RFID Tags for Improvement of Object Tracking in Supply Chain Management

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This research proposal explores the application of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology in enhancing object tracking within supply chain management. It delves into the advantages and limitations of RFID, examining its role in improving inventory visibility, reducing errors, and optimizing supply chain efficiency. The research aims to identify challenges faced by users while tracking objects using RFID and propose solutions to overcome these limitations. By analyzing existing research and methodologies, the study seeks to determine the most effective approach for implementing RFID in supply chain management, ultimately contributing to a more secure, efficient, and transparent supply chain ecosystem.

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Research Proposal
“Research Topic”

“RFID Tags for improvement of object tracking in supply chain management Start with

Stage”

Student Name:

Student ID:

1

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Table of Contents
Research Project Motivation
............................................................................................................3
Research Questions
..........................................................................................................................4
Description of Thesis
....................................................................................................................... 5
Methodology
..................................................................................................................................10
Research schedule
..........................................................................................................................12
References
......................................................................................................................................15
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Research Project Motivation
Radio Frequency Identification is an advanced and effective technology for tracking objects in

the supply chain. With the increase in usage of Radio Frequency Identification security and

privacy issue arise. In cloud environments authentication is important. Though many Radio

Frequency Identification protocols are available for tracking objects in the supply chain it has

also seen that lack of security in those protocols is a limitation. For improving supply chain more

scalable, secure and efficient protocol is required.

The aim of this research is to study on Radio Frequency Identification role in tracking objects.

Further, identify their limitation and issues also to elaborate effect of using Radio Frequency

Identification for tracking objects in the supply chain. Radio Frequency Identification allows the

user to track objects via authentication in cloud computing and track the object in the supply

chain. The main aim of Radio Frequency Identification to provides the way to the user that they

can trace the objects in the supply chain by just using RFID (
Ropraz, 2008). Due to high ease in
tracking Radio Frequency Identification becomes the most promising technology.

Indeed, many businesses are seeking to invest in this emerging automatic data collection

technology which also provides safety, security and convenience to the users. This all done by

using frequency transponder contains a microchip which transmits data via radio waves even

without interaction of human. With high accuracy, Radio Frequency Identification not only used

in tracking object in the supply chain but also in public services, research and administrations.

Radio Frequency Identification essence what organisations need to advance supply chain

management. Radio Frequency Identification provides enabled company and users in secure,

managing and tracking objects via their life cycle (
Chatziantoniou, et. al., 2011). Although,
integration of Radio Frequency Identification in information system requires perfect testing and

planning because of it represents high investment and it also relies on business process re-

engineering.

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Research Questions
The main purpose of the research is to make the study about Radio Frequency Identification

application in object tracking in supply chain management. RFID used in identifying the object

on the supply chain.

Do the study on Radio Frequency Identification usage and advantages in tracking objects
in supply chain management. Further, identify pros and cons of Radio Frequency

Identification in tracking objects.

The aim of the research is to study on RFID challenges that are facing by the users while
tracking objects in the supply chain and do the study on the same to overcome limitations

and challenges.

To understand and research the best approach to overcome the limitations than do the
study on the current approach that has proposed in research papers.

How does Radio Frequency Identification Usage in the supply chain and also evaluate
issue and result?

How does Radio Frequency Identification technology help users to track the object in the
supply chain?

4

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Description of Thesis
A world so full with advanced technology which can help in tracing any item possible for

example, the inventory in a store can be updated without any manual help or the customers can

check out automatically without standing in the queue. This fantasy is made true with the help of

RFID. RFID is the short form of radio frequency identification which is a common point of

discussion in today's world where anything is possible with the help of technology. The benefits

that RFID provides are all over the media nowadays (
Hinkka, 2013). Much nosiness is adapting
to this technology as this can be easily accommodated with less implementation cost, the

government mandates and the performance is also improved.

