Using RFID in Supply Chain Management for Customer Service

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology has been used since the Second World War, recent years it is widely employed in many areas such as highway tolls, in tracking livestock movements, in tracking air freight, medical care, air cargo operations, and in motor car manufacturing [1]-[3]. The year 2003 was crucial for RFID technology since both Wal-Mart and the Department of Defense of U.S.A. announced that they will be using RFID tags for pallets and cases in conducting business with their major suppliers. And even more, Wal-Mart suggested that it would extend the requirements to all of his suppliers by 2006 [4]. Thus, Wal-Mart could readily reduce their time of control and identification process for the suppliers and products. This may eventually lead to the accomplishment of their goal for Quick Response (QR) in their Supply Chain Management (SCM) and allow business to improve their customer relationship management (CRM) as well. In this paper, we discuss how the Radio Frequency Identification technology is used to solve the problems in supply chain management, the advantages of a business adopting RFID, and the relationship between RFID and CRM.