production and operations...

Development of an RFID-based TraceabilitySystem: Experiences and Lessons Learned

from an Aircraft Engineering Company

E. W. T. Ngai • T. C. E. Cheng • Kee-hung Lai •P. Y. F. Chai • Y. S. Choi • R. K. Y. Sin

Department of Management and Marketing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University,Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, PR China

Department of Logistics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University,Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, PR China

[email protected] • [email protected] • [email protected] •[email protected] • [email protected] • [email protected]

This paper presents a case study of the research and development of an RFID-based traceabilitysystem in an aircraft engineering company in Hong Kong. We report the system design and

implementation, and discuss our experiences and lessons learned. The aim of the RFID system is toeffectively support the tracking and tracing of aeroplane repairable items in the company. The studyreveals eight critical success factors for the successful implementation of RFID systems, namely, createstrong internal and external motivation for improvement, stir up desire to keep abreast of the latesttechnology for global competitiveness, strive for cross organizational implementation, avoid majorprocess changes/limit process changes, start with a small RFID project scope, facilitate equipmentvendor’s investment, use cost-effectiveness reusable tags, and transfer RFID skills and knowledge fromuniversity to industry. We also summarize 13 lessons learned, including three lessons concerning RFIDimplementation at strategic level, six lessons at management level, and four lessons at operational levelresulting from carrying out this project. Given the contextual details of the study, the lessons learned canhelp other firms to better anticipate the hurdles they will experience, and make them aware of thepossible ways to cope with such difficulties before embarking on the journey of RFID implementation.

Key words: Radio Frequency Identification (RFID); traceability system; case study; critical success factorsSubmissions and Acceptance: Received September 2005; revision accepted April 2006 and August 2006;

accepted October 2006.

1. IntroductionRadio frequency identification (RFID) has been suc-cessfully used in transportation and manufacturingindustries, and its use is growing rapidly as costscome down and benefits are recognized. Yet, there ispaucity of academic studies that reveal the criticalsuccess factors of, and offers lessons learned from,successful real-life implementation of an RFID system.However, there are short cases in trade magazines,vendor leaflets, and white papers from RFID softwareand hardware vendors’ websites, which are mainlyjournalistic and promotional in nature. This studyseeks to fill this gap.

With the rapid development of RFID technology,

academic researchers have become more interested instudying how RFID technology is developed and im-plemented in organizations. The broad adoption ofRFID entails a large investment with significant riskand requires careful planning (Kulwiec 2005). Aimingto address the design and development issues of anRFID system, this paper provides technical details onhow these two issues can be dealt with through thepresentation of a real-life case study, offering a usefulinformation source to researchers and practitionerswith little technical background in RFID technology.

This paper describes the research and developmentof an RFID-based system that could effectively sup-port the tracking and tracing of repairable items in an

POMSPRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENTVol. 16, No. 5, September-October 2007, pp. 554–568issn 1059-1478 � 07 � 1605 � 554$1.25 © 2007 Production and Operations Management Society

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aircraft engineering company. The paper is organizedas follows. In Section 2, we review previous studies onthe application of RFID technology in different do-mains. In Section 3, we present our experience ofactual implementation of an RFID-based traceabilitysystem in an aircraft engineering company in HongKong in the context of a case study. In Section 4, wesummarize the lessons learned, and we reveal in Sec-tion 5, the critical success factors for the successfulimplementation of RFID systems. Finally, we give adetailed discussion of the main findings of this study,and we conclude the paper by proposing potentialareas for further study.

2. Literature ReviewThere are only a few publications on the applicationsof RFID in academic journals. The following presentsa brief review of the few studies that we have found inthe research literature.

Ruff and Hession-Kunz (2001) described the appli-cation of RFID systems for reducing the number ofcollisions in metal/nonmetal mines. They reported ontests conducted on off-the-shelf RFID systems and thesubsequent development of a custom RFID systemthat could be used for both surface and undergroundmining equipment. Karkkainen (2003) discussed thepotential of using RFID technology for increasing theefficiency of a supply chain of products with shortshelf-life. The paper focused on an RFID trial con-ducted at Sainsbury, and analyzed the potential im-pact of RFID on other supply chain participants. Kou-routhanassis and Roussos (2003) described the designand implementation of a prototype system catering toconsumers on the move by using a wirelessly con-nected cart with a display device and an RFID sensorthat detects the objects placed in the cart. They pre-sented the results and implications of the front-endand formative evaluation studies they had conductedof the second-generation pervasive retail system.Smith and Konsynski (2003) explored the applicationsand future commercial impacts of RFID technology.They summarized the ways in which organizationsand academics are thinking about these technologiesto stimulate strategic thinking about their possibleuses and implications. Jones et al. (2004) examinedsome of the issues facing retailers in terms of thewidespread use of RFID tags and the privacy concernsthat are linked to data capture and data usage byretailers and third parties. Ni et al. (2004) presentedLANDMARC, a location sensing prototype systemthat uses RFID technology for locating objects insidebuildings. The major advantage of LANDMARC isthat it improves the overall accuracy of locating ob-jects by utilizing the concept of reference tags. Basedon experimental analysis, they demonstrated that ac-

tive RFID is a viable and cost-effective candidate forindoor location sensing. Prater and Frazier (2005) ex-amined market drivers that are leading to RFID im-plementation in the grocery industry, and proposed aresearch framework that includes research using mod-eling techniques, RFID implementation, and the im-pact of RFID on daily operational issues. Ngai et al.(2007) presented the findings of a case study on thedevelopment of an RFID prototype system that isintegrated with mobile commerce in a container de-pot. A system architecture capable of integrating mo-bile commerce and RFID applications was proposed.The case study illustrated the benefits, highlightedsome of the most important problems and issues, andsuggested directions of RFID applications in containerdepots. Smith (2005) reviewed the applied literatureon RFID, as well as some documented practical expe-rience of using RFID, and presented a basic model ofviewpoints to understand the nature of the emergingRFID-based industry. The purpose of his paper was toprovide management with a sense of importance ofstrategically leveraging the current and historic devel-opment of RFID in order to find inexpensive applica-tions of Radio Frequency technologies in many areas.Song (2006) presented a model of the current trackingprocess to identify the potential economic benefitsfrom using RFID technology in the automated track-ing of pipe spools through a long supply chain ofdesign, fabrication, interim processing, delivery, stor-age, installation, and inspection.

