During the past 10 days, I’ve made three public RFID appearances. For people who are interested, the presentation slides (in Acrobat format) are available for download from the Big Chief Web site (registration is required).
Here is a summary for each presentation:
Middleware Requirements for Supply Chain Integration
Presented at: RFID World on April 22, 2004
The critical return on investment for RFID tagging will come from intelligent use of captured data. Companies must be able to capture clean data they can use. This will be accomplished with a new kind of software called RFID middleware. Such software manages the flow of data between tag readers and enterprise applications and is responsible for the quality, and therefore usability, of the information. This panel session, which I moderated, defined the scope of RFID middleware and described the key players in this growing space. I was joined by Anurag Mendhekar from Blue Vector Systems, Pam Carpenter from webMethods and Mike Liard from Venture Development Corp.
RFID: 101 to Warp Speed
Presented at: Council on Logistics Management on April 22, 2004
Libraries, schools, the government and private sector businesses are adopting radio frequency identification tags, or RFIDs — a technology that pinpoints the physical location of whatever item the tags are embedded in. While this may seem like a convenient way to track items, it's also a convenient way to do something less benign: track people and their activities through their belongings. This panel presentation offered a high level view of the technology, applications and privacy concerns surrounding the deployment of RFID. I was joined on the panel by Keith Dierkx from Embarcadero Systems and Peter Coleman from Schwab Soundview.
Infrastructure Issues for RFID and GTIN Deployment
Presented at: Global Supply Chain RFID Conference on April 14, 2004
This year many organizations are moving from evaluating the business case for RFID and GTIN to starting plans for full scale deployment. Groups planning deployment face a wide array of choices including competing standards, emerging applications and product offerings from startups and established vendors. Making the wrong choices can increase costs, create delays and force adoption of technologies that may not remain compatible long enough to deliver adequate return on investment. This presentation offered an overview of this complex landscape and described some of the most important issues in RFID and GTIN supply chain deployments. |
