Thanks for your comment, Philip. You raise a point several others have raised: that with the passage of time we will see many improvements in technology that will make the picture for RFID look a lot brighter.

In response to Philip’s comment, I would like to make the following points:
1. The read-only RFID tag is functionally equivalent to Barcode.
2. Barcode is free because it is incorporated in the object’s graphics. Read-only RFID tags are now about $0.35 each, and are expected to be $0.05 when item level tagging becomes commonplace. Currently, there is a move afoot to make item tags different from case and pallet tags. If this happens, the five cent tag will be the next element of RFID to go extinct.
3. The relatively higher cost of RFID tags can only be balanced by the labor savings attributed to automatic group reading of RFID tags. If RFID reading is to revert to manual hand held methods (ala barcode), the economic advantage of RFID disappears.

The expectation that RFID, in the supply chain, will simply continue to grow based on the size of the current investment, defies some basic economic principles.

Functionally, RFID offers more data, no line of site requirements and the capability to granularly identify a given item. The only parallel to barcode would be UID that offers increased granularity at a comparable cost. RFID on my side of the fence is commonly assumed to be an enhanced barcode replacement hence the question being posed in this discussion. I spend more time educating users on the data implementation difference between RFID and barcode than passive vs. active.
Is the issue of passive tag death constrained to the lack of perceived benefit of RFID’s data uniqueness and the ability to write to the tag? Or is it simply that the benefit beyond item coding is constrained to product data vs. product + X data?

In theory Wes Maffett is correct. However, the implementation of RFID in the Supply Chain limits the data content to the 96 bit Electronic Product Code (EPC), which is now a global standard. The EPC is well within the coding capacity of barcode, and, in fact, barcode is used as backup to RFID for pallet level shipping in the supply chain.

The “No Line of Sight” capability of RFID is the basis for the design of Portal Readers and Smart Shelves. The industry has found these devices to be very expensive and inaccurate which negates the “No Line of Sight” advantage of RFID.

As a result, two of the major advantages of RFID, more data capacity and the no line of sight requirement, have been rendered useless and academic. Now that the industry is reverting to the use of manual and hand-held readers, barcode not only regains an economic advantage, but, the requirement for “Line of Sight” turns into an advantage to the user who has to see what he is reading.

There really isn’t a practical supply chain application for using handheld RFID scanners for discreet scanning of cases (or units). Those pushing this are basically trying to “implement” RFID into the supply chain regardless of whether or not it is the appropriate technology. If you are going to have an employee point a device at a tag on each case to read a very small amount of information, why would you use RFID when bar codes can already do this at a lower cost? The big savings expected with RFID were based on eliminating these activities by automating the process and having an RFID reader read all tags on a pallet at once. If the technology cannot yet do that cost-effectively, then the technology is not yet ready. It really is that simple.

I do expect that given time, many of the shortcomings of current RIFD technology will be worked out, and when that occurs you will see some practical applications of RFID in the supply chain actually pay for themselves. But to have people hand-scan individual RFID tags just because you don’t want to admit you jumped the gun on implementing RFID is just ridiculous.