RFID applications developing

Filed in archive Market Size on February 8, 2007

Bert Moore, the Editor of RFID Insights newsletter at the AIMglobal website, writes a weekly column that I have come to enjoy considerably.

Some of his more recent columns have been especially interesting -- like the one from January 25, 2007 called "RFID: It's Not for the Birds ... Yet."

In it he makes the point about how fast the uses and applications for RFID are developing, in new and hitherto unseen directions. What was science fiction a few years ago -- or just somebody's wacky idea -- may be attainable or almost attainable today. He writes:

... [W]ith the recent news focus on slower-than-expected adoption in the supply chain, rosy predictions about RFID for pharmaceutical e-Pedigree and speculation on its use for maintenance and repair tracking in aerospace, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that RFID is, indeed, a bit of a "what if" technology.

While it's tempting, and economically necessary, to focus on the applications that offer large scale implementation, it's equally important to examine all the niche applications, the odd ball ideas, for which RFID can provide the only feasible solution.

RFID systems come in so many different versions, and with an increasing number of Add-on features such as sensors, that it often begs for unconventional, out-of-the-box, and "blue sky" thinking.

In fact, RFID has often been called "a solution in search of a problem." To an extent, that's true simply because the technology offers so many possibilities that new ways to use it are constantly being dreamed up. And technical advances are coming at such a rapid pace that today's "impossible requirement" might well be tomorrow's practical application.

There's a lot more to RFID than supply chain applications. In fact, some people suggest that RFID is not even well-suited for most supply chain applications -- that the venerable barcode may be a better choice, at least given our current state of technology capability. And as IDTechEx has been pointing out for a couple of years now, the biggest market for RFID is really outside of supply chain apps.

I recommend you bookmark the AIM Global site and have RFID Insights be part of your regular reading.