From the above literature review, it is observed thatmost of the RFID system research is primarily at theprototype stage. A ”real” system investigation like thepresent study is necessary to demonstrate the success-ful design and development of an RFID system. Be-sides, we also reveal the critical success factors ofsuccessful implementation of an RFID system, andhighlight the lessons we have learned from this casestudy. We believe that an important step towardsadvancing RFID knowledge requires proper under-standing of the technology, and sharing of knowledgeand lessons learned from implementing the technol-ogy in industry.

3. The Case StudyAn in-depth case study of an RFID developmentproject at an aircraft engineering company in HongKong was conducted to explore and identify the char-acteristics of an RFID-based traceability system. Thecase study presents a unique case providing details ofthe design and development of the RFID system.While the single case study has limited generalizabil-ity, it is useful at the initial stage of RFID systemdevelopment. This case study, which allows a com-prehensive examination of the RFID implementation

Ngai, Cheng, Lai, Chai, Choi, and Sin: Development of an RFID-based Traceability SystemProduction and Operations Management 16(5), pp. 554–568, © 2007 Production and Operations Management Society 555

exercise in a natural setting, and gives a full under-standing of the nature and complexity of the phenom-enon, is appropriate when few previous in-depthstudies on RFID implementation have been carriedout (Benbasat 1987).

The case study company provides comprehensiveaeronautical engineering services to airlines and air-line operators in Hong Kong. It also provides a com-prehensive line of heavy aircraft maintenance services,including extensive aircraft component overhaul(COH) support, avionic overhaul (AOH) support, andaircraft on ground (AOG)/aircraft recovery services atthe Hong Kong International Airport at Chek LapKok.

While both Airbus and Boeing are piloting the useof RFID technology for tagging parts and componentsof aircrafts (Violino 2004), the company is consideringmaximizing the efficiency of life-cycle asset manage-ment by tagging containers of repairable items, partsand components, of which maintenance is needed.With the operation of two airline maintenance centres[one located at the Hong Kong International Airport atChek Lap Kok (CLK) and the other at Tseung Kwan O(TKO), a large reclamation area in Hong Kong], thecompany considers there is great potential of applyingRFID technology for improving asset visibility in themaintenance cycle between these two maintenancecentres. Through this case study, we illustrate howRFID can be used to improve the efficiency of thecompany’s internal physical facilities.

The company relies on a traditional manual systemand a partial bar code system (which scans the barcode on the paperwork that accompanies each part) torecord the receipt and sending out of repairable itemsto the maintenance centers for repair and mainte-nance, which suffers from three major disadvantages:

• The problem of long maintenance cycle for theparts, especially those being repaired at TKO,where the parts are repaired in different work-shops. Currently, there is no system to keep trackof and trace the parts in the workshops, and howlong the parts stay in each workshop.

• The monitoring and tracking systems are inade-quate for the maintenance of repairable items, somanagement finds it difficult to keep track of therequest process of maintenance.

• The inputting to the repair order (RO) record ofthe arrival of repairable items at the TKO centremay be delayed as it is done manually. There is nosystematic way of recording item arrivals, andthere is inefficient record handling of the items tobe sent back to CLK.

3.1. Research QuestionsA research question evidently arises from these disad-vantages. Can IT be used to improve this situation?

What kinds of technologies would be most appropri-ately employed to tackle the problems? With thesequestions in mind, we propose a solution to the exist-ing manual and partial bar code system. The proposedsolution takes the form of an RFID-based traceabilitysystem using passive ultrahigh frequency (UHF) tech-nology. The passive UHF system enables repairableitem parts to be tracked automatically as they arereceived, and as they move from CLK to TKO, andvice versa. The use of an RFID-based traceability sys-tem is motivated by the goals of increasing the internalefficiency of the maintenance centers, reducing thecost of receiving repairable parts, capturing records ofrepairable parts in the inventory databases with re-duced errors, and improving the management of theinventory of expensive airplane repairable parts.

3.2. Research ObjectivesThis project aims at designing and developing anRFID-based traceability system for the repairableitems in the company for its maintenance facilities atboth CLK and TKO, with a view to reducing themaintenance cycle between CLK and TKO. Specifi-cally, the project objectives are stated as follows:

• Enhance operational efficiency and asset visibilityin the maintenance cycle between CLK and TKO;

• Enable the automatic verification of items to betransported (i.e., pallets will have the correct con-tents and will be loaded into the correct loca-tions);

• Provide the company with a deeper insight intothe potential of developing an RFID-based trace-ability system for repairable items, ensuring andillustrating that such a system is workable in thecompany environment before full-scale adoption;

• Keep the company abreast of the latest develop-ment of RFID technology, so as to make the com-pany stay in the vanguard of the internationalcomprehensive aeronautical engineering industryin terms of technology and innovation.

3.3. Case AnalysisIn undertaking this project, the company aims at min-imizing the delay and eliminating the occurrence oftemporary items loss due to its inherent inability totrack items in the maintenance life cycle. In order toachieve these purposes, asset visibility in the mainte-nance cycle has to be improved. There are two main-tenance sites in Hong Kong, which are located at ChekLap Kok (CLK) and Tseung Kwan O (TKO), respec-tively. The repairable items are transported from theCLK office to the TKO workshop, and then shippedback to the CLK office when the job is completed. Thecompany has found that it is not easy to identifyproblems in the maintenance cycle with the existingsystem without RFID technology to keep track of

Ngai, Cheng, Lai, Chai, Choi, and Sin: Development of an RFID-based Traceability System556 Production and Operations Management 16(5), pp. 554–568, © 2007 Production and Operations Management Society

where the parts are. With an RFID-based tracing sys-tem, locations of the parts are easily tracked, andhence, the repair status of the parts is instantly knownand updated.

