What is the old saying: an army moves on its stomach?

Soon RFID will be required for suppliers to the U.S. military. By January 2005 all of the military's 46,000 suppliers will have to embed passive RFID chips in each individual product if possible, or otherwise at the level of cases or pallets. The policy applies to everything except bulk commodities such as sand, gravel or liquids.

The requirement to use RFID is part of an overall revamping the Pentagon is making of its logistics support. The reasons: to reduce the loss or misplacement of supplies, and to reduce shortages of ammunition, fuel and water.

This article in CNet has some interesting background information about the U.S. Defense Department's use of RFID. About US$100 million has been spent by the Defense Department on RFID over the past decade.

Interestingly, the Defense Department is actually working collaboratively with Wal-Mart, another leader in the use of RFID, on technology standards. This makes sense, since many suppliers may actually supply both the military and Wal-Mart. Standardizing the technology will go a long way toward making the implementation more cost-effective and error proof.