This technology of auto-collecting the data is gaining the attention of many other businesses as

this can also improve the accuracy, privacy and safety of the data. This technology of tracking

and identification usually places a radio frequency transponder with a microchip inside it on any

topic that needs to be tracked. Once the tracker is fitted then whenever the item passes under the

radio waves, a signal will be reflected which will exchange the data or information without the

help of any human interference (
Ivanov, et. al., 2011).
This brilliant idea of data collection without any human intervention has made its use in other

industries and applications such as public services, administration, sports and even in research

and development. Despite its usage in any application, the RFID is proven to be most potentially

developed in the field of supply chain. This is not a surprising fact as the tracking of an item

without being physically touching it throughout its entire life cycle like tracking, securing and

managing items and the inventories have given a lot of potential for this technology to be

improved and used for the application of the supply chain. This technology also helps in

improving the internal business efficiency of the supply chain processes (
Björk, et. al., 2011).
Due to these advantages of this technology, many businesses are showing confidence in tracking

their assets, tracking its location and keep the inventory updated.

However, the integration of the RFID technology to the business's information system can

involve a large planning and testing because along with the huge investment it may require to

integrate this technology into its system it will also change the infrastructure of the firm's

engineering. Another factor is that the technology is changing from time to time which may or

may not affect the firm in a positive way. The misconceptions which are present for this

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technology are getting in the way of many firms to adopt this technology and enjoy its
advantages. The firms need to aim at learning the concept of this wonderful technique and

understand how it can be beneficial for its advantages along with improving its applications. The

successful implementation can be done once the capabilities, purpose, benefits and the

challenges coming to its ways are known by the firms (
Tajima, 2007).
The technology can look new to some people but the existence of this technology goes back to

decades. The origin of the RFID technology was traced to the World War II, where a system was

developed in which the radio waves used so that the pilots can be identified as the friends on the

radar of the authorities. The first patent in the RFID technology is on the name of Mario Cardullo

in 1973 who proposed an RFID tag with rewritable memory. As the time passed, different

companies have commercialized the usage of RFID to operate at different frequencies. By the

late 90's, tags were basically the mobile database that carried information about the items on

which they were applied. Then some authors who changed the vision of the people. The partners

successfully launched the idea of storing all the relevant data with a serial number on a tag over

the database on the internet, which linked the objects to the internet. That was a turning point in

the evolution of the technology as well as the companies as they gained their trust on this

technology as the suppliers and the customers were able to share the data about their shipments

and products. The one question that may rises while understanding this technology is that why

the technology is evolved now when the idea was given decades ago (
Sarac, et. al., 2010). The
answer to this can be that the right deployment and the need for this technology are now which

was not there earlier and another reason is that the economic condition to implement this

technology is now. The right time also depends on the scope of the problems it can solve, how

mature the technology is and the cost of deployment of technology in the real world. These three

points of concern are changed in the world in the last decade which made it possible for the

RFID technology to be accepted today. One of the most important features of the company on

which the development and the growth are dependent is the inventory tracking. Inventory

tracking has helped the company to remain competitive in the market. Additionally, the

components used to produce the tags and the tag reader are becoming sophisticated day by day

and the price on which the RFID systems can be purchased is decreased based on the increased

demand for this technology (
Dolgui, A., & Proth, 2008). The features like speed, functionality,
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reading range, data transfer speed of is component have contributed a lot to the improvement of
this technology.

The technology is well adapted to the field of supply chain management. The firm needs to

accurately identify and track the goods and also should have the knowledge of the inventory a

company have, about its location, about its quantity and its condition. This type of information is

very crucial for companies to be sustained in the market (
Tanner, 2015). There is an ever-
growing pressure on the manufacturing companies, retailers and the distributors to maximize the

efficiency of the process, cost minimization and providing best end result to the customer which

in turn requires the improvement in the supply chain efficiency. The RFID looks like an ideal

way to solve this ever-pressing requirement. The better traceability and the identification

provided by the RFID technology can provide solutions to these requirements.

Definition of supply chain management

Supply chain:

It basically shows the organization’s sequence. This means the functions, facilities and activities

that re-involved in various processes along with the activities that provide the goods and services

to the customers to produce the company's value. A supply chain generally comprises

manufacturing, warehousing, retailing and distribution.