3.3.1. Highlights of Implementation of RFID-based Traceability System. The following providesthe case analysis, which is organized chronologicallyaccording to the three main phases of RFID develop-ment that are commonly followed in traditional casestudies (Dyer and Wilkins 1991). The three mainphases are (1) project scoping and planning, (2) busi-ness process analysis, and (3) implementation.

3.3.1.1. Project Scoping and Planning. The tasks ofthis phase consist of the following facets: project scop-ing, problem definition, and forming a steering com-mittee to guide the development effort.

Project Scoping and Problem DefinitionA clear project scope and definition of the problemsimplify the tasks significantly and help generate aproductive program. From our initial field study andinterviews with the management, we found that theexisting problem in the company is the long mainte-nance cycle for the parts, especially those being re-paired at TKO, where parts are repaired in differentworkshops. Most of the RO record handling is con-ducted manually, and the monitoring and trackingsystems are inadequate for the maintenance of repair-able items.

Forming a Steering CommitteeForming a steering committee as a decision-makingbody of an RFID project is an important step towardsdeployment. System development should involve rep-resentatives from each department in which the pro-posed system will be used. Since RFID system imple-mentation will impact on operations, it is essential thatthe company engages the key players in operations. Inthis case, the RFID consultants from a local university,the management information system (MIS) team of thecompany, and operations staff were put together todrive the project. The company team was responsiblefor formulating user requirements for implementa-tion, while the team of consultants was responsible forbusiness process analysis, technology evaluation andselection, and the implementation of the RFID system.Appropriate management approvals were obtainedfrom senior management and budget was secured toconduct the study.

3.3.1.2. Business Process AnalysisConduct Business Process Evaluation

It is essential that the researchers understand the cur-rent business processes and how the new businessprocesses related to RFID will work before they makeany changes. This ensures that the company can safelychange the operations environment. It is also crucialthat all business processes are fully documented. In

this case, in order to have a comprehensive under-standing of the existing processes of the company’sitem repair business, the project team made severalvisits to the CLK and TKO sites. Inhouse informationand documents were obtained, and the project teamtried to identify the critical areas that have majorimpacts on business performance and offer opportu-nities for improvement.

Perform a Small-Scale Proof-of-Concept TestingAfter understanding and documenting the businessprocess, the next step before starting a trial is to per-form some small-scale proof-of-concept testing. Beforestarting a trial, small-scale proof-of-concept testingwas performed. In the testing, tagged boxes wereloaded on the metal cage in a random manner as inreal life. A temporary gate attaching several antennasin different orientations was set up. The metal cagewas pushed to pass the gate and the read rate (thenumber of tags read per total number of tags attachedon the RO items in each passage) was recorded. Theangles of the antennas, the distance between the an-tennas, the speed of passing the gate, etc., were ad-justed to obtain different sets of results. Some softwareprototypes were also developed and evaluated inproof-of-concept testing. The prototypes included thepart of tag association and disassociation. The systemwould run on the .NET platform for windows, so allthe program sources were coded in a .NET compatiblelanguage, mainly C#.NET. Microsoft Visual Studio.NET 2003 was used for the IDE, while configurationfiles were prepared in XML format.

3.3.1.3. Implementation. In this phase, software andhardware are acquired, developed, and tested. Thematerials of the items to be tagged were carefullystudied, which are the containers for the repairableparts. For each read point, the desired read range, readreliability, and read redundancy were designed. Thereare two types of read points in the operation. One isfor the association or disassociation of the tag with thetag data in the database system. The requirement ofthis type of read point is simple as it will read one tagat a time only, and the operator will interact with thereader directly via a system console. The read range iswithin 0.5 meter. As only one tag is read at a time, theread reliability need not be 100%, as any error can becorrected by the operator via the system console.

For the RFID gate door and tags, different readersand tags were evaluated and a Symbol’s AR400 readerwith high performance antennas and dual dipole tagswere chosen, because this is the only combination thatcan archive a 100% read rate at the gate door witharound 50 to 60 tags passing through at walkingspeed. As all the tags were preprinted and would berecycled, no printer was required.

As the operation involves two sites in different geo-graphic locations, the middleware was also designed


to be deployable at multiple sites and connected to thecore application. Web Services was also used for inte-gration with the company’s internal systems. An im-port interface was also designed for the importation ofRO data from Cathay Pacific (CX)’s ultra main system.Figure 1 presents the system architecture of an RFID-based traceability system.

The architectural framework of the RFID-basedtraceability system comprises five layers, namelyRFID Data Capturing Front End System, RFID DataCapturing and Filtering Module, Processing Modules,Workflow Engine, and Core Application, which arenecessary to ensure smooth operation of all the activ-ities performed by the actors in the aircraft part itemsrepairing process. Individual components of the sys-tem are illustrated as follows:

1. RFID Data Capturing Front End System. It isresponsible for supporting the process of repairingaircrafts. There should be different data capturingfront-end RFID systems to capture/update the neces-sary information, such as to/from the RFID tags stuckto the RO items/containers/pallets.

2. RFID Data Capturing and Filtering Module. Thismodule serves as middleware between the ProcessingModules and the RFID data capturing front end system.

It provides synchronization of the data between the Pro-cessing Modules and the RFID Systems. The data in-clude the timestamp, reader, and antenna identity (ID),etc. The major function of the middleware is to capture,filter, and accumulate RFID data from the RFID systems,write the data to RFID tags, and finally report the data tothe Processing Modules. The capturing of real-time datacould be achieved synchronously or asynchronouslythrough different types of RFID readers.

