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Synopsis

This book provides a broad overview and guide to RFID technology and its application. It is an effort to do the initial "homework" for the reader interested in better understanding RFID tools. It is written to provide an introduction for business leaders, supply chain improvement advocates, and technologists to help them adopt RFID tools for their unique applications, and provide the basic information for better understanding RFID.

RFID - A Guide to Radio Frequency Identification describes and addresses the following:

• How RFID works, how it's used and who is using it.
• The history of RFID technology, the current state of the art and where RFID is expected to be taken in the future.
• The role of middleware software to route data between the RFID network and the information technology (IT) systems within an organization.
• The use of RFID technology in both commercial and government applications.
• The role and value of RFID industry standards and the current regulatory compliance environment.
• The issues faced by the public and industry regarding the wide scale deployment of RFID technology.

Commentary

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is a wireless communication technology that enables users to uniquely identify tagged objects or people. It has many applications across a number of industries; automatic toll collection and payment systems, such as ExxonMobil's Speedpass, access control systems, such as keyless entry devices and vehicle immobilizers are just a few examples of those available now. Over the next five to ten years, new RFID applications will benefit a much wider range of industries and government agencies in ways that no other technology has ever been able.

RFID is rapidly becoming a cost-effective technology. This is in large part due to the efforts of Wal-Mart and the Department of Defense to incorporate RFID technology into their supply chains. In 2003, with the aim of enabling pallet-level tracking of inventory, Wal-Mart issued an RFID mandate requiring its top 100 suppliers to begin tagging pallets and cases by January 1st, 2005 with Electronic Product Code (EPC) labels. The Department of Defense quickly followed suit and issued the same mandate to its top 100 suppliers. This drive to incorporate RFID technology into their supply chains is motivated by the increased shipping, receiving and stocking efficiency and the decreased costs of labor, storage and product loss that pallet-level visibility of inventory can offer.

Wal-Mart and the Department of Defense are respectively the world's largest retailer and the world's largest supply chain operator. Due to the combined size of their operations, the RFID mandates are spurring growth in the RFID industry and bringing this emerging technology into the mainstream. The costs of employing RFID are falling as a result of the mandates also, as an economy of scale is realized. Lastly, the mandates appear to have united the industry behind a single technology standard (EPCglobal's Electronic Product Code standard). The lack of industry consensus over the standards issue had been impeding industry growth prior to the issuance of the mandates.

Wal-Mart and DoD alone cannot account for all the current interest in RFID technology however. Given the following forecasts of industry growth, it becomes clear why RFID has begun to attract the notice of a wide range of industries and government agencies:

1. In the past 50 years, only 1.5 billion RFID tags have been sold worldwide. Sales for 2004 alone are expected to top 1 billion and as many as 1 trillion could be delivered by 2015.
2. Wal-Mart's top 100 suppliers alone could account for 1 billion tags sold annually
3. Revenues for the RFID industry are expected to hit $7.5 billion by 2006.
4. Early adopters of RFID technology were able to lower supply chain costs by 3-5% and simultaneously increase revenue by 2-7% according to a study by AMR Research.
5. For the pharmaceutical industry alone, RFID-based solutions are predicted to save more than $8 billion by 2006.
6. In the retailing sector, item-level tagging could begin in as early as five years.

In short, the use of RFID technology is expected to grow significantly in the next five years and it is predicted that someday RFID tags will be as pervasive as bar codes.

Table of Contents

1.0 Introduction
1.1 What is RFID
1.2 What Explains the Current Interest in RFID Technology?
1.3 Goals and Contents of this Book

2.0 An Overview of RFID Technology
2.1 The Three Core Components of an RFID System
2.2 RFID Tags
2.3 RFID Interrogators
2.4 RFID Controllers
2.5 Frequency
2.6 Automatic Identification and Data Capture (AIDC) Systems
2.7 "Smart" Tags vs. Bar Codes
2.8 RFID Technology in Supply Chain Management

3.0 History and Evolution of RFID Technology
3.1 The Convergence of Three Technologies
3.2 Milestones in RFID and the Speed of Adoption
3.3 RFID in the Future

4.0 RFID Middleware and IT Integration
4.1 What is RFID Middleware?
4.2 The Recent Focus on Middleware
4.3 Core Functions of RFID Middleware
4.4 Middleware As Part of an RFID System - The EPC Architecture
4.5 The Present State of Middleware
4.6 Middleware Vendors

