RFID Tags

RFID, an Emerging Wireless Technology for Sustainable Customer Centric Operations

“…IT applications facilitate simplification, automation, integration, and monitoring of business processes, as well as the management and control of material and information flows that fully realized the lean thinking initiative in services (Martin, 2010). With the emergence of wireless computing, the "Internet of Things" is now happening where the things such as people and physical assets in organizations can be enabled with a wireless capability to provide visibility throughout the business and real-time tracking of inventories, movements, security and safety forms the basis of business process improvement (Hawrylak et al, 2008).…”

“…RFID tags generally fall into two categories: passive, and active. Passive tags receive the most publicity and are currently being used by large retailers such as Wal-Mart and Metro to track inventory, and by the U.S. Department of Defense to track supplies (Hawrylak et al, 2008). Unlike active tags, passive tags do not contain onboard power source and derive the power for operation from RFID interrogation signal in the course of communication (Finkenzeller, 2000;Hawrylak et al, 2008;Shepard, 2005).…”

“…Passive RFID tags communicate using one of two methods: near-field and far-field (Hawrylak et al, 2008). Far-field RFID tags support longer communication range than nearfield tags, but they are comparatively more sensitive to tag orientation.…”

“…In case of supply chain and retail applications, far-field RFID systems are used extensively. According to Hawrylak et al (2008), the sensitivity of the system to RFID tag orientation is critical in many applications. The communication method used by far-field RFID system easily causes false detection and hence the design of middleware and upper layer application software becomes critical in order to effectively screen unwanted RFID signals emitted by nearby irrelevant product items.…”

“…When an RFID tag passes through the electromagnetic zone, it detects the reader's activation signal. The reader decodes the data encoded in the tag's integrated circuit (silicon chip) and the data is passed to the host computer for further processing (Finkenzeller, 2000;Hawrylak et al, 2008;Shepard, 2005). RFID tags generally fall into two categories: passive, and active.…”