3. Processing Modules. These modules capture fil-tered RFID data and provide general functions, suchas the tracking and tracing of repair order (RO) items/pallets, which could be used by the aircraft itemsrepairing process. In order to fulfill the data qualityrequirements of the aircraft items repairing workflowprocesses, data should be processed, packaged, andtransformed into useful information according tosome predefined rules. The Processing Modules in-clude two submodules:

i. Track and Trace Module. This module couldtrack and trace different RO items by obtaining real-time information such as in/out direction in the re-pairing processes.

ii. Data Monitoring and Alerting Module. Thismodule provides real-time data monitoring features

Figure 1 System Architecture of the RFID-based Traceability System.


such as the idle time of items and the detection ofabnormal repairing work flow procedures. If the mod-ule detects the occurrence of any mistake or error, itwould generate an alert to the system for furtheraction.

4. Workflow Engine. It provides the algorithm andrepairing workflow logic based on existing businessrules, supporting the processing modules. This alsoincludes the .NET web service Application Interface(API) for integration with the company’s internal sys-tems.

5. Core Application. It provides four user interfacesfor different business actors to use the system.

i. Associate object interface. It is for dispatch op-erators, dispatch riders, progress staff (CLK), progressstaff (TKO), and inspection staff to associate/disasso-ciate items/pallets/boxes with the tags.

ii. Shipping interface. It is for dispatch staff, dis-patch operators, production staff, and AOH/COH/O2 staff to report the status of the items to thesystem.

iii. Tracking interface. It is for supply staff and allthe company management level staff to trace theitems’ locations and analyze the data to identify pro-cess bottlenecks, support quality control, report pro-cess lead time, and estimate the lead times of similarprocesses, etc.

iv. Admin interface. It is for the MIS system admin-istrator to monitor the status of the readers, presetalarm with email alert to the administrator, configurewhich read point is associated with which process,add and remove read points, etc.

4. Experiences for Sharing fromImplementation

4.1. Technical and Deployment Issues andConcerns in Field Trial

Speed EffectOne of the challenges during the testing and tuningphase was that the cages/pallets passed through thegate door at different speeds. Sometimes, the opera-tors would push the cages/pallets faster and some-times slower, at their own pace. For the RFID system,the higher the speed at which the tag travels, the lessthe time power is available to each tag. If a tag cannotobtain enough power, it will not be able to send backsignals to the reader’s antennas. Therefore, the teamhad to measure the optimal speed for the cages/pal-lets.

Random Tag DirectionAs the operators would put containers in the cages/pallets randomly, the direction of tags is uncontrolla-ble. It is very difficult to tune the antennas’ directionso that it can read tags of different orientations per-

fectly. In this case study, we designed a special tag onthe container to alleviate the problem.

Multipath EffectMultipath occurs when radio waves emitted from asingle source take different routes (paths) to the samereceiver. In such a case, interference of waves occursand the waves are either ”in phase”, where construc-tive interference occurs resulting in performance en-hancement, or ”180 degrees out of phase”, where de-structive interference occurs resulting in a missed readopportunity. The multipath effect has a particularlysignificant impact on tags applied to metallic surfaces.Radio frequency is reflected at metallic surfaces creat-ing a longer path relative to the signals that are notreflected by the product. Therefore, the team sug-gested having as few metallic materials as possible atpoints where readers were set up.

Form Factor of TagSize—For different applications, the requirements ofthe sizes of the tags will be different. In this case, thecompany does not mind using tags of larger sizes.Therefore, the team could design tags of larger sizesbut with better performance even in a metallic envi-ronment.

Shape—In this study, the tags sealed with a hardplastic case are put in a plastic bag that would beattached to a container. Therefore, the shape of the taghas to fit the size of the plastic bag.

Protection—In some harsh environments, such astagging of items in manufacturing plants, the tags arerequired to be protected by packaging them with plas-tic protection. In the case study, the tags are alsoprotected by plastic casing to ensure that they wouldnot be damaged during the transportation of the re-pairable items.

We observe from this case study that any RFIDimplementation effort is likely to be plagued by thefollowing deployment issues.

1. Lack of Local RFID Expertise for DeploymentA recent survey by the Computing Technology Indus-try Association revealed that 80% of the respondingcompanies said there are not sufficient numbers ofskilled RFID professionals. Two-thirds of the compa-nies said training and educating their employees onRFID technology is one of the biggest challenges theyface in order to succeed in the RFID market (Morrison2005). We believe that the problem is more serious inAsian countries. In Hong Kong, there is a lack ofstrong expertise in RFID technology deployment. Lo-cal large-scale deployments are usually made by for-eign companies. It is difficult to find local experts inthe RFID field with large-scale deployment experi-ence. At present, only a few local universities offershort RFID courses. We hope that more local univer-sities will offer expanded RFID and related curriculain the future.


2. Lack of Technology Support from Local VendorsThere is also a lack of local RFID solutions fordeployment. At present, both RFID hardware andsoftware in Asian markets are mainly from the U.S.Although RFID solutions are from foreign vendorswith the support of local distributors, which pro-vide limited technical assistance, as most of theirstaff are marketing oriented. We found that mostRFID hardware providers in Asian markets lacktechnical support staff, and their RFID teams mainlyconsist of salesmen and marketing staff. This is dueto the fact that RFID is an emerging technology inmost Asian countries.

