FlexRFID Middleware in the Supply Chain: Strategic Values and Challenges

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) has been used since the Second World War to identify “friend or foe” aircrafts. It has become an enabling wireless technology that is widely used in a number of application areas, such as product tracking through manufacturing and assembly, inventory control, and supply chain management (SCM). By 2006, Wal-Mart used RFID for all of its suppliers. The use of RFID in supply chain networks has allowed Wal-Mart to create value through greater visibility in its networks, higher product velocity, reduce human error and labor cost, and more efficient inventory management, which led to the achievement of Quick Response (QR) and improved Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in the supply chain. However, RFID system challenges and uncertain Return-On-Investment (ROI) must be overcome to fully achieve these objectives. This paper introduces RFID technology and its key components and concepts, and presents an RFID middleware solution called FlexRFID that achieves the maximum benefits of RFID technology independently of the interested backend applications. This paper illustrates how RFID technology is used to solve the main problems in SCM, the advantages and key issues when implementing RFID in SCM networks, and the relationship between RFID and the main SCM processes.