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The status quo on RFID

There is a growing need for accepted standards in auto ID-enabled applications and services.

Even a cursory look at the industry will confirm that there is, in fact, a decline in RFID-enabled projects. However, there is a marked increase in the use of 2D barcode symbologies, and most of these applications are right here in South Africa. One alarming trend is that the industry has not yet seen an open systems approach when using either technology. Almost every application is closed-loop or proprietary, specifically in transport and ticketing.

Conventional wisdom is that we are executing RFID projects or barcode projects, but the truth is that neither barcodes nor RFID should be the focus of any project. Rather the focus should be on the fact that we are introducing new services, enabled by RFID and barcodes, as an identifier of goods, items or people. This typically is because industry vendors are currently pushing their own proprietary technologies, not unlike the early introduction of smart card technology, ie, a solution looking for an application.

Both of these technologies are enablers to automated identification-enabled services and the reality is that since we are computerising almost every process on the planet, computers need to be able to identify in an automatic manner, real-world objects. This poses very interesting issues, from the integrity of the identity and parameters of these objects as well as all the privacy and security issues.

It is also true that humans will always be part of automated processes, and thus the automation must ensure performance measurement of both the system and its operators. To this extent, business requirements of the end-users are paramount to the successful deployment of RFID and 2D barcode enabled services. It is also true that business-to-businesses interaction is necessary, thus processes need to interact with processes (both humans and machines) and the end-users now have the power to force interoperability through standards and open systems requirements by collectively demanding that the industry vendors do so.

It is clear that both RFID and barcodes have matured and are ready for use, but the vendors should not be driving applications. The end-user should specify the use and benefits, thus the focus on end-user knowledge maturity.

In the current environment of ISO SC31 (automated item management), which is mainly focused on the supply chain and the work EPCglobal is doing in introducing RFID into the supply chain, we have seen convergence of markets, not only because of the common ground of automated identification but also because of the common ground of ICT technologies.

We have seen market-specific consortiums driving standards in their own environment, using the same technologies and often these application standards are conflicting. For example, RFID and 2D barcodes, when used in transport, are vastly different to the use of the same technologies in the supply chain. Application standards need to be different, but the core technology standards can be identical. In this sense, the standards that regulate the technology should be directly supported by a common compliance standard, but the applications and thus the users also require a common measurement of performance.

The work in the standards world (ISO, EPCglobal, GS1) on the core technologies has entered the phase of commodities, but we have noted a serious lack of understanding of what these technologies really mean to the real business world. With this in mind, there is a need for neutral parties in the industry to lead the activities in the end-user space creating such understanding. This has set the stage for an obvious partnership between SABS, EPCglobal SA and smart x.

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