This article at computerworld casts doubt on the economic viability of RFID, at least in the short term.
Posted by blaze at March 31, 2004 06:27 PMOne of the big issues that is not well discussed is how the various companies in the supply chain will gain all the economies that are being sought. As far as I understand, for Wal-mart to look backwards through the supply chain to see where an item was, all the companies in the chain would have to openly share data - that has massive implications for systems and also for trust between competing organizations. Gordon Cook has recently researched and published a fascinating book on the evolution of the RFID technology and the issues facing adoption.
He explains why the creation of such won't mean a lot until it is well integrated into a wide range of corporate ERP systems. We describe why some companies that use web services, RossetaNet and appropriate supply chain software don't have any ROI yet for using RFID.
I have put a full index and content summary on my site - which gives objective information on RFIDs if anyone is interested.
Steve
www.rfidexchange.com