A simulation approach to evaluate the impact of RFID technologies on a CTO environment

In recent years, several companies and researchers focused on evaluating the impacts of Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) technologies on supply chain performance. This paper deals with the introduction of an RFID technology in an entity where printers are Configured-To-Order (CTO). The objective is to evaluate the impact of this technology on system performances such as resource utilization, cycle time and yield. Therefore, we developed a model of discrete event simulation using Automod and we made a comparison between a baseline scenario and an RFID scenario. Results show that RFID shortens cycle times, increases yield, and creates imbalance of processing times that should be corrected by rethinking resource allocation.