Business Information Systems: RFID Technology, Walmart Case Study

This report provides an overview of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology and its applications in business. It discusses the workings of RFID, including its components and how it facilitates automated data collection for identifying, categorizing, and tracking assets. The report highlights the advantages of RFID in asset tracking, such as increased visibility, reduced delivery delays, and mitigation of theft and loss. It also addresses the limitations of RFID, including standardization issues, cost considerations, signal collisions, and tag detection problems. Furthermore, the report evaluates the implementation of RFID technology in Walmart, analyzing its impact on supply chain management and potential cost savings. The conclusion emphasizes the benefits of RFID in enhancing business efficiency and providing real-time visibility of assets.

Running head: BUSINESS INFORMATION SYSTEMS
BUSINESS INFORMATION SYSTEMS
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Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................2
Discussion......................................................................................................................2
Working of RFID technology....................................................................................2
Asset tracking using RFID technology......................................................................3
Limitations of RFID technology................................................................................4
Evaluation of RFID technology in Walmart..............................................................5
Assessment of Walmart in marketplace.....................................................................6
Conclusion......................................................................................................................7
Reference........................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
This report aims to discuss about the trending technology, RFID (Radio Frequency
Identification). The technical or business problems that the technology is intended to solve
has been discussed. The limitations of the technology and the effect of the problems related to
this technology are discussed in this report. One implementation of this technology in the
organisation is stated. An assessment of the prospects of this technology for its success in the
marketplace is discussed. Lastly, this paper concludes with an appropriate conclusion for this
report.
Radio Frequency Identification is an ADC (Automated Data Collection) technology
that transfers data using radio frequency waves between the reader and a portable item for
identifying, categorising, and tracking. It uses radio waves for automatically identifying
objects or people from distance of some inches to hundreds of feet. (Cho, Jeong & Park,
2015).
Discussion
Working of RFID technology
The systems of RFID comprises of three constituents arranged in two combinations:
an antenna and a transceiver that are combined as a RFID reader. A transmitter/responder
(transponder) and an antenna are joined for making a RFID tag. A tag of RFID is read when
the transponder is activated due to emission of radio signal from the reader and data is sent
back to the transceiver (Coustasse, Tomblin & Slack, 2013).
A RFID system comprises of three basic components:
 A coil or antenna
 A transceiver

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 A transponder containing of an electronically programmed RF tag with some
unique information.
The two categories of transponders that correlate with the two basic RFID tags are
 RFID tags and passive transponders responds depending on the energy that is
emitted from the reader, as it has no own energy source. Consumer goods
commonly use passive and cheaper RFID tags.
 A tag or an active transponder owns an internal power source for generating a
signal to the reader. The active transponder are expensive than the passive
transponders. The active transponders communicate over huge areas like an
ordinary radio communication (Zhang et al., 2014).
When the transponder arrives at a read area, the reader apprehends the data and
then it can be transmitted over the standard interface to the host computer,
controller that is logically programmable, and printer for the storage of
information (Ranasinghe et al., 2014).
Asset tracking using RFID technology
The problem of tracking the assets of the business are is solved by the use of RFID
technology. The technology of RFID is more complicated than the barcoding or GPS that are
commonly utilised by the software of asset tracking (Zou et al., 2014). The RFID technology
utilises an electromagnetic field for automatically tracking and identifying tags that are
attached to the items. The information that is stored in a RFID tag is viewed over a RFID
reader using radio waves.
Asset visibility is increased in RFID tracking. The major benefit of asset tracking
using RFID is the convenience and necessity of increased inventory visibility and the assets.

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RFID tags of the company can be read from anywhere that helps in keeping track of the
location and quantity of each asset (Barge et al., 2014).
Delay of the delivery of products can be eliminated using RFID tracking. The trouble
of lack of visibility of products that are moving in different stages of production and
distribution can be eliminated using the technology of RFID. The RFID technology
implements the automation of all assets tracking system, which provides an analytics with
real-time visibility for the production and it also remove any bottlenecks and the delivery
time of the products is accelerated.
Mitigation of theft, risk and loss is achieved using RFID tracking. There is a greater
transparency introduced in the business with the help of RFID technology. The RFID
technology provides the live tracking of assets in a business that mitigates the risk if loss,
counterfeiting, and theft.
The excess labour costs is reduced, which leads to increase in productivity with the
implementation of RFID technology in the business. Several assets can be recognised and
scanned mechanically with the help of RFID tagging (Perret, 2014).
Limitations of RFID technology
Some of the basic limitations of RFID technology are:
1. Standardisation: the strict standards of the RFID tags leaves very low freedom
for the businesses to share any information that are stored in a tag. The
companies that are transcending a solution that is closed loop and if they have
a wish to share the application, they might face conflicts due to the need of
cooperation of partners to settle in the standards of communication protocols,
types of signal modulation, rates of data transmission, and frames and data
coding.

