RFID Technology Applications and Impact

The assignment delves into Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology, examining its working principle, advantages, and limitations. It highlights the widespread use of RFID in sectors such as Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCGs) and warehouse management, emphasizing its role in tracking, inventory control, and cost reduction. The document further analyzes the success rate of RFID implementation across different business domains and concludes by assessing its future prospects.

Running head: BUSINESS INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Business Information Systems
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction......................................................................................................................2
2. How the technology works?............................................................................................2
3. The business or technical problem, RFID solves............................................................4
4. Limitations of RFID Technology....................................................................................5
5. An organization’s implementation of RFID Technology................................................6
5.1. Working Principal.....................................................................................................7
6. RFID Technology Success in the Marketplace...............................................................7
7. Conclusion.......................................................................................................................8
8. References........................................................................................................................9

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1. Introduction
Radio Frequency identification or RFID makes use of electromagnetic and electrostatic
coupling in the portion of Radio Frequency electromagnetic spectrum used in uniquely
identifying an object. This technology makes use of the electromagnetic fields in identifying and
tracking the tags attached to the objects (Finkenzeller, 2010). The report discusses the working
principal of the RFID technology and explains the business and technical problems associated
with this technology. The limitations, problems and the prospects of success in the market place
are discussed in the following paragraphs.
2. How the technology works?
RFID or radio frequency identification is a technology that is capable of reading the
digital data encoded in the different RFID tags. The working principal of RFID is similar to that
of barcoding but offers several other advantages one of which is that an RFID tag can be read
even outside the line of sight or through a large distance (Zhu, Mukhopadhyay & Kurata, 2012).
RFID utilizes radio waves to identify the objects automatically and to collect data about
them. This data can be directly entered into computer systems without any human intervention
and therefore, this technology is most widely used.
The main components of an RFID include an RFID tag or label, an RFID reader and an
antenna. The tags used in radio frequency identification consist of integrated circuit and an
antenna that are used to for transmitting data to the receiver or the reader. The reader is then
responsible for converting the radio waves into a usable form of data. The information, which are
collected from the tags are generally transferred with the help of an interface that facilitates
communication to a host computer for data storage and analysis of the data (Lehpamer, 2012).

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Figure 1: The working Principal of RFID
(Source: Lehpamer, 2012)
The tag chip illustrated in the image of figure1 identifies the host item. It powers
themselves from a connectivity device’s radio waves and are readable up to a range of 30 feet.
This chip is generally preprogrammed with a tag identifier. This tag identifier consists of a
unique serial number that is generally assigned by the chip manufacturer. Different tag antennas
are used to collect energy, which is channelized to the chip in order to turn it on. The tag readers
and antennas of RFID work together in reading tags (Ertl et al., 2013). The antennas are
responsible for converting the electrical current into electromagnetic waves. These
electromagnetic waves are then radiated into space, and are received by a tag antenna that
converts it back to electrical current. This is how the RFID technology helps in identifying
objects with RFID tags.

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3. The business or technical problem, RFID solves
The major problem that the implementation of RFID solves is the improvement of
accuracy in locating inventory, which further helps in reducing the costs and increasing the sales.
This provides an ample benefit from the business point of view. RFID integrated tags replaces
the traditional hand tags that helps in locating or keeping a track of the objects more easily. The
benefit of RFID is that it increases the store inventory accuracy and reduces the number of out of
stock products that helps in increasing the sales.
From a technical point of view, RFID removes the need of human intervention for tag
detection that considerably reduces the employment costs and human errors, which is beneficial
for business point of view as well. Furthermore, since there is no line of sight is required in RID
technologies, the phenomenon of tag placement is less constrained (Zhong et al., 2015).
It further provides added benefits over traditional barcodes as it generally has a longer
read range. The read/ write memory capability further removes the need of barcode. Technically
it can store a large amounts of data along with a unique identifier that completely removes the
need of the traditional tags or barcodes.
The technical problem of generic identification of the items is solved by RFID
technology. It can be further combined with sensors and automatic reading that reduces the time
lags and inaccuracies or errors in an inventory. RFID tags are therefore designed for meeting all
these business requirements and constraints.
The comparison of QRCODE and RFID are elaborated in the following table-
QRCODE RFID

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 QR Codes are similar to barcodes that
contains information, which can be read
by QR reader.
 QR codes can be scanned by a camera
equipped device including
smartphones. Therefore, it does not
require much technical knowledge
(Barrera, Mira & Torroba, 2013)
 QRCODES is substantially cheaper and
can be implemented easily.
 A QR code does not need access to
database unlike RFID, in order to
decode a relevant information.
 Radio frequency identification or RFID
makes use of electromagnetic waves to
locate and read data stored in the RFID
tags.
 RFID requires more technological
knowledge and hand holding than
QRCODES.
 RFID however requires special RFID
chips for transmitting a relevant code.
 RFID further requires specialized
equipment as it involves an expensive
piece of scanning equipment for
scanning and decoding the RFID tags
(Dwivedi et al., 2013).
4. Limitations of RFID Technology
The major limitations of the RFID technology are listed below (Expósito & Cuiñas,
2013)-
1. The cost of an RFID tag is although very little, considerably a large investment is
required to implement this technology, that does not pay off always. The major functionality of
RFID is tagging and tracking, but since the cost of implementation of the system is huge, it is not
an economically viable option for tagging or tracking any low value goods.