Supply chain management (SCM):

This simply means to integrate the organization along with the supply chain and helping to

understand the ways to coordinate materials, information and financial flows for their advantage

in placing orders faster to the market, faster fulfilment of the orders at lower costs. The main

function is to plan, implement and control the operations related to the supply chain at efficient

rates. The goods and the services of an organization are placed at the right time, at the right place

and in the right quantity required which is also low in cost with the help of this management

strategy. The collaboration between the supply chains partners is also improved using this

method in a way that the inventory visibility is enhanced along with improving the inventory

velocity. The correct management of this process will require maintaining the relationship

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between the suppliers and the customers and the control of inventory, forecasting the demands of
the future, receiving the feedbacks about the happening at the links of the supply chain (
Chen, et.
al., 2013)
.
Tracking the movement of goods: from barcode to RFID technology:

As the items are moved from one phase to another in the supply chain, it is normal to get the

problems in between the stages. The problems that can be faced during the transport are getting

the parcel stolen, misplaced, damaged or the product can get spoiled. Companies with supply

chain also encounter problems like under shipping, over-shopping, customer dissatisfied with

parcel or the returned items especially if their record is not present properly in the system. This

can result in the collection of the idle and duplicate items in the warehouse. Many of these

problems can be solved by the RFID technology as it requires less human intervention because

no employees are required to manually scan the barcode (
Ropraz, 2008). On the other hand,
while solving the issues without the RFID technology the manual scanning is necessary as the

employees need to scan the barcodes of the items manually. Using the RFID technology the tags

can easily be scanned to track the movement of the item such as arrival time, departure time and

the reshipment time. The inventory and the goods are in direct communication with each other

which avoids any mistakes of typing into the database and scanning the wrong barcode which

can help in reducing the human errors and cost to labor. The system of automatically reading the

tags of the items, the factories or the warehouse is fitted with readers and the RFID on the store

shelves. Whenever the reader reads the tag it passes the tag id, the reader's id and the time tag to

the host computer. The companies have a specific structure of the readers so the company is well

aware of the location of the item, the nature of the item and the time when it has been received

because of the time stamp. The observation recorded in this technology, it is known that the

tracking of the physical movement of the product happens in the real time which is a specific

property of this technology. The RFID has the potential to improve the management of the

supply chain and its visibility thanks to its ability to automatically track the movement or

location of the item anywhere in the supply chain securely and in real time. Another quality of

this technology is that it has a great ability to identify every container uniquely along with the

pallet, case and the item which is being manufactured, shipped or sold. These advantages and the

properties of this technology are making it adaptable to many companies or replacing the old and

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traditional ways of barcode scanning process (Chatziantoniou, et. al., 2011). The technology of
RFID should not be considered as the simple replacement of the bar code scanning process as

this technology has proven its potential and differentiates itself through the outstanding

performance and the diversities in its applications based on its capabilities.

Some of the advantages of using the RFID technology over the barcode scanning process are

listed below:

Higher storage capacity:
apart from the bar code process where the information of the
manufacturer and the product is stored, the RFID tags can include the detailed information of the

item such as tracking information like arrival, shipment, departure time etc as well as the data

about changes in environmental conditions based on the circuit of the tag (
Hinkka, 2013).
Programmability:
unlike the traditional barcode process where nothing can be altered once the
barcode is printed, the addition and the removal of the information can easily be done from the

tag. Some of the tags are so advanced that the capabilities of reading/write rights can be

programmed.

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Methodology
The aim of this report is to detail the methodologies which are used in the way to design research

project. For that, the section provides the methodologies that are using in the research to find out

limitations and problems associated with the research and further eliminate the limitations.

For making the project of research, quantitative methodologies are used. On the way to complete

the research, each researcher works independently as per the topic on which research has made.

The quantitative methodology provides assistance to better understand the topic "RFID tags for

improvement of object tracking in supply chain management" and further, assist to write

research in standard and formal way and while reviewing the research use quantitative words.

The research presents the overview and survey of Radio Frequency Identification tags for

improvement of object tracking in supply chain management.