5.0 Commercial and Government RFID Technology Applications
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Effect of the Wal-Mart and Department of Defense Mandates
5.3 Strategic Dimensions of the Wal-Mart and DoD Mandates
5.4 RFID Technology for Business Applications
5.5 RFID and Supply Chain Management
5.6 The Business Case for RFID
5.7 Government Use of RFID Technology
5.8 RFID and the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain
5.9 RFID Implanted in Humans

6.0 RFID Technology in Homeland Security, Law Enforcement and Corrections
6.1 Introduction
6.2 RFID Technology in Homeland Security
6.3 RFID in Law Enforcement
6.4 RFID Use in Law Enforcement - Looking to the Future
6.5 RFID Technology in Corrections

7.0 RFID Regulations and Standards
7.1 Governmental RFID Regulation
7.2 World Regulatory Bodies
7.3 Industrial-Scientific-Medical (ISM) Bands
7.4 Spectrum Allocations for RFID
7.5 Industrial RFID Standards
7.6 International Organization of Standards (ISO)
7.7 EPC Global
7.8 The Wal-Mart and DoD Mandates and EPC

8.0 Issues Surrounding the Deployment of RFID Technology
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Privacy Issues in Applying RFID Technology
8.3 The Costs of Developing and Deploying RFID Technology
8.4 The Lack of Global Standards and Regulations
8.5 Technological Immaturity and Integration with Legacy Systems
8.6 Lack of Robustness
8.7 Lack of Knowledge and Experience, End-User Confusion and Skepticism
8.8 Ethical Issues
8.9 Data Management

9.0 Future of RFID

10.0 Glossary of RFID Terms Acronyms

Index

Appendix A Wal-Mart RFID Initiatives

Appendix B DoD RFID Overview

About the Authors

V. Daniel Hunt
Mr. Hunt is the President of Technology Research Corporation, located in Fairfax Station, Virginia. He is an internationally known management consultant, and emerging technology analyst. Mr. Hunt has 33 years of management and advanced technology experience as part of the professional staffs of Technology Research Corporation, TRW Inc., the Johns Hopkins University / Applied Physics Laboratory, and the Bendix Corporation.

He has served as a senior consultant on projects for the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of Defense, the Advanced Research Project Agency, the Department of Justice, and for many private firms such as James Martin and Company, Betac Corporation, Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, Hitachi, Pacific Gas and Electric, Electric Power Research Institute, Science Applications International Corporation, Accenture/Arthur Andersen Consulting, and the Dole Foundation.

Albert B. Puglia
Mr. Albert Puglia is an attorney and the senior public safety - privacy issue analyst at Technology Research Corporation.

Since 1997 Mr. Puglia has provided support to the strategic planning and technology management initiatives of the US Department of Justice, US Department of Homeland Security and other federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. He is knowledgeable of current federal and state homeland security program development technology initiatives and has worked closely with various public safety agencies in developing and deploying advanced technology.

Mr. Puglia is a former federal law enforcement official, having served in several federal law enforcement agencies, including the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and various Federal Offices of the Inspector General. His assignments and background in these federal agencies were varied and included: operational senior management; organizational assessment; strategic planning; and information systems planning. Mr. Puglia has been recognized for his law enforcement and management leadership and is the recipient of numerous awards and recognition, including the prestigious U.S. Government's Meritorious Service Award.

Mr. Puglia received his B. A. in Business Administration from Merrimack College, North Andover, Massachusetts and his M.A. in Criminal Justice from American University, Washington, D.C.

Mike Puglia
Mr. Mike Puglia served as a RFID and advanced engineering technology analyst and writer at Technology Research Corporation. Mike Puglia has supported Technology Research Corporation technology analysis contracts for various federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in the area of Radio Frequency Identification for public safety applications and emerging technology initiatives.

After graduating from the University of Delaware with Bachelors degrees in electrical engineering and computer engineering, Mike Puglia worked as an operations engineer at a satellite telecom startup in Annapolis, Maryland and later as an RF engineer at Cingular Wireless in San Diego, California where he designed wireless phone and data networks and developed empirical models for radio wave propagation in urban and suburban environments.

In 2002, Mike moved to Asia, where he spent the next two years teaching English in Tokyo and Shanghai and traveling throughout East Asia. During this period, Mike developed a keen interest in economics, particularly in finance. Mike is currently enrolled in the Masters of Financial Engineering (MFE) Program at the University of California at Berkeley. After completing the MFE Program, he hopes to return to Asia to pursue a career in investment banking.

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