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•White Paper: Closed-Loop RFID Deployments Offer Control

RFID received its most attention by way of mandate and compliance initiatives from Wal-Mart and the U.S. DoD. The activity around these initiatives, however, was specific to open-loop pilots and deployments. In these scenarios, RFID-tagged goods would travel from supplier facilities into the facilities of Wal-Mart and the DoD. In short, tagged goods and data would be shared between organizations and supply chains. It was a true open-loop scenario.

Today, most of RFID's traction is happening in closed-loop applications and deployments. In some cases, items are tagged with RFID-enabled labels and never leave the facility in which they are located, for instance, tagged pallets or totes that are used in manufacturing and warehousing applications. Similarly, closed-loop applications can involve tagging goods that do, in fact, travel from one location to another. However, they remain solely in the primary company's supply chain. An example of this is item-level apparel tagging for private-label retailers. These retailers control their own supply chains from manufacturing to shipping to the retail floor. The tags and data, in these cases, are only used by the individual retailers. Again, these represent closed-loop applications.

One of the most common closed-loop applications is asset management – tracking the identification and movement of high-value goods within a single enterprise. Analyst firm Venture Development Corp. (VDC) projects that RFID enabling these applications will continue to grow throughout the coming years. According to VDC, global shipments of RFID systems for asset tracking are expected to represent an overall 60.8% CAGR (compound annual growth rate) between 2006 and 2011. In North America, the firm's research shows that RFID-based asset tracking applications will post a CAGR of 56% over the same period of time.

Click Here To Download:
•White Paper: Closed-Loop RFID Deployments Offer Control