In the research, deep learning and study of Radio Frequency Identification for the betterment of

object tracking is discussed. Further, also analyse the role of tracking or identification schemes in

supply chain management. In addition, also represent the issues and limitations associated with

the Radio Frequency Identification scheme and further discuss how they can be eliminated and

what schemes can be useful in the way to make RFID more effective and efficient.

Quantitative methodology is so useful and effective that many of the kinds of literature used in

my research project are using quantitative methodology. The research topic demands to gather

information about Radio Frequency Identification's usage, limitations and application in supply

management. Hence, to gather information, I have checked the Journals and papers that are

published in 2017-2018 years.

After collecting all the relevant data about the research topic, it got separately elaborated on

different parameters using Literature Reviews of each. Here are some of the reasons behind

quantitative methodology for doing the research is –

1.
In the first step, research limitations and problems are identifying. In this research, focus
made on identifying the best solution for analysing Radio Frequency Identification.

2.
Literature review comes in the second step, where various solutions reviewed to enhance
the Radio Frequency Identification system in supply chain management.

3.
This step is to evaluate the weakness and strength of the defined method.
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4. In the fourth step, all best criteria's get finalized and gather to compare in the literature
view section.

5.
After comparison in the fourth step, best approach got figured out. After completing all
these steps best approach now should be capable to address and eliminate the issues in

the technology.

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Research schedule
The schedule of the research is produced by using the Microsoft project. The schedule of the

research gives the timeline of the research which includes the name of the task, start date, end

date and the duration of the task. The task schedule of this research is given as:

Task

Mode
Task Name Duration Start Finish Predecessors Resource
Names

Auto

Schedule

d

Thesis Part 1 "RFID

Tags for

improvement of

object tracking in

supply chain

management"

