Analysis of RFID Technology: Business Use Cases and Limitations

This report provides an overview of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology and its applications in business information systems. It explains how RFID works, including the differences between active and passive RFID systems, and discusses the business and technical problems that RFID solves, such as inventory tracking and supply chain management. The report also highlights the limitations of RFID technology, including high implementation costs and security concerns. Furthermore, it examines the organizational implementation of RFID, citing Walmart as a case study, and explores the use of RFID in various sectors such as retail, healthcare, and banking. The report concludes that RFID is a valuable tool for improving efficiency and accuracy in various business processes.

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
Introduction..........................................................................................................................2
1. How RFID works?...........................................................................................................2
2. The business and technical problems solved by RFID....................................................3
3. RFID-Technological Limitations.....................................................................................4
4. Organizational Implementation of Cloud........................................................................5
5. RFID in the marketplace..................................................................................................5
Conclusion...........................................................................................................................6
References............................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
Radio Frequency identification is a widely used technology for tracking assets or
identifying them. RFID can be termed as small electronic device with a small chip and an
antenna. The RFID devices is very similar to that of barcodes and QRCODES. The technology
uses electromagnetic fields for identifying and tracking the tags attached with the objects. The
report discusses the technology of RFID and its limitation. It further discusses the technical
problems the technology is designed to solve and the prospects for the success of technology in
the marketplace.
1. How RFID works?
Radio Frequency identification number makes use of the radio waves to detect and
collect the information of the RFID enabled devices. Thus, this technology does not require any
human intervention in data collection and analysis. The different components of RFID include a
RFID tag, a tag reader and an antenna that sends signals from the device incorporated with RFID
tags (Zhu, Mukhopadhyay & Kurata, 2012). The tag reader converts the radio waves into a
usable data form.
There are mainly two types of RFID systems, active and passive RFID. The passive
RFID system makes use of the tags that have no internal power source and is powered by the
electromagnetic energy transmitted from the RFID reader. Active RFID systems on the other
hand have three parts, which includes a reader, an antenna and a tag. The main feature of the
active RFID tag is that, it possesses its own power source (Jia et al., 2012). This power source is
an internal battery that has long read ranges and large memory banks. The active tag is needed to
be replaced when the battery of an active RFID die. Active RFID tags are generally used as

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bacons to track the real-time location of the assets such as tolling. Since the active tag uses
battery powered RFID tags, they have much longer read range than passive tags. However,
active tags are more expensive than passive tags.
2. The business and technical problems solved by RFID
RFID technology makes the process of tagging and locating inventory even more easier
that reduces the cost of manual tagging of the goods and increases the accuracy of sales. It is
widely used in business ad RFID chips are an improved replacement of the hand tags that are
more complex to handle. RFID tags helps in keeping a track of the inventory objects thus
reducing the number of out of the stock products. The main advantage of using RDIF tags over
hand tags is that, it removes the need of human intervention in maintaining and tagging the
goods (Zhong et al., 2015). This is beneficial for business as it reduces the need of employees to
a considerable amount.
RFID is an advancement form of the barcodes and QRCODES. The differences among
the RFID tags, barcodes and QRCODES are elaborated in the following table-
RFID BARCODE QRCODE
 RFID or radio
frequency
identification number
reads and locates data
by making use of the
electromagnetic waves.
 Since RFID is more
 The barcode is similar
to RFID as it is an
effective data
collection technique.
However, the process
of data collection in
barcode is very
 QRCODE is used to
store information that
can only be read with
the help of a QR
reader.
 Cost of
implementation of QR

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improved than QR and
barcode, a proper
technological
knowledge is required
for handling the RFID
tags. However, a
proper training can
simple help in
achieving this
(Dwivedi et al., 2013).
 The initial cost of
implementation of
RFID tag is high as it
requires expensive
scanning devices in
order to scan the RFID
tags.
different from that of
RFID or QRCODE.
 The reading rate of
barcodes is very slow
compared to RFID and
QRCODE as it can
read only one data at a
time.
 Furthermore, barcodes
have no capability to
uniquely identify any
item and hence it is
rarely used nowadays.
code scanning is low
as compared to RFID
as the QR devices can
be scanned with the
help of camera-
equipped devices
(Barrera, Mira &
Torroba, 2013).
3. RFID-Technological Limitations
The limitations of RFID technological limitations are as follows (Expósito & Cuiñas,
2013)-
1. The implementation cost of RFID is very high and therefore it may not be a feasible
for small business. The tagging and tracking of low cost materials and goods may not be feasible
with the use of RFID tags.

