Factors Influencing Decentralized Strorage of RFID Tag Data: A Multi-Case Study

Over time, various drivers affecting information technology architecture design have been proposed which favored either more centralization or decentralization. With the advent of RFID and other sensor technologies, the next inflection point heading towards decentralization might arise. This paper aims to improve the understanding of the decentralization debate by investigating the factors that influence the design decision on whether or not to store data on an RFID transponder label. By analyzing eight case examples from the manufacturing domain, the following main factors could be identified: synchronization, external data exchange, security, standardization, flexibility, and response time. A detailed discussion of these factors may be helpful to companies planning to implement RFID applications on how to design their systems.