How RFID reliability effects inventory control accuracy

Companies seek to reduce inventory holding and labor cost by utilizing automatic identification technologies such as radio frequency identification (RFIDs). RFIDs are an enabling technology for inventory tracking and have recently become an incurred expense (for some companies) due to mandates from the Department of Defense and large retailers such as Wal-Mart. These organizations envision that use of RFIDs will reduce distribution costs within their respective industries. Pundits suggest that RFIDs allow for real-time inventory control as compared to other auto-id technologies at a reduced cost. However, some implementations of RFID suggest this technology may not be reliable, causing costs increases in the form of excess inventory and labor needed to buffer the technology failures. Herewith, we suggest reliability improvements through quality control techniques so that the purported savings in time and costs can be realized. A method for testing, evaluating and improving RFID reliability is presented for RFID subcomponents, prototyped systems, and implantation environments.