3. The Standard ProblemThe RFID industry has been mainly using two dif-ferent proposed standards. One is being developedby the International Organization for Standardiza-tion (ISO), widely used in Europe. The other is theElectronic Product Code (EPC) system, which isbeing commercialized by EPCglobal (GS1), a non-profit organization set up by EAN International andthe Uniform Code Council. The lack of global stan-dards for RFID implementation is a deploymentissue also. Although EPCglobal has defined theglobal standard for RFID, most of the standards arestill not ready for deployment. For example, al-though the EPC generation-2 tag standard has beenratified, there is no such tag in the market at thistime. On the software side, all the standards havenot been ratified yet. In this case, we used Class-0tags (read only; factory programmed), and readersthat follow the EPC standard. However, for thesoftware, the team had to design and develop cus-tomized software.

4. Hardware PerformanceFor most cases, the critical problem of RFID deploy-ment is hardware performance. As the technology isnot mature yet, it is difficult for users to guaranteethat a tag can be read if multiple tags are read at thesame time. The performance of hardware productsin the market varies and a lot of efforts need to bedevoted to hardware evaluation and testing. Also,the performance of RFID system varies in differentenvironments. The solution is to tightly integratethe hardware equipment with the software system.The software system should be able to correct anyproblems due to unreliable data captured via RFID.

5. RFID MiddlewareThe middleware for most RFID systems in the mar-ket has not advanced and reached the stage of”plug-and-play”, which means that initial adopterswill have to expend considerable time and effort onintegrating an RFID system with their existing busi-ness processes.

5. Critical Success Factors ofDeveloping the RFID-basedTraceability System

The successful implementation of RFID project at theaircraft engineering company depends on a set ofcritical success factors (CSFs). To avoid repeating fa-miliar factors that have often been cited in traditionalinformation systems development such as top man-agement support, training, etc., we just present themost important and distinctive CSFs of the RFID sys-tem reported in this case. We categorize the CSFs intofour dimensions, namely (1) high organizational mo-tivation for improvement, (2) implementation process,(3) cost control, and (4) effective university-industryinteraction.

1. High organizational motivation for improvementand competitivenessThis dimension comprises the following two CSFs:

• CSF1: Strong internal and external motivation forimprovement

The project was initiated by the Material and SupplyDepartment of the case company. The department hasa high motivation to enhance operational efficiencyand asset visibility in the maintenance cycle betweenCLK and TKO, and to enable the automatic verifica-tion of items to be transported between the two main-tenance centers.

There are also requests from external customers toprovide visibility in the maintenance process. It wasdifficult to meet customers’ requests to update themon the status of their items in the maintenance process,as there was no automatic way to keep track of thestatus and locations of items. With the RFID technol-ogy becoming more mature, the customers are alsosuggesting the company to improve the visibility ofthe maintenance lifecycle using RFID technology.

• CSF2: Strong motivation to keep abreast of thelatest technology for global competitiveness

Global competition has exerted tremendous pressureon the company to keep abreast of the latest develop-ments in RFID technology to ensure that it keeps upwith best practices in the aviation industry, e.g., Air-bus, Boeing (Violino 2005), Virgin Atlantic Airways(Swedberg 2005), etc., are using RFID technology totrack their inventory of airplane parts. The successfulimplementation of innovative ideas and technologieswill keep the company at the forefront of technologyand innovation adoption in the aviation industry, thusenabling it to continue to deliver superior value to itsclients.

2. Implementation process efficiencyThis dimension focuses on the implementation pro-cess of the RFID project. The CSFs are related to man-aging the RFID system, which can greatly contribute


to the success of implementation. We discuss the im-plementation issues as follows.

• CSF3: Cross organizational implementationThe implementation team for the RFID system con-sisted of three parties: the MIS team, the operationteam, and the university’s consulting team. The im-plementation was led by the consulting team with thecompany’s management support. The consulting teamfirst secured top management’s buy-in for the RFIDimplementation. Afterwards, it was necessary to workwith the staff from the MIS department. It was alsonecessary to ensure they understand that the newsystem would not be an overhead for the MIS team,and that it would benefit the company’s operations.Initially, there was a lot of disagreement on systemimplementation issues because the RFID system mightnot be able to be integrated easily with the company’sinternal systems. The MIS team was also concernedabout how they could maintain the system after thesystem is handed over upon successful implementa-tion.

In order to solve the problems, the consulting teamfirst arranged technical tutorials on RFID for the MISteam to ensure that they understand what RFID is. Ameeting was then set up to discuss how the systemshould be implemented to ensure that it can be easilyintegrated with the company’s internal systems. Therewere disagreements such as the software solution ofthe RFID system was not using the same program-ming language as that used by the company’s internalsystems. The consulting team then proposed the Ser-vice Oriented Architecture (SOA), which makes use ofWeb Services to interface with the company’s internalsystems. The consulting team also prepared some casestudies that show that the SOA approach has beenused by many enterprise systems to solve the integra-tion problem.

The MIS team was also invited to get involved in thesystem design by defining which real-time data are tobe obtained from the proposed RFID system to help intheir data analysis process. Finally, all the major issueswere resolved, and the university team prepared adetailed system architecture and functional specifica-tions and presented them to the MIS team. Both teamsagreed on the implementation approach to ensure thatthe implementation could be carried out smoothly.

For the operation team, it is relatively difficult to letthe operation staff understand the technical details ofRFID. Most of them do not understand what RFID isand how it can help the operation. Some operatorsdeemed RFID as a tool for the company to monitortheir daily jobs. Also they thought the new processflow may increase their workload, and thus were re-luctant to accept changes in their business processes.To solve the problem, similar to the approach taken tohandle the IT team, the consulting team first provided

tutorials on RFID to the operation staff of the com-pany.

• CSF4: Avoid major process changes/Limit pro-cess changes

Organizations, groups or individuals resist changesthat they perceive may threaten them. It is best toavoid changes to existing business operations pro-cesses. In this case, given the automation of existingbusiness operations, we tried to avoid making majorchanges or limit the changes to existing processes.Since RFID implementation is new to most of compa-nies and their operation staff, and the case company iswithout exception, most of the operation staff werereluctant to accept the process changes suggested inour pilot study. Bearing this in mind in the implemen-tation, we showed to the operation staff that therewould be few or no formal changes to the processes,except that the small inevitable changes involved onlya few new steps of adding/removing tags to/from theitems/objects in the business operations processes.

