Link Magazine 19 - SCLG

36 Special Reportand then load it again toanother plane or ship or truckto go to another destination.So time is very important hereand RFID technology canspeed things up.Do you think RFID tag isgoing to completely replacebarcode for airline baggagetracking?In certain parts of the supplychain, especially when itconcerns high value assets,there you will see RFID –because it offers automaticscanning facility and there byprovides more information. Inreality, if you have an effectivetracking system based on barcodes that delivers everythingyou need as a businesssolution, then there is littleexcuse to completely replace itwith RFID. RFID has to offersomething more, it has to addautomation, information andremove manual scanningprocesses. Going back to theI think you shouldnot focus on thecost of technologybut on the benefitof the solutionHong Kong InternationalAirport project, this is exactlywhat happened. When theywere scanning tags with barcodes, they were achieving aread-rate of about 85 per centand 15 per cent automaticallythey fail to detect under thebar code scanning. So they hadto do a manual process ofscanning for the remaining 15per cent. With RFID, theycould drive that ratebeyond 85 per cent – as theyhave after we implementedRFID technology.The high operating cost ofRFID has often beensaid to be the limiting factorin deciding whetherairports/airlines should adoptRFID or not. May we haveyour comments on this?I think we should not focus onthe cost of technology, but onthe benefit of the solution. Ifwe can’t justify the benefitsand the solutions throughautomation or a richer sourceof information or throughreduction in manualprocesses, then we will find itdifficult to use RFID. But thatis not limited to thistechnology alone; in fact, anytechnology investment musteventually pay for itselfbecause of the return onthat investment. Therefore,RFID should not be seen as acostly latest technologicaladvancement, but rather asany other technology thatwould provide solutions andbenefits for business.What do you see as the mostsignificant trends in RFIDtags for the coming year?Cargo tags. It is moreexpensive than commoditytags, but performance-wise,the read-range is excellent –it could read over significantdistances. The mostimportant is the performanceand I believe that is whatwould prompt the shift.RFID would provide morereliability, better read-rate,better performance, betterdetection, and bettersecurity.RFID is important as part ofa mixture of technologies tosupport supply chain datacapture. RFID is not a standalonetechnology – it is justanother way of capturingknowledge from supplychain, most importantly itenables one to makedecisions based on thecaptured data.The Supply Chain & Logistics Group | www.sclgme.org