Last half of the article. Whole thing at...
strategypage.com
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"There’s a problem, though. RFID is new, and companies are slow to commit to this new, expensive (if used on a large scale) technology. Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the world, and one of the largest users of information technology, is going into RFID in a big way, and is encountering resistance from its thousands of suppliers. There are so many problems that can be encountered with a new technology. Commercial firms are waiting for someone else to go first. So this year, the U.S. Marine Corps went out and started using RFID. It distributed 600 RFID readers to its world wide network of bases and attached RFID tags to stuff it was sending overseas, especially to places like Afghanistan and Iraq. The marines encountered some problems, but nothing major. The troops love it. When they need to find out where some vital bit of supplies are (a spare part, new equipment, whatever), they just get on the Internet and check the status of the item. When it arrives, it will be a lot easier to find. The marine experience is being closely observed by commercial firms, and will be learned from. Another peace dividend."
Jim |