3. Effective cost controlThis project started with a limited budget as the man-agement of the case company would like to limit theinvestment before seeing the actual benefits. Thisposed a great challenge to the research team as RFIDimplementation requires RFID equipment, softwareintegration, and human resources to carry out theanalysis of the business process study.

• CSF5: Start with a small RFID project scope“Think globally, act locally”. For RFID implementa-tion, it is ideal to consider a company-level project andlimit the implementation to no more than eight readpoints with one or two warehouses/maintenance cen-ters. In order to show the real benefits from the project,the consulting team first worked with the operationteam to limit the scope of the study by identifying thecritical points at which the RFID read points can beadded to reap the greatest benefits. By limiting thescope, the number of read points was reduced fromaround twenty to five only, excluding the processpoints inside the workshop. This was proposed as thescope of the first phase of the RFID implementationeffort under way. We found that it is best to start workwith a comprehensive straightforward RFID initiative,which will serve as the foundation for a widely de-ployed RFID network.

• CSF6: Equipment vendor’s investmentCurrently, RFID equipment is still very expensive. Tofurther limit the cost outlay of the project, the consult-ing team identified an RFID equipment vendor andnegotiated with it to get involved in the project. Byletting the vendor understand the project backgroundand the future plan for a large-scale deployment of theRFID system, the consulting team successfully per-suaded the vendor to collaborate on the project byloaning RFID equipment to the case company on the


understanding that the latter would consider buyingthe loaned equipment, and possibly other pertinentsupport facilities, after successful implementation ofthe system. The consulting team also requested thecase company to provide spare servers and computersystems for the implementation. This greatly reducedthe hardware cost required for the project.

• CSF7: Use of cost-effectiveness reusable tagsItem-level tagging is arguably the final hurdle of RFIDdeployment. From a practical standpoint, item-leveltagging is fraught with challenges. Cost-effectivenessis one of the key issues. In this case, reusable tags wereused for the RFID system, which achieved a 100% readrate at item level tagging. While reusable tags aregenerally more expensive than one-use tags, they aremeant to be used for multiple times and so are lessexpensive per RFID read or event.

4. Effective university-industry interaction throughundertaking collaborative research projectsCompanies tend to employ independent consultantsto lead them through projects on RFID deployment.This is typically because no one in the company hasthe requisite expertise in RFID technology and appli-cation experiences, while busy staff in the companycannot devote full-time effort to take care of the RFIDinitiatives. In this case, consultancy services were pro-vided by a local university. Collaboration with theuniversity consultants provides the case companywith a cost-effective means to learn and pick up ap-propriate RFID technology that fits its purposes at alower cost and with less inherent risk. A trustful rela-tionship, i.e., the case company is confident that itspartner, the university consultants, will perform asexpected, is particularly crucial to the success of theproject.

• CSF8: RFID skills and knowledge transferUniversity-industry partnerships/collaboration repre-sents an organizational form designed to integratedisparate pools of expertise and resources. In thisproject, we leveraged knowledge, learning and inno-vation in forming university-industry partnershipsfrom different research fields such as electronic engi-neering, logistics management, and IT. University-in-dustry collaboration also provides a way to transfer

skills, knowledge and technologies to a greaterbreadth and depth than would normally be possiblethrough internal development. For universities, thebenefits include private funding support for researchas a result of technology transfer activities (Barnes2002). The collaboration was managed effectively andmaximum benefits were achieved upon the successfulimplementation of the traceability system in the com-pany with the corresponding smooth transfer of RFIDknowledge and skills from the university to the com-pany. With the research team’s expertise and experi-ence in RFID implementation, strong trust was builtbetween the company and university teams.

Based on the above discussions of CSFs of developingRFID systems, we summarize all the CSFs in Table 1.

6. Some Lessons LearnedRFID is an enabling technology, as illustrated in thiscase study, that a company can adopt to enhance assetvisibility and improve operations, like improving re-ceiving and picking accuracies, and reducing humanerrors in handling repairable items by automation.There are several lessons that can be learned from thefindings of the successful implementation of the RFID-based traceability system in our case study company.Table 2 provides a summary of the “lessons learned”at strategic, management, and operational levels. Thelessons learned (LL) from carrying out this project areelaborated in the following:

Strategic ConsiderationsThree lessons concern RFID implementation at strate-gic level:

• LL1: Identify the advantages and return on investment(ROI)

Advantages and ROI should be identified first. Manycompanies are at a wait-and-see stage and are movingcautiously towards RFID adoption due to the absenceof clear first-mover advantages and the complexity ofthe technology. We suggest that companies analyzepotential applications with respect to the main criteriaof creating potential added value to business and thedegree of difficulty to cope with. For this project, wesee that the reported RFID-traceability system yielded

Table 1 The CSFs of RFID Implementation

CSFs Dimensions Details of CSF

CSF1 Strong organizational motivation Strong internal and external needCSF2 Keep abreast of the latest technologyCSF3 Implementation process efficiency Cross-organizational implementationCSF4 Avoid major process changes/Limit process changesCSF5 Effective cost control Start with a small RFID project scopeCSF6 Equipment vendor’s investmentCSF7 Use of cost-effective reusable tagsCSF8 Effective university-industry interaction RFID skills and knowledge transfer


a number of advantages, which provided strong in-centives for implementation. The advantages of theRFID-based traceability system can be found in theSection 7.