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2. Cost: The cost of implementing the RFID tags in the system of business can be
different depending on the type of tag. The price of semi-passive or active tags
are significantly higher due to the economic application of these tags to scan
goods that are of high-value on long ranges (Ajami & Rajabzadeh, 2013).
3. Collision of signal: The situation of reading several tags at the same time can
cause collision of signal and it can lead to loss of data.
4. Deficient or faulty tag detection: There is a problem of the damage of tags
due to prolong use of these tags and no proper maintenance of these tags. This
can lead to failure of the objectives that were aimed to achieve with the
implementation of these tags.
Evaluation of RFID technology in Walmart
With the increase in the implementation of RFID technologies in several organisation,
Walmart identified the need of implementing this technology in the business of the company.
In the early 1970s, Walmart financed for a better distribution system for taking the
advantages of the scope and scale of the economies (Frith, 2015). RFID technology uses EPC
(Electronic Product Code) that is recorded in microchip, which has the ability to be read
remotely, unlike the barcodes that are printed labels and it requires visibility for reading.
Walmart enticed the suppliers of the organisation by offering access to POS (Point Of Scale)
information in exchange of information of supplier of RFID. The ability of sending
information to the suppliers will help Walmart to monitor the movements of the products that
are tagged using RFID through the internal supply chain of Walmart to point of sale. The
quality of RFIP of supporting the notification providing to the suppliers about the sale and
simultaneously preserve the information of the sale and purchase of a product in the
inventory of Walmart, and make payment to the vendor on an agreed term make it essential
for Walmart to implement RFID in place of barcodes.

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Assessment of Walmart in marketplace
Retail
Globalisation, internationalisation and informatization of industries have affected the
business of Walmart, increasing the needs of implementing changes in the business strategies
and introduction of some new technologies like RFID technology and barcodes. RFID is used
to monitor the sale and label the products, which enables the ability of storing more data
about a product. Walmart is reluctant to implement RFID technology after several thorough
experiments that were conducted to identify the major advantages of this technology to create
innovative values of business for the retailers (Lui & Lo, 2014).
Banking
Walmart invested heavily in the RFID technology to procure the supplies with RFID tags on
each case and pallet that are coming to the distribution stores and centres. According to a
latest survey, the retail giant will save over $400 million each year with the coded pallets and
cases (Suresh et al., 2014). A study proved that Walmart have the potential of saving
immense capitals every year by implementing RFID systems with the modified RFID tags on
each item in all the stores (Shin & Eksioglu, 2015).
Supply chain management
SC or supply chain is the set of some entities that are directly combined in the progress of the
flow of services, information, products and finances to a computer from a unique source. The
pipeline that comprises of several companies performing gaining of materials and alteration
of materials into transitional or completed products, the distribution of completed products to

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the customers or retailers, and disposal or recycling in landfill is referred as supply chain.
Walmart, with the use of RFID in the supply chain achieves a key prospect of reducing the
costs and increase the operating efficiencies.
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be concluded that the introduction of radio frequency identification
(RFID) in a business offers some key advantages to the business. RFID is a technology that
uses radio frequency to transfer data from the reader to a portable item. The system of RFID
utilises two key components, which are the transponder and an antenna. RFID technology
eliminates the trouble of tracking of products and assets. The RFID technology is more
complicated than barcodes r or GPS. Electromagnetic field is uses by a RFID system to track
the assets of a business. Walmart implemented the function of RFID to increase the revenue
of the business and provide more efficient products to the customers.

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Reference
Ajami, S., & Rajabzadeh, A. (2013). Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology and
patient safety. Journal of research in medical sciences: the official journal of Isfahan
University of Medical Sciences, 18(9), 809.
Barge, P., Gay, P., Merlino, V., & Tortia, C. (2014). Item-level radio-frequency identification
for the traceability of food products: application on a dairy product. Journal of Food
Engineering, 125, 119-130.
Cho, J. S., Jeong, Y. S., & Park, S. O. (2015). Consideration on the brute-force attack cost
and retrieval cost: A hash-based radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag mutual
authentication protocol. Computers & Mathematics with Applications, 69(1), 58-65.
Coustasse, A., Tomblin, S., & Slack, C. (2013). Impact of radio-frequency identification
(RFID) technologies on the hospital supply chain: a literature review. Perspectives in
Health Information Management, 10(Fall).
Frith, J. (2015). Communicating behind the scenes: A primer on radio frequency
identification (RFID). Mobile Media & Communication, 3(1), 91-105.
Lui, A., & Lo, C. K. Y. (2014). Measuring the impact of radio frequency identification
(RFID) technologies in improving the efficiency of the textile supply chain.
In Fashion Supply Chain Management Using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)
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Perret, E. (2014). Radio Frequency Identification and Sensors: From RFID to Chipless
RFID. John Wiley & Sons.

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Ranasinghe, D. C., Torres, R. S., Hill, K., & Visvanathan, R. (2014). Low cost and
batteryless sensor-enabled radio frequency identification tag based approaches to
identify patient bed entry and exit posture transitions. Gait & Posture, 39(1), 118-123.
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the art review on the Internet of Things (IoT) history, technology and fields of
deployment. In Science Engineering and Management Research (ICSEMR), 2014
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Zhang, Y., Huang, G. Q., Sun, S., & Yang, T. (2014). Multi-agent based real-time production
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