It is undoubted that the usage of RFIDs have revolutionized
supply chain management strategies and how information is passed upstream and
downstream in the supply chain. However the adoption of RFID has not really
taken off beyond the point of sale. One area where RFIDs could not really take
off is at the consumer point. In practice, currently there is no scalable
technical solution that can enable this. However all of this might change with
the rise of NFC (subset of RFID technology) enabled devices (smart phones) in
the hands of consumers owing to its lower costs and a faster transaction
speed.
Near field communication (NFC) is a close range RFID
technology, meant for near to or physical touch applications to maintain
security. NFC is for smartphones and similar devices which establish radio
communication with each other. It uses electromagnetic radio fields instead of
radio transmissions as used by technologies like blue tooth” 1.
NFC usage is about to take off, and it
will change the way we conduct business and make payments or collect
information. This is evident by that fact that, 168 million
NFC-enabled handsets will be shipped in 2012 (According to HIS iSuppli).
NFC has a very powerful yet simple user interface. NFC
technology has a short readability range. It can be used in a supply chain to
track and share inventory information. “For instance, a delivery driver
would only need to tap a smartphone against a pallet of inventory and the
shipment information would be instantly ready to be sent to a customer or back
to the distribution center. This technology could be used to lower the
percentage of inventory errors and track products and equipment along a supply
chain.” 2. Imagine NFC collecting and feeding back
the information related to usage of groceries to online
stores in order to trigger automatic purchases. NFC enables sensing and
detection capabilities to individual customers at a scale that has not been
possible previously. There is a possibility that 5 years from now, wallets
might be replaced by NFC technology. It would be really interesting to see how
this technology evolves.
What other benefits can NFC enable that old RFID technology
could not (for supply chain)? What do you think are the biggest challenges
for widespread NFC adoption?
References :
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