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Military 'likely to be prime driver of RFID'

By Warwick Ashford, ITWeb London correspondent
Johannesburg, 05 Sept 2005

As early adopters of radio frequency identification (RFID) technologies, the world's military organisations are likely to be the primary developers of RFID-based applications.

This is according to Dexter Motta-Marques, Savi Technology regional manager for Africa, who presented a master class on delivering value to the peace keeping organisations through RFID solutions at last week's Africa Defence Logistics Summit 2005 at Gallagher Estate.

According to Motta-Marques, military organisations like the US Defence Department (DOD) represent some of the largest supply chains in the world and have proved the effectiveness of RFID, even under fire.

"Military use of RFID will boost research and development of the technology and its applications, as well as help drive down the costs associated with RFID by driving the volumes of tag and other equipment production," explains Motta-Marques.

Commercial retail organisations, he says, are the most likely beneficiaries of military advances in using RFID technology to improve supply chain efficiency and visibility.

"The US DOD is using RFID-based systems to address typical supply chain problems like shrinkage, security, poor visibility, inventory management and demand forecasting," says Motta‑Marques.

Since introducing RFID-based systems, the US DOD has reduced its inventory in Iraq from $127 million to $70 million, reduced order fulfilment from 28 days to 16 days and increased container fill rate from 77% to 89%, according to Savi Technology.

"One of the biggest challenges to achieving universal supply chain visibility is the lack of a global standard for RFID tags and readers, but again the military is likely to play an important role in achieving standardisation," says Motta-Marques.

Motta-Marques suggested to summit delegates that African defence departments co-operate with their European and American counterparts in RFID pilot projects to help promote standardisations and interoperability.

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