An RFID system initiative takes time, financial re-sources, and commitment. The roll out of the applica-tions and the scale up of the RFID network are usuallybased on a target ROI or key business metric related toadvantages and impact. To identify the advantagesand ROI, we suggest users to identify high valueassets and tools in their operations. Savings from in-ventory reduction and better tools utilization amongmultiple departments can be huge for high value as-sets and tools. For this project, most of the itemstagged are of high values, and thus, it is not difficultfor the implementation to have a positive ROI. It isalso suggested that users pay attention to the laborcost savings and operation lead time reduction. RFIDcan help streamline manufacturing and supply chainoperations, thus reducing labour cost and operationlead time. On the other hand, it is also important toidentify the tag cost and reader cost, which are keydrivers in ROI analysis. The cost of tag can be one ofthe largest costs for an RFID implementation. There-fore, if the tags are reusable, the cost can be greatlyreduced. There are also some advantages that may notdirectly contribute to ROI and may not be applicableto all industries. For example, RFID may help facilitateregulatory compliance or may help in threat detectionof a company’s operations.

• LL2: Determine the business value and the scopeAny implementation effort should be driven by busi-ness values. A clear business rationale for deployingRFID technology is essential. Identifying the businessproblem is a critical step in RFID project deployment.The project team should identify the business unitsand processes for inclusion in the business case forRFID implementation. In our case study, the objectiveswere to improve efficiency of the maintenance opera-

tions and shorten the maintenance life cycle by iden-tifying potential bottlenecks in operations, and confin-ing the scope of the study to the two maintenancecentres at TKO and CLK. The best way is to start witha small scope because the lessons learned from thesuccess of a small project can be easily transferred to acompany-wide RFID implementation project. Thebusiness case must reflect current practices and realizeoperational realities. For example, in this case, rotatingcages with RFID tagged pallets were eventually aban-doned by management as they would adversely affectoperation flows.

• LL3: Choose the right partnersAnother key lesson learned is that the project partnerfor RFID implementation should be chosen based ontheir actual experience and proven capabilities. AsRFID is a relatively new technology with a promisingfuture, many companies try to launch new services orproducts that are related to RFID. However, thesecompanies may neither have the actual experience ofRFID implementation nor industry specific knowl-edge. As various RFID frequencies and standards areavailable in the market, it is anticipated that the part-ner/vendor can support multiple RFID frequenciesand standards. In this case study, the university con-sultancy team has strong expertise in IT project man-agement, transportation logistics, as well as RFIDtechnology. In addition, leveraging of the hardwarepartner’s expertise in radio frequency engineering alsocontributed to the success of the RFID project.

Management ConsiderationsThe way in which the process of developing and im-plementing an RFID system is managed can greatlyinfluence the success of system implementation. Thefollowings are some lessons based on managementconsiderations learned from this case study.

• LL4: Secure top management supportSecure top management support is essential. Like any

Table 2 Some “Lessons Learned” at Strategic, Management, and Operational Levels

LessonsLearned (LL) Considerations Details of lessons learned

LL1 Strategic Level Identify the advantages and return on investment (ROI)LL2 Determine the business value and the scopeLL3 Choose the right partnersLL4 Management Level Secure top management supportLL5 Understand the top management requirements and needsLL6 Get managers know that RFID is not a magical technologyLL7 Obtain management and user commitment and understanding on the RFID systemLL8 Adapt of the top-down approachLL9 Leverage available knowledge and experienceLL10 Operational Level Perform a small-scale proof-of-concept testingLL11 Carry out tags performance evaluationLL12 Use standard hardware and software system and appropriate standardLL13 Examine radio frequency reflecting and absorbing materials


other projects, top management support is a must forsuccess. Obtaining management and executive sup-port is the first step towards success as management’scommitments of time, personnel and resources are keyto any project’s success. It is critical that managementhas confidence in the implementation, because theyare the ones who make the final decisions. In this case,both the company and system solutions provider werecommitted to applying an innovative technology toimprove the company’s operational efficiency. Fromour case study, we also found that with top manage-ment taking the initiative to embark on a project, thelikelihood of project success significantly increases.

In order to secure management support, it is sug-gested an RFID needs assessment be performed by amultifunctional RFID team comprising representa-tives from different departments such as operations,IT, distribution, etc. Having the team review the “painpoints” that RFID may help solve, then present theRFID initiative to senior management with concreteobjectives and milestones of the project, senior man-agement would have a clear picture of how RFID canbring value to the company and provide strong sup-port in seeing that the project is worth investing.

• LL5: Understand top management’s requirements andneeds

It is essential to understand top management’s re-quirements and needs. Sometimes the organizationalbackground of a company will influence manage-ment’s expectation of the results from field trials. Inthis project, the case company is one with a strongengineering background, and management expectsmore scientific justifications, sufficient data support,and in-depth explanations on both practical and the-oretical aspects in field trials to fulfill their expecta-tions. It seems that management will be more ready tobuy in when they are provided with more objectivedata and facts to support and justify the proposal oforganization-wide RFID implementation.

• LL6: Get managers know that RFID is not a magicaltechnology

It is necessary to let line, unit managers, and seniormanagers know that RFID is not a magical technologythat makes everything happen automatically once tagsand readers are installed. Overexpectations can lead todisappointment of the managers, especially in initialapplications. It is important to convince managementof the difficulty in achieving a 100% read rate at theitem level. If people expect quick, large savings fromRFID technology but do not get them, they will with-draw their support for such ventures. The same prob-lem can also be found on the user side. In this project,the company staff all expected that there should be100% accuracy in reading RFID tags, which sometimesis not feasible in practice. A lot of efforts were ex-pended on explaining the technology and educating

the users. Executive level training on RFID concepts,best practices, and case studies should be provided tomanagers. This ensures that managers will not over-estimate the benefits of RFID system. Besides, man-agement should understand that the RFID system canprovide visibility to business processes. However,such visibility can only identify potential problems inthe processes. Further studies are required to come upwith solutions for the identified problems

• LL7: Get management and user commitments andunderstanding of the RFID system

Sometimes the organizational culture of a companymay be so hostile to innovations that it makes it dif-ficult to introduce RFID technology. If the attitudes oforganizational members are poor towards attempts tointroduce RFID technology, then introducing newRFID technology will be more difficult. In this case, wehad to gain management and user commitments to theproject during the stages of development and instal-lation to ensure that everyone understand the prob-lems the system was designed for addressing, and thatthe system was developed to solve the target prob-lems, and know the benefits of the system.

