Manufacturing Technology Predictions for 2005

Filed in archive Market Size on February 9, 2005

Research firm IDC has made 10 predictions for information technology in manufacturing during 2005, according to Vice President Bob Parker.

Among the predictions is this one: Lean Sigma enterprise initiatives will grow. And this one: vendors with specific point solutions will begin to talk about being compliant with SAP or Oracle applications.

But this contrarian prediction stood out from all the others:

RFID hype will implode. Many retailers will focus on leveraging current technologies that will deliver immediate results. "What you'll see this year is Wal-Mart keeping a very stiff upper lip, but other retailers will begin to lose interest in RFID," Parker says. "Companies are getting fed up with the efficacy of the [RFID] technology and are concerned about next-generation standards coming out." Retailers will shift their resources to other initiatives and will invest in other technologies, such as wireless terminals, kiosks on the retail floor, and better tools for sales associates, to improve efficiencies at the store level, Parker says.

This prediction strikes me as an overreaction. Too many pilots and initiatives are in the planning stages or underway for retailers and manufacturers to suddenly change course midstream.

What's more, there haven't been enough implementations yet to overreact from.

What we will begin to see is the early stages of reaction that is part of the "hype cycle." Some companies will become disillusioned, but not nearly to the degree predicted, and not nearly in such a short time frame.

The term "hype cycle" was coined by the Gartner Group, and describes the typical throes of the marketplace during a technology adoption cycle spanning --usually -- a number of years. The chart looks like this: