Chris Kapsambelis from Barcode Data Systems, was kind enough to send me a link to an article about some of the practical problems with RFID. The article notes:

"At first glance, passive RFID appears to be a silver bullet that can help DOD meet its goal of efficiently and accurately tracking billons of items that pass through its supply chain.

DOD employees identify items in the department's distribution chain with bar code labels. But bar code readers, which use beams of light to read a label, only work if the beam can reach the label. That means boxes or cases stacked on a pallet need to be unloaded and then scanned individually.

Passive RFID theoretically solves this problem by storing information on a 64- or 96-bit computer chip embedded in a substrate inside a paper tag sandwich that usually sports a printed bar code, too. A reader, either fixed or handheld, beams a low-power signal in the UHF frequency band (860 MHz to 960 MHz) to access information from tags on pallets and the individual cases stacked on those pallets at a range of about 3 feet.

In real-world tests, however, that theory did not meet the predictions."

The article is a little old (dating from May 2005) and since then the Department of Defense did issue their final rule that went into effect November 14, 2005. I am not fluent on exactly where things stand, but I can only assume that some of the early problems outlined in the article were considered overcome -- or else the final rule would not have been passed.

However, the types of problems outlined in the article are not uncommon. They will continue to pop up in other situations.

That's where hiring a skilled RFID consultant comes into play. They know which solutions are the best ones for which situations, and how to improve read rates and accuracy. Field testing is also a crucial part of an implementation, in order to make adjustments to improve accuracy and get better results.

The article may also demonstrate that RFID is not always the right solution at present. As the folks at IdTechEx noted a while back, barcodes, especially today's souped up barcodes, can do the job equally well in some situations.

Still, don't think this means that RFID is not useful -- that it can't bring immense efficiencies and costs savings to the supply chain, asset tracking, pharmaceutical pedigrees, and other uses.

Rather, I think it is a reflection of the fact that our application of RFID technology in supply chain and other business settings is still in relatively early stages.

Consider the early days of mobile phones. They were expensive, big, clunky, the reception was iffy and fraught with quirky eavesdropping and interference problems, batteries were terrible, and advanced features like hold and speaker phone unavailable. Back then, you could buy a landline phone that was smaller, sleeker, cheaper to buy and use, and offered more advanced features than the mobile phone -- as long as you were willing to stay tethered to a cord.

With mobile phones the promise was there. It just took time to improve the equipment, the networks, and the user experience.

And look where we are today. Most of us couldn't live (or operate in business) without mobile phones. Yet, even with the explosive growth in mobile phones, landline phones have not gone away, either. There is a use for both.

I think we are going through a similar type of evolution with RFID and barcodes. Ultimately I don't expect barcodes to die out 100% -- at least not in the foreseeable future. But I see much more potential for RFID to advance and bring us benefits well beyond where we stand today.

Photo credit: BBC.co.uk