Assessing the Effects of Enhanced Supply Chain Visibility Through RFID

The majority of RFID implementations can be traced back either to mandates issued by companies or institutions with significant market power like Wal-Mart or the U.S. Department of Defense, or to the replacement of existing Auto-ID technologies like barcodes. Only sporadically is RFID being used to derive superior information about current processes in order to create supply chain visibility. In this contribution, we examine the visibility potentials of RFID technology within the context of SCM and we propose a four-step approach to assessing the results that can be achieved through visibility.