Radio Frequency Identification Technology (RFID) In Business Operation

Working principle of RFID technology

Dsicuss about the Journal of Information Communication Technologies.

Technologies play a major role in business operation across the world. One such technology is RFID or Radio Frequency Identification Technology. Radio frequency identification can be termed as a form of wireless communication that mainly incorporates the use of electromagnetic coupling in order to uniquely identify the different a specific object (Bhattacharya, 2012). Therefore, RFID helps in locating and identifying an object with the help of radio waves. The basic form of RFID can be employed with the help of a microchip and an antenna. The technology of RFID is somewhat similar to the BARCODES. The report evaluates the working principle of RFID and the technical and business problems that can be solved by making use of RFID. The report further discusses the limitation of RFID technology and cites an example of the organization that uses RFID in its business. 

RFID makes use of the radio waves in order to detect the nearby RFID enabled devices. An RFID system comprises of an RFID tag, a RFID reader and an antenna. The main component of RFID tag is an integrated circuit and an antenna (Dwivedi et al., 2013). This antenna is used to transmit the data in the RFID reader. The tag reader in turn converts the received radio waves into a usable data form. Since RFID use electronic tags for storing data, it is also known as electronic label. The name is electronic label as RFID helps in automatic identification of the different packages, products and machineries (Chunli & Donghui, 2012,).

Broadly classified, there are two major types of RFID system, which are active RFID and passive RFID. In Passive RFID, the RFID tag does not contain an internal power source or a battery and the power is supplied by the reader. Active RFID on the other hand possess a power source in form of internal battery. Active RFID has long range and is used to track high valued goods. However, the battery source is needed to be replaced from time to time for its effective operation.

Radio Frequency Identification is mainly used to obtain the real time location of different objects and assets. Therefore, the most common use of RFID is to identify the different individual products. The working of RFID is similar to bar-coding in an object or a device with a tag.

RFID provides easy and wireless identification of different objects are devices that are incorporated with the RFID tags. Therefore, it helps in easier identification of inventory items; in turn, reducing the cost and tagging each item manually. Therefore, in manufacturing and supply chain business, RFID increases the accuracy of the sales and record keeping of the inventory and sold items. The major advantage of using RFID tags as the identification of different object is that it needs no human intervention in the entire process. Thus it reduces human errors or erroneous data entry. This is particularly beneficial for a business and it cuts down the employment cost to a considerable amount.

Technical and business problems solved by RFID

This type of technology is not new in practice has business had been using BARCODE and QRCODE for some time. However, RFID differs to a large extent from the other two technologies. The working principle of RFID is completely different from BARCODE and QRCODE (Barrera, Mira & Torroba, 2013). Even BARCODE requires manual tagging and therefore, RFID is generally preferred over BARCODE. On the other hand, the QRCODE can be read only with the help of a QR reader.

Although RFID solves several business problems, the cost of implementation of RFID in business is very high. However, the major problem with the business that is asset tracking can be effectively solved by RFID and therefore, many business organizations are implementing this technology in order to keep a track of the real time location of a particular asset or an object.

Although RFID technology is beneficial to the business, there are certain limitations associated with this technology. The major limitation of this technology is as follows-

1. The major issue associated with RFID is the cost of implementation of this technology in different business operation. Therefore, it is not generally adopted by small business as tagging a low cost material with a RFID tags will not be cost effective.
2. There is certain reusability issues associated with RFID and therefore, it may not be a cost effective solution for some small or medium sized business (Expósito & Cuiñas, 2013).
3. There is always a possibility of passive tags being read multiple times by the readers, which is another major issue associated with implementation of RFID in business.
4. There is certain security issues associated with the RFID as the tags can be rad by anyone who possesses an RFID reader.
5. Furthermore, RFID tags possess certain physical limitation as it cannot be read through liquid or metals.

The new problem that arises with the implementation of RFID is the security issue which is one of the major limitations associated with the technology. RFID tags are considered to the dumb devices as there is a risk of unauthorized access and modification of the tag of the data.  Therefore, RFID is often termed as dumb devices as it only listens and responds to the signal, no matter who sent it.

Many business organization have been using RFID in their daily business operation, one such example of implementation of RFID in business is the world’s one of the largest  retailers, Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart first embarked on use of RFID devices back in the year 2003 (Shin & Eksioglu, 2014). In the year 2003, the world’s largest retailers Wal-Mart has sent out a request to its top 10 suppliers to make use of RFID tags in different pallets of consumer goods. This was done as the out of stock items that carried RFID tags could be replenished much faster.  With the use of RFID in its operation, Wal-Mart efficiently maintains its supply chain (Heller, 2017). The inventory items could be easily tracked with the help of the RFID tags and Wal-Mart was able to develop a smooth business chain by use of modern technology in streamlining its supply chain, one of such technology is radio Frequency Identification. With the implementation of RFID technology, the movement of goods across the inventory of Wal-Mart could be easily tracked. The retail store further uses RFID in keeping their shelved stocked with as it provides the real time information about the items stocked or in inventory (Bhattacharya, 2012).

Limitations of RFID technology

The use of RFID is not only limited to supply chain management and in retail marketplace but also finds its usage in antitheft car keys, automated tool booths and can often be implanted in pets for easy identification (Jia et al., 2012). Apart from this, RFID has wide usage in the retail marketplace. It helps in proper visibility of logistic and helps in obtaining error free data.   

Not only in retail sector, RFID is used in medical and health care as well. This is used to reduce the medical errors by real time monitoring of the location of the patient in the hospital (Manzoor, 2016). This can reduce or eliminate the risk of ineffective patient monitoring. The real time data of the patient that is obtained from RFID helps in responding to the patients more easily and effectively (Chang, Lai & Chen, 2012).).

Apart from this, RFID technology is used in banking sector as well that enhances the services provided to the customers. Card enabled with RFID chip makes the process of wireless payment even more effective. The bank card embedded with RFID chip is provided to the customer for facilitating the process of wireless payments.

Furthermore, RFID can be used in tracking the IT asses of a company. The real time data provided by RFID helps in proper monitoring of the IT assets present in the organization. Use of radio Frequency identification is therefore widespread in the market and is adopted by many different organizations as well.

Conclusion

From the above discussion, it can be concluded that RFID provides a number of benefits in different business sectors. The main principle of RFID is wireless tracking of the goods and machineries which is achieved by the tag and the associated antenna. The report discusses in brief the working principle of the radio frequency identification in order to understand the process by which an item is tagged. The major advantage of the use of RFID is that it eliminates the risk of erroneous data entry in the inventory. The report further discusses how RFID differs from BARCODE and QRCODE technology. One of the business sectors that make use of RFID technology is Wal-Mart. The report discusses the how Wal-Mart makes use of RFID in enhancing their business processes. RFID is a leading technology that is used in different business sectors be it retail, supply chain or healthcare. However, there is certain security issues associated with RFID that is needed to be kept in check.

References

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Expósito, I., & Cuiñas, I. (2013). Exploring the limitations on RFID technology in traceability systems at beverage factories. International Journal of Antennas and Propagation, 2013.

Heller, F. (2017). Technological innovation applied to walmart and tesco’s supply chain (Doctoral dissertation).

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