Partnership drives RFID returns

Companies that consider RFID to be a part of an overall strategy and involve partners in design and implementation realise better long-term ROI, says an Aberdeen Group report.

TUV Product Service says the report, dubbed Finding the ROI in RFID, also found that companies that share design and implementation between line management and IT can enjoy up to 26% shorter time to a positive ROI.

Although 85% of companies that invested early in RFID saw an ROI in the first five years, the report says most companies believe that most of the benefits from investing in RFID will come in the future.

RFID deployments in the US automotive and industrial manufacturing industries are increasing, reports Mikrofax.

The report says recent studies by Frost & Sullivan research have shown the production and logistics of these sectors have increased their focus and spending on the new technology to streamline supply chains.

The research says RFID has the potential to integrate supply chain and enterprise resource planning systems with manufacturing applications. It says greater use of the technology will ensure balance between supply and demand.

A plan to track blood transfusions "from vein to vein" using bar-codes or RFID technology has taken a step forward says Silicon.com, with the publication of IT recommendations for the project by the UK's National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA).

The recommendations are part of the agency's outline specification for an Electronic Clinical Transfusion Management System (ECTMS). This specification has been developed to address the patient safety risks in the transfusion process.

The specification covers the automated tracking of blood products, which the NPSA says presents a number of challenges to the IT world. Pilot studies will be conducted next year to decide which is the best tracking technology to use.

Two supermarkets is the US city of Detroit are testing RFID-enabled shopping trolleys to enable store managers to monitor demand at tills or other parts of the store, reports AMonline.

The report says while most of the innovation around RFID has been in the area of inventory management, these tests indicate that RFID also has implications for on-site marketing. For example, consumers could receive promotional messages triggered by the items they place in their trolleys.

The report notes that RFID technology is already giving vending operators new options for contactless transactions at the point of sale. The most widely reported contactless tool to date is the PayPass credit card reader. This is a self-checkout system recently introduced by Freedom Shopping in Orlando.