Retailers seen taking smarter approach to RFID

A growing number of retailers are showing signs of significant maturation in their approach to RFID. A report from Aberdeen Group shows that 6.5 percent of retailers are spending money on RFID today, while twice that number have allocated budgets toward RFID implementation. The report, “RFID: Roadmap for Retail,” finds that retailers are dropping mandate-driven RFID initiatives in favor of programs that will address supplier visibility, inventory management, and customer service. Thus, the value of RFID to retailers can be segmented into three areas, says Aberdeen:

• Item and case-level tagging for improved inventory management.
• Promotion optimization and loyalty management.
• Customer-level product information delivery.

The report also found that RFID works best as an operations project rather than an IT effort. “Many RFID initiatives suffer because they are perceived as an IT issues,” says Russ Klein, Aberdeen senior analyst. “When the retail CEO taps an operations manager with technical skills to be the RFID thought leader and enlists the collaboration of the IT group, the initiative has a much better chance of succeeding.”

RFID will not replace barcodes anytime soon, according to one analyst firm. An ABI Research report reveals that one of the critical issues in RFID implementation is the integration of barcode scanners with RFID readers. ABI finds it highly unlikely that RFID technology will ultimately replace bar code technology. According to ABI, even with the inevitable reduction in raw material costs coupled with the economies of scale, an RFID tag will never be as inexpensive as a bar code label. The report also notes the two solutions are more complementary than competitive. It notes that end users have embraced that fact amid all of the RFID hype.

Reva uses IBM WebSphere for data capture and delivery

Reva Systems, an RFID network infrastructure provider, now offers enhanced support for the RFID data capture and delivery component of IBM’s WebSphere RFID Premises Server 6.0. This support is a culmination of Reva’s testing alongside IBM in its development labs. Reva worked with IBM to ensure that the integration of the two companies’ technologies would be ready for customer implementation. Reva representatives say the result is that Reva’s tag acquisition processor combined with WebSphere enables a facility-level view of RFID readers that provides a complete RF picture. The result is better reads, better read coverage and quicker responses to operational challenges.