David Ewalt reports in InfoWorld on the state of RFID, a technology that is emerging in supply chain and payments applications.
A breakthrough technology — about the size of a grain of sugar and the cost of a piece of candy — promises to revolutionize supply-chain management, letting companies track products from the early stages of manufacturing until they’re plucked from store shelves, and every point in between. Radio-frequency identification tags incorporating tiny microchips are approaching a price point that could vault them from the realm of specialty applications into mainstream manufacturing, distribution, and retail environments. A Who’s Who of consumer-goods companies and retailers, including Procter & Gamble, Target, Unilever, and Wal-Mart, are poised to use the devices.