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The three basic questions to determine whether RFID should be considered as a potential solution are why, when, and where should an enterprise deploy RFID.

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Creative Electronic Consultants
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1.2 RFID in the Enterprise
With the basics of RFID explained, practitioners of industry will demand to know how and where does RFID fit in the enterprise. As illustrated in Section 1.2, there are already many applications where RFID creates a lot of value, whether by providing a cost savings opportunity, improving service levels, or actually increasing revenue. Before implementing an RFID solution, there are many questions that must be answered. Business managers will want to consider, among other items:

Compatibility of the solution with the environment

The potential ROI

The risk factors associated with using new or newer technology

The IT capability to handle RFID-generated massive volumes of data

The state of readiness of systems interacting with the
RFID solution (or, infrastructure)

Applicability of the RFID solution as opposed to other less technically challenging solutions

In many instances an RFID solution will be much more appropriate if combined with other technologies, such as bar codes, in order to provide a fail-safe, redundant solution. In other instances, RFID solutions may not be the most appropriate because of environmental, economic, or safety reasons. The point is that in every instance a detailed feasibility analysis must be conducted in order to determine the viability of an RFID solution. This section contains a list of questions and issues that should help the practitioner determine if RFID is the most appropriate solution for the problem at hand.

1.4.1 Why, When, and Where RFID?
The three basic questions to determine whether RFID should be considered as a potential solution are why, when, and where should an enterprise deploy RFID. These are considered ‘‘strategic’’ questions, and their answers should be clearly understood before asking the operational questions of how should the enterprise deploy an RFID solution? They are considered strategic because their responses will dictate whether or not an enterprise will embark into a, more than likely, long-term project that will require considerable (and specialized) resources, money, and time. If these answers are not clearly understood before commencing the project, project members will face uncertainty throughout the project and the possibility of project failure increases rather dramatically. The how question should be a surrogate to the strategic questions. It is not to say that it is any less important, but it is not sufficient. To illustrate this point, think of an asset-tracking project where the price of the tags is too high compared to the products being tracked. In this case, an implementation engineer may know exactly how to implement the RFID-based asset tracking solution, but it would not make sense from an ROI point of view. Although why, where, and when questions are a good staring point, they should be broken down into more detailed questions for proper analysis. The following is a list of questions that expands on these strategic questions and is useful in making a high-level determination on the viability of an RFID solution:

What is the value provided by the RFID solution?

Cost reduction

Revenue generation

Productivity or process improvement

Marketing differentiator

Service improvement

Vendor/supplier mandate

Quality assurance

Do individual objects need to be uniquely identified?

If there is no need to track objects, it may be doubtful that an RFID solution would be useful.

Is the environment where objects need to be tracked a closed-loop environment or an open environment?

This may dictate the type of RFID technology to be used in terms of the infrastructure required.

Is there a need for real time or near-real-time data capture?

If not, there may be other less sophisticated solutions that may provide the necessary results at a lower cost.

What are the physical characteristics of the objects to be tracked?

Characteristics such as size, liquid content, metal content radio frequency interference, and others will dictate the type of RFID solution to be used.

What is the universe of objects to be tracked?

How many?

What types?

Over what area?

Are the interfacing information systems able to handle massive volumes of RFID-based information?

Typically, RFID systems generate huge amounts of information for processing by other systems.

It is important to understand how these other systems will face such amounts of data. As we will see in Chapter 6, one of the most important steps in the determination of the applicability of RFID solutions is the computation of the ROI. This is many times an elusive subject, since the components of the computation are sometimes soft (qualitative) and sometimes hard (quantitative). This is especially true when the benefits of an RFID solution are more qualitative than quantitative, as, for example, in the case of improved customer service or marketing differentiation.

1.4.2 A Road Map to Implementation
The implementation of an RFID solution deals primarily with the how question. Once the strategic questions (why, where, and when) have been clearly addressed, the implementation teams must put in place a project plan that will cover every aspect of the installation and operation of the RFD solution. As any other project, implementing an RFID solution requires detailed analysis of the problem at hand and the proposed solution. The following is a high-level implementation guideline:

Identification of problem at hand

Documentation of problem characteristics and issues

Identification of parties involved in the problem (vendors, customer, partners, etc.)

Identification of the environment involved in the problem (physical characteristics of environment)

High metal content; this will create interference and limit the range of RFID.

High water or liquid content; water, or liquids for that matter, block and deflect radio frequencies, this increases misreads of RFID signals.

High radio frequency areas; areas in which there is a high concentration of electro-magnetic waves (microwaves, radio-broadcasting, TV signal emitters, etc.) will create interference with the RFID signal thus limiting the reliability of the system.

Areas where there is radio wave sensitive equipment, such as medical telemetry equipment, electronically controlled explosives, sen1.4 sitive navigation systems, and so forth, can be affected by RFID signals.

All these will have a profound effect on the type of RFID solution applicable.

Identification of IT systems involved in the problem (input, output, consumer, and transactional IT systems and interfaces)

Identification of high-risk issues

Time-driven constraints related to infrastructure deploymentbuilding requirements, if any

Business case analysis

Identification of cost components

Identification of benefits

ROI analysis

Definition of solution implementation team

Business process owners

User representative members

Information technology members

Facilities manager members

Vendor/provider members

Design of solution

Documentation of solutions components

Infrastructure specification (wired, wireless, mixed)

Readers (with associated hardware)

Tags (with associated hardware)

Antennas (with associated hardware)

Custom casing for components

Cabling

Wireless equipment

Power requirements and power supply points

Computer hardware such as servers, backups, uninterruptible power supplies

Local or wide area network requirements (port drops, etc.)

Communication requirements (satellite, cell-phone, etc.)

Documentation of business process requirements

Process changes

Process additions

Process eliminations

RFID event definitions

One of the most important aspects of an RFID solution is the issue of what events need to be tracked.

Definition and documentation of IT requirements and interfaces

Data generation systems—systems that provide information to the RFID infrastructure

RFID database contents—systems that maintain transient RFID event information

RFID history data warehouse—systems that maintain historical RFID event information

Processing systems—systems that convert or enhance RFID event information

RFID data consuming systems—systems that utilize RFID event information to provide decision support capability

Catalog of vendors available for RFID solution

This may be the hardest task given the fact that the industry is in its infancy. Market hype tends to be emphasized over practical experience, although many of the RFID solutions deployed are the first of their kind.

Pilot test phase—Selection of problem subset to test solution

Definition of pilot test’s objectives. The pilot test may have multiple objectives, for example:

Testing of new technology or multiple competing technologies

Testing of coverage area

Testing of environmental fit; how well does the RFID solution work in a specific environment?

Testing of system reliability

Testing of system interfacing

Testing of data processing scalability (given the huge amounts of data produced by the RFID infrastructure)

Definition of pilot’s scope such as

Objects to track

Coverage area

Events

Interfacing information systems

Personnel

Business processes

Setup of baseline against which results will be measured

This process is extremely important to understanding the success or failure of the pilot test. This also dictates the clear definition (as stated previously) of the pilot test’s objective.

Adjustment of solution based on pilot test’s feedback

Stress test solution for abnormal situations

Power failure

Network failure

Server failure

Extraneous tags

Reader failure

Tag failure

Adjustment of infrastructure (antenna positioning, reader strength and setting, tag enclosures, etc.)

Roll out of solution in phased approach

Schedule of rollout:

Personnel

Coverage area

Products tagged

Events tracked

Business process change requirements

Normal operation

Continuous improvement methodology

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Popular Electronics Inc.

1-773-338-5460
2455 W. Devon
Chicago, IL

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