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2. There is certain security issues associated with the implementation of RFID
3. No proper RFID standard has been set yet, which is one of the major limitations of the
RFID technology.
4. Another limitation of RFID is physical limitation, which includes reading through
liquid or metals.
4. Organizational Implementation of Cloud
The famous retailing sector Wal-Mart is relying on the RFID technology for their normal
business operations. Walmart implemented this technology in the supply chain in order to
increase the visibility of information or inventory. Walmart has developed into the largest retailer
of the world by making use of every opportunity in streamlining the supply chain. The
organization had planned the implementation of RFID back in 2003 and the implementation of
RFID has brought a transformation in the way, Walmart runs the retail store. The movement of
the goods across the supply chain is tracked with the help of the information sent by the RFID
reader. Therefore, it has helped the organization in managing the supply chain in a more
effective way (Shin & Eksioglu, 2014). Furthermore, it Walmart uses the radio frequency tags
for keeping the shelves stocked. The RFID tags provide real time information about the store
shelves.
5. RFID in the marketplace
Use of RFID is wide in the retail market place. It finds its use in the anti theft car keys,
automated highway tollbooths and so on. In retail marketplace, RFID finds its use in the
continuous live store inventory and simultaneous one shot scanning of goods at the cash. In

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continuous live store inventory, the retailers can gain a detailed information of the stock with the
help of an automatic scanning system in the store as well as in the warehouse. This process of
inventory management is proven more efficient than manual checking of the inventory sales
(Bhattacharya, 2012).
RFID technology is implemented in health care as well in order to reduce the medical
errors. It helps in retrieving patients’ information and real time monitoring of the patients’
location in the hospital. Implementing innovative technology such as RFID has considerably
helped the healthcare in eliminating the risks associated with the improper patient monitoring,
poor patient tracking and inability to respond to the patients more quickly (Manzoor 2016).
The use of RFID tags helps the banking sector in providing enhanced services to its
customers. A bankcard with an embedded RFID chip is now offered to the customers that can be
used for making payment without the need for swiping the card or entering a PIN (Azari, Jassbi
& Reshadi, 2011).
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that RFID is widely used in
different business sectors. The use of RFID tags makes the process of inventory and supply chain
management even easier. The working principal of the RFID technology and the use of this
technology in various fields are elaborated in this report. The report discusses the use of RFID in
Walmart and in the business of various other sectors as well, which includes retail, healthcare
and banking. The report gives an overview of the use of RFID technology.

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References
Azari, S., Jassbi, S. J., & Reshadi, M. (2011) RFID Technology in Bank Services. institutions,
4(5), 6
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.
Bhattacharya, M. (2012). Impact of RFID on the retail value chain: An exploratory study using a
mixed method approach. Journal of technology management & innovation, 7(4), 36-49.
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.
Expósito, I., & Cuiñas, I. (2013). Exploring the limitations on RFID technology in traceability
systems at beverage factories. International Journal of Antennas and Propagation, 2013.
Jia, X., Feng, Q., Fan, T., & Lei, Q. (2012, April). RFID technology and its applications in
Internet of Things (IoT). In Consumer Electronics, Communications and Networks
(CECNet), 2012 2nd International Conference on (pp. 1282-1285). IEEE.

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Manzoor, A. (2016). RFID-Enabled Healthcare. International Journal of Information
Communication Technologies and Human Development (IJICTHD), 8(2), 26-46.
Shin, S., & Eksioglu, B. (2014). Effects of RFID technology on efficiency and profitability in
retail supply chains. Journal of Applied Business Research, 30(3), 633.
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.
Zhu, X., Mukhopadhyay, S. K., & Kurata, H. (2012). A review of RFID technology and its
managerial applications in different industries. Journal of Engineering and Technology
Management, 29(1), 152-167.