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2. The process of reading multiple RFID tags simultaneously is not an easy task. Signals
from different tags may collide in process thus interfering with other signals. However, there are
certain techniques for detangling such signals but implementation of those techniques further
increases the operation costs of RFID and therefore, these techniques are not considered as a
feasible option.
3. Another major limitation of RFID technology is that there is no particular RFID
standard and the technology of smart tag is needed to be perfected as well.
4. Physical limitations of reading through liquid or metal adds to another major concern
of RFID technology.
The problems that are created in association with the limitations discussed above includes
increase in the operational cost instead of reducing the cost of using the traditional tags. Another
problem associated with the RFID is maintain the security and privacy of the operations. The
possible solutions to this includes authentication and cryptography. Tag relabeling is a technique
of relabeling the unique identifier of a tag with a new unique identifier. This eliminates the
unauthorized uses of any objects. The issue arises as the RFID tags has even the potential for
tracking consumers without their consent and knowledge. This counts to the personal privacy
threats, where an individual’s behavior is inferred by monitoring the group of tags. Therefore,
different security measures such as encryption, tag password, blocker tags and so on can be used
as a possible solution to these problems.
5. An organization’s implementation of RFID Technology
SGH Pharmacy in Singapore uses RFID technology to increase the operational efficiency
and to enhance the medication safety. With the implementation of this technology, the work of

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the pharmacist became even more easier. The pharmacist only needs to turn around to pick up
the baskets. The basket will contain the right medications for dispensing to the patients. The
implementation of the RFID technology has made it possible to eliminate the human errors that
are associated with the packing processes of the organization that were previously relied on
manual resources. When the RFID system was not implemented in the organization, the packing
and assembling of the prescription medications proved to be labor intensive and time consuming
(Yao et al., 2012). With the implementation of the new RFID system in the organization, the
pharmacy technicians are guided by the RFID enabled drug bin to the correct drug bin, which
improves the efficiency of the packing process of the medicines. Thus implementation of RFID
in SGH has considerably helped in increasing the efficiency of the work in the organization
along with the reduction of human errors.
5.1. Working Principal
The system needs the patients to present the prescription at a registered counter to be
reviewed by the pharmacist. The prescription after review is placed in a basket incorporated with
RFID tags, which is in turn placed on a conveyor belt for triggering the process of packing the
medicines. The medications are then packed through LED guided pick. The RFID readers
strategically locates the real time tracking and manages the operations more effectively (Xia et
al., 2012).
6. RFID Technology Success in the Marketplace
RFID technology has enormous benefits but the potential of RFID is not realized fully by
the end users. Nevertheless, this technology has brought a revolution in the market of supply
chain management. RFID not only replaced the usage of bar codes from the marketplace, but

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also ensures that the right goods are available in their place reducing the human error to Zero.
With the advent of RFID, the supply chain management becomes more precise, which in turn
increases the efficiency and reliability of the entire supply chain (Zhu, Mukhopadhyay & Kurata,
2012).
One of the fastest moving market in the world is the market of fast moving consumer
goods. The use of RFID tags is wide spread in these industries as the use of the RFID tags and
readers, a large number of products can be counted in seconds. This reduces the manual labor to
a considerable amount. This is possible as the RFID tags can be scanned automatically without
being in the line of sight. Furthermore, The RFID tags are capable of storing more information
than barcode and therefore its use is widespread in the marketplace. To sum up, use of RFID in
FMCGs is widespread as it helps in reducing the manual labor, helps in cost cutting, improves
the visibility of goods, which in turn improves the business planning and strategies.
The use of RFID is widespread in warehouse management as well. This is because,
keeping a track of large number of cartons is very complex and time consuming. With the use of
RFID, keeping a track of the large number of materials in the warehouse becomes easier as well.
Therefore, it can be said that the success rate of RFID is tremendous in different business sector
and marketplace (Hutter & Schmidt, 2013).
7. Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion it can be concluded that RFID technology has a
varied use in different business and is mainly used for tracking and tagging of the objects. The
report discusses the working principal of the RFID technology in brief and identifies the

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technology’s limitation as well. The report concludes with the assessment of RFID technology’s
prospects and its success in the marketplace.

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8. References
Barrera, J. F., Mira, A., & Torroba, R. (2013). Optical encryption and QR codes: secure and
noise-free information retrieval. Optics express, 21(5), 5373-5378.
Dwivedi, Y. K., Kapoor, K. K., Williams, M. D., & Williams, J. (2013). RFID systems in
libraries: An empirical examination of factors affecting system use and user
satisfaction. International Journal of Information Management, 33(2), 367-377.
Ertl, J., Plos, T., Feldhofer, M., Felber, N., & Henzen, L. (2013, September). A security-
enhanced UHF RFID tag chip. In Digital System Design (DSD), 2013 Euromicro
Conference on (pp. 705-712). IEEE.
Expósito, I., & Cuiñas, I. (2013). Exploring the limitations on RFID technology in traceability
systems at beverage factories. International Journal of Antennas and Propagation, 2013.
Hutter, M., & Schmidt, J. (2013). Radio Frequency Identification.
Lehpamer, H. (2012). RFID design principles. Artech House.
Xia, F., Yang, L. T., Wang, L., & Vinel, A. (2012). Internet of things. International Journal of
Communication Systems, 25(9), 1101.
Yao, W., Chu, C. H., & Li, Z. (2012). The adoption and implementation of RFID technologies in
healthcare: a literature review. Journal of medical systems, 36(6), 3507-3525.
Zhong, R. Y., Huang, G. Q., Lan, S., Dai, Q. Y., Chen, X., & Zhang, T. (2015). A big data
approach for logistics trajectory discovery from RFID-enabled production data.
International Journal of Production Economics, 165, 260-272.