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Are RFID Application always advantageous?
By Neil Jones
If you looked into the past, you would find that not many organizations were willing to invest in an expensive and sophisticated bar code scanner due to the uncertainty prevailing upon the market. But in today’s business scenario, it’s found its place in every phase of a business cycle, beginning from procurement up to the final delivery of a product to the consumer. It’s almost impossible to think of a business without a bar code scanner. The technological advancement has facilitated the adoption of RFID in the bar code systems, which has been inspired by few important sectors, in particular the retail sector and the government contracting. RFID is a mechanized way of collecting and storing information, just like bar coding does. In both the way, data can be stored safely that an interrogator can access later on. The main difference between the two is while bar code uses an optical technology, RFID depends upon radio. The advantages of the two can be determined on the basis of the way the data is transmitted and received by them. Have a look on the data transmission mechanism of the two: Bar Code
Uses Optical technology
Needs line-of-sight
Can read one at a time
Memory capability is limited
Can write tags once only
Not prone to the problem of radio interference RFID
Depends upon Radio Signal
Multiple reading is possible
Reads through many materials
Memory size is expandable
Can overwrite information/data if needed
Can experience radio interference The major advantage of RFID can be found in its ability to read multiple tags simultaneously in a field and it doesn’t require a line-of-sight. The recognition and distribution systems powered by the RFID technology work efficiently with negligible or almost nil human intervention. When the business requires procuring and delivery of goods in extremely large volume, RFID helps to reduce the labour cost significantly and also minimizes the chances of human error by reducing human involvement. When asset tracking of high value is needed, RFID is the solution by deploying its access control systems. Moreover, read/write capabilities of RFID can be extremely helpful in maintenance and service functions, and also in managing products that are shock-sensitive and involve time and temperature.
Despite all this, RFID is not going to replace bar codes; instead it can be seen as an advancement of bar code technology. The human validation, need of readable information and the bar coded data is still required and will maintain its importance in coming years too. Thus it’s important to assess carefully the business needs before investing a hefty sum in RFID technologies. It is always sensible to consult the experts who are already the users of RFID applications to ascertain if the claimed performance outputs are feasible in a practical scenario. These experts will give you an opinion which will be free from any bias, and give you an insight to employ technological capabilities in process optimization in your all business verticals. Their unbiased recommendations can help you to make your return on investment (ROI) faster and will help you to add to your profitability. Now, you analyzed all the pros and cons of investing in RFID technology. But actually opting for this technological advancement, it is always recommended to opt for a pilot program. The pilot program will give you a “real-world” experience to determine the performance, characteristic features and also the limitations of the application in your business environment. The pilot program will certainly give you an idea of the implementation timeline and the capital investment essential for the deployment of a RFID solution for your business scenario. The generalized information that needs to be analyzed is:
• The required read range for a given application
• How many items can be read within the given read range?
• Write performance
• Impact of noise and material signal
• Location of tag for process optimization
• The maximum speed of items through the reading field
• Benefit of readers in a specific business case
• Whether fulfilling the mandatory compliance
• Environmental concerns such as humidity, temperature etc RFID systems can list down scores of benefits and advantages, but it’s always sane to test the application in a particular business scenario to ensure best implementation results. A pilot program may not point out every difficulty, but it can definitely diminish many of the performance related roadblocks before the implementation of the application. |
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Thanks for outlining the differences. Well written. Thanks,again.
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This intel was contributed by ntjones
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May, 2012
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