Guest Series: RFID Is A Powerful Visibility Tool

By Bill Arnold, Applied Wireless ID (AWID)

There are many articles available today that provide potential RFID users with detailed guidance on the steps to follow for a successful RFID project. This type of article focuses on RFID technology and how to make RFID work, rather than answering the critical business questions, such as: "What areas of the business need to be improved?" and "How can we measure the improvement?"

These articles are not intended to address some of the other important issues surrounding RFID implementation. For example, because RFID has so many potential uses, it can be difficult to choose where it will achieve the most impact if deployed. Other data, security, or operational systems that will need to be integrated with the new RFID system need to be identified before starting a project. Any new system carries some risk and current systems usually have to be kept isolated even if information needs to be exchanged. Procedural or scheduling barriers for access to existing systems can kill a project before it gets started.