Raising The Bar

When I recently tried to reminisce
about favorite "Love Boat" episodes with a co-worker who is about 10 years younger than me, I received a look of bewilderment. Said co-worker's look of bewilderment grew when I referenced "Miami Vice" as an alternate topic of TV lore. Making the rounds at the recent National Retail Federation (NRF) show in NYC, however, it was my turn to be the bewildered one. Although it would have been nice to talk about favorite TV programs from the 1980's, I was really there to talk about RFID. Primed with a boatload of prickly questions about compatibility, cost and Wal-Mart myths, I was determined to dig up real answers from today's top RFID hardware, software and middleware players. While I received very few answers to my difficult questions, a standard RFID reply soon appeared and spread like wildfire: "Suppliers had these same concerns back in the bar code days." I was bewildered. Wasn't there always a bar code?
While I wasn't able to partake in reminiscing about the good old bar code days at NRF, the message that similar bar code growing pains now face
RFID rings loud and clear. Growing pains aside, RFID deployment and acceptance continues to march forward at an impressive clip. Here's recent proof:

• A rising number of Wal-Mart's Top 100 suppliers, like The Gillette Company, regularly share RFID data with the mega-retailer.

• Metro Group, the world's third biggest retailer, expects to have 300 of its top suppliers shipping

RFID-tagged product next year.
4Gen 2 tags have arrived and offer read rates ten times faster than Class 0 and Class 1 tags and a 50-fold improvement in fighting reader interference.
Need more convincing? Try the RFID Best Practices coverage that begins on Page 14. Even if your RFID strategy is more of the "slap-and-ship" variety, this special section is proof-positive that today's leading manufacturers are far from bewildered when it comes to achieving business benefits beyond compliance.