transmit all by themselves.
I guess the gummit could create a super reader and drive through neigborhoods to track creamed corn, but I don't see why they would.
I agree with mo -- creamed corn looks and smells like canned vomit.
Good! More for me!
You know.. quite honestly I use cash 99% of the time just because I hate anyone knowing anything about my purchases, not that Im buying anything interesting.
I loath those grocery loyalty cards L0L
They track every purshase.
If I dont use one though, the shrimp I bought for 2.72 today would cost 5.45 (real prices)
In my estimation the retailers use this info to increase efficiancy and not to track us.
If they overstocked the shrimp and it went bad, they toss it and take a loss, which they would pass along to us.
Resulting in an everyday cost of 5.45 for those shrimpies
If anyone wants to remove an RFID from a product they purchased, they should be (and are) allowed to do so.
Adding cost to ease that process should not be done.
There -- clear?
I guess the gummit could create a super reader and drive through neigborhoods to track creamed corn, but I don't see why they would.
You will pry my creamed corn from my cold dead fingers!
no single technology with dis-employ more workers then this one - no checkout clerks anymore at the stores, just roll your cart past the sensors, swipe your card, and go.
I apply for those grocery chain cards and lie about everything. Every now and then will say my fake name when they address me (so I make it close but not the same as my real name).
It is my version of Calvin's "I love messing with data."
Here is a very real thought.
Appliances may well be on Broadband Power Line internet in the near future. Its conceivable that an RFID reader could be placed in a fridge that reads the contents and expiration dates and notified you via the web if you were out of a product or if the milk was past expiration.
skeery huh?
>>>I apply for those grocery chain cards and lie about everything.
Our stores require a Driver's License to receive a store card.
Illegals do it daily ;-)
What if they don't know where the chip is, and what if it can't removed. What then kimosabe? Clear?
how long before the Dems claim that the NSA has this data?
Could you explain a little bit what the difference is between active and passive RFID? If an RFID tag is passive, how does the store read it?
Also the entire idea that gubmint is tracking our everymove is silly. Its like the phone records thing. The gubmint simply doest have the power of the will to track all the mundane details of our daily lives
Yes, I agree completely.
Appliances may well be on Broadband Power Line internet in the near future. Its conceivable that an RFID reader could be placed in a fridge that reads the contents and expiration dates and notified you via the web if you were out of a product or if the milk was past expiration.
skeery huh?
I don't need no machine to tell me the milk is sour. I don't really see a consumer benefit there equaling the cost.
Their strike in So Cal proved they (checkout clerks) are too stupid to be employed anyway (most of them, anyway). I was amazed their brains could tell their feet how to move.
And self-serve is becoming more and more prevalent at grocery stores everywhere (I travel for business and stay at Residence Inn so I have seen them all the country).
I would like to use cash, but I am the ATM at my house. I pretty much have to use my debit card anymore.
I dont want anyone to know how long those olives have been there L0L
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