17 days
Mon 13-
08-18

Tue 04-

09-18

Auto

Schedule

d

Oral presentation
2 days Mon 13-
08-18

Tue 14-

08-18

Auto

Scheduled
Data collection 1 day Mon 13-
08-18

Mon 13-

08-18

Auto

Scheduled

Preparation of

presentation based

on a collection of

data

1 day
Tue 14-
08-18

Tue 14-

08-18
2
Auto

Schedule

d

Study the articles

on RFID technology
2 days Wed 15-
08-18

Thu 16-

08-18
1
Auto

Scheduled

Finding the

research work

related to the topic

1 day
Wed 15-
08-18

Wed 15-

08-18

Auto

Scheduled
Review articles 1 day Thu 16-
08-18

Thu 16-

08-18
5
12
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Auto
Schedule

d

Proposal

presentation
3 days Fri 17-
08-18

Tue 21-

08-18
4
Auto

Scheduled

Description of

thesis
1 day Fri 17-08-
18

Fri 17-08-

18

Auto

Scheduled

Description of

methodology
1 day Mon 20-
08-18

Mon 20-

08-18
8
Auto

Scheduled

Framing a

project completion

timeline

1 day
Tue 21-
08-18

Tue 21-

08-18
9
Auto

Scheduled

Supervisor

consultation
1 day Wed 22-
08-18

Wed 22-

08-18
7
Auto

Scheduled

Finalizing the

proposal
1 day Thu 23-
08-18

Thu 23-

08-18
11
Auto

Scheduled

Study extra

research articles
1 day Fri 24-08-
18

Fri 24-08-

18
12
Auto

Schedule

d

Selecting the best

suitable technology
2 days Mon 27-
08-18

Tue 28-

08-18
13
Auto

Scheduled

Study and

compare different

approaches based on

the literature review

1 day
Mon 27-
08-18

Mon 27-

08-18

Auto

Scheduled

Using the

comparison to find

the best approach

1 day
Tue 28-
08-18

Tue 28-

08-18
15
Auto

Scheduled

Preparing the oral

presentation number

2

1 day
Wed 29-
08-18

Wed 29-

08-18
14
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Auto
Scheduled

Collection of data

for review
1 day Thu 30-
08-18

Thu 30-

08-18
17
Auto

Scheduled

Preparation of a

literature review
1 day Fri 31-08-
18

Fri 31-08-

18
18
Auto

Scheduled

Consult with

supervisor
1 day Mon 03-
09-18

Mon 03-

09-18
19
Auto

Scheduled

Finalizing the

literature review
1 day Tue 04-
09-18

Tue 04-

09-18
20
14
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ID Task
Mode
Task Name Duration Start Finish
0 Thesis Part 1
"RFID Tags for
improvement of
object tracking in
supply chain
management"
17 days Mon
13-08-18
Tue
04-09-18
1 1 Oral presentation2 days Mon 13-08-18Tue 14-08-18
2 1.1 Data collection1 day Mon 13-08-18Mon 13-08-18
3 1.2 Preparation of presentation based on a collection of data1 day Tue 14-08-18Tue 14-08-18
4 2 Study the
articles on
RFID
2 days Wed
15-08-18
Thu
16-08-18
5 2.1 Finding the research work related to the topic1 day Wed 15-08-18Wed 15-08-18
6 2.2 Review articles1 day Thu 16-08-18Thu 16-08-18
7 3 Proposal
presentation
3 days Fri
17-08-18
Tue
21-08-18
8 3.1 Description of thesis1 day Fri 17-08-18Fri 17-08-18
9 3.2 Description of methodology1 day Mon 20-08-18Mon 20-08-18
10 3.3 Framing a project completion timeline1 day Tue 21-08-18Tue 21-08-18
11 4 Supervisor consultation1 day Wed 22-08-18Wed 22-08-18
12 5 Finalizing the proposal1 day Thu 23-08-18Thu 23-08-18
13 6 Study extra research articles1 day Fri 24-08-18Fri 24-08-18
14 7 Selecting the
best suitable
technology
2 days Mon
27-08-18
Tue
28-08-18
15 7.1 Study and compare different approaches based on the literature review1 day Mon 27-08-18Mon 27-08-18
16 7.2 Using the comparison to find the best approach1 day Tue 28-08-18Tue 28-08-18
17 8 Preparing the oral presentation number 21 day Wed 29-08-18Wed 29-08-18
18 9 Collection of data for review1 day Thu 30-08-18Thu 30-08-18
19 10 Preparation of a literature review1 day Fri 31-08-18Fri 31-08-18
20 11 Consult with supervisor1 day Mon 03-09-18Mon 03-09-18
21 12 Finalizing the literature review1 day Tue 04-09-18Tue 04-09-18
10 15 20 25 30 04 09
August 2018 September 2018

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References
Chen, J. C., Cheng, C. H., & Huang, P. B. (2013). Supply chain management with lean
production and RFID application: A case study.
Expert Systems with Applications, 40(9),
3389-3397.

Tanner, D. (2015). Applications for RFID Technologies in the Food Supply Chain.
Sarac, A., Absi, N., & Dauzère-Pérès, S. (2010). A literature review on the impact of
RFID technologies on supply chain management.
International Journal of Production
Economics
, 128(1), 77-95.
Tajima, M. (2007). Strategic value of RFID in supply chain management. Journal of
purchasing and supply management
, 13(4), 261-273.
Dolgui, A., & Proth, J. M. (2008). RFID technology in supply chain management: state
of the art and perspectives.
IFAC Proceedings Volumes, 41(2), 4464-4475.
Björk, A., Erlandsson, M., Häkli, J., Jaakkola, K., Nilsson, Å., Nummila, K., ... & Sirkka,
A. (2011). Monitoring environmental performance of the forestry supply chain using

RFID.
Computers in Industry, 62(8-9), 830-841.
Ivanov, D., Sokolov, B., & Dashevsky, V. (2011). RFID-based Adaptive feedbacks
between supply chain scheduling and execution control.
IFAC Proceedings
Volumes
, 44(1), 435-440.
Hinkka, V. (2013). Implementation of RFID Tracking across the Entire Supply Chain.
Ropraz, F. (2008). Using RFID for Supply Chain Management. University of Freiburg
Schweiz
.
Chatziantoniou, D., Pramatari, K., & Sotiropoulos, Y. (2011). Supporting real-time
supply chain decisions based on RFID data streams.
Journal of Systems and
Software
, 84(4), 700-710.
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