• LL8: Adaptation of the top–down approachThe RFID-based traceability system reveals and makesthings transparent in workflow processes. In the casestudy, the RFID implementation ensured clear respon-sibilities among different departments involved in theoperation. When an item is lost, it is much easier totrack which department would be responsible for thedelay or loss. As responsibilities became much clearer,some operations staff were reluctant to change as theentire process could be easily monitored. They mayforesee more control and more accountability. There-fore, a top–down approach must be used to enforcethe changes.

• LL9: Leverage available knowledge and experienceThe implementation team should also leverage avail-able knowledge and experience to minimize trials-and-errors. In this case, the company team leveragedthe RFID expertise of the consultants from a localuniversity in RFID implementation, including thedesign and development of the RFID system, andconducting antenna patterning tests, and reader per-formance tests. The hardware vendor’s scientificknowledge was too leveraged with respect to per-forming the tag characterization tests and the reader’sRF safety tests.

Operational ConsiderationsThe next four lessons concern RFID implementation atoperational level. Based on the case study, these les-sons help facilitate carrying out the RFID implemen-tation.

• LL10: Perform small-scale proof-of-concept testingBefore starting a trial, small-scale proof-of-concept


testing should be performed. It is also important thatthe system be tested in environments that are similarto the real operational environment. In this case, theteam used the cages, containers, and items that areactually used in the production environment for test-ing. However, it was not possible to perform the testsat the defined read points. Therefore, the team carriedout a thorough site survey, replicated the environ-ment, clearly defined the necessary test data, and me-ticulously recorded all the test data. Deploy testingcovered things like profiling radio frequency interro-gation zones out of various antennas. Application test-ing included understanding reader configurations fora dock door.

To perform small-scale proof-of-concept testing, it issuggested that the implementation team first identifythe critical path in the RFID implementation. For ex-ample, if a 100% item level read rate is the critical, theproof-of-concept should focus on it and ensure thegoals are achievable with comprehensive testing. Formost of the cases, it is necessary to include two readpoints for the proof-of-concept testing with a simpletrack and trace.

• LL11: Carry out tags performance evaluationIt is necessary to determine the variability of tag typesand evaluate the RFID tags at key points before thetags are used in operation. Although RFID technologyis becoming mature, there is still the possibility thatsome of the RFID tags are with defects or damagedduring operation. In this case, tags were evaluatedwhen tags were associated and disassociated withrepairable items, at the start and end points of theoperation. In addition, the vendor should be willing tosign off on the accuracy of tag testing.

To perform tag evaluation, it is suggested differentbrands of tags with different protocols, form factorsand features be tested. The testing environmentshould be free from interference. Different readersshould be used to test the tags. It is also necessary tofind out the percentage of dead tags so that you canestimate what percentage of dead tags exists duringdeployment.

• LL12: Use of standard hardware and software systemsand appropriate standards

The project team implemented the system based onglobal standards and best practices. If a proprietarysystem is used, it may not be possible to use the RFIDequipment developed by different vendors in thesame system. This approach can drive down the totalcost of the system, and ensure scalability and extensi-bility for future expansion. For different industriesand applications, different standards could be used.For example, for supply chain applications, it is rec-ommended that the EPC standard be used as it is anaccepted standard for product identification around

the world, and it can uniquely identify each item in asupply chain.

• LL13: Examine radio frequency reflecting and absorb-ing materials

Both metallic items and liquid material items affect theperformance of an RFID system. Metallic items are themost likely to be radio frequency reflecting while liq-uid material items like water, liquid, and others, areradio frequency absorbing. In this case study, thegreatest technical challenge was the metallic environ-ment, as some of the containers carrying airplane re-pairable parts are made of metal. It was very difficultto achieve a 100% read rate, even in the controlled testenvironment. It is understandable that UHF with ashorter wavelength has a worse effect of diffractioncompared with High Frequency (HF). Therefore, it isvery difficult to read tags attached to containers thatare put in cages or on pallets in random positions. Inthe case environment, many of the repairable itemscontained conductive materials. The items were put incontainers that may also be partially metallic. Thecages that contained the containers and the forkliftthat carried the pallets were also metallic. However, itdoes not necessarily mean that it is impossible toapply RFID for such an environment. With a specialcustomized tag design and repeatable testing of angleadjustments in the operation, and the help of a cus-tomized work flow system, this problem was solved.

In order to examine radio frequency reflecting andabsorbing materials, it is suggested that the environ-ment that will cause interference of RF signals beidentified. Some examples of causes of interferenceinclude conveyor belts, wireless LAN, electronic mo-tors, etc. The composition of the items to be tagged hasto be examined as well. It is also necessary to examinethe environment at different time in different weatherconditions as the RFID equipment’s performance maydeteriorate with high humidity. With these factorsexamined, you may determine whether an array ofreaders and antennas would be needed for the partic-ular environment under investigation.

7. Conclusions and Further StudyThis paper described the research and development ofan RFID-based system that could effectively supportthe tracking and tracing of repairable items in anaircraft engineering company, and discussed theirbenefits and advantages. Hopefully, the experienceand lessons learned from this study can be sharedwith the reader, and they will be beneficial to organi-zations that are contemplating the implementation ofRFID systems, and to those that are in the throes ofadopting them.

There exists a need for research on RFID develop-ment for business and industry. With the rapid devel-


opment and increased deployment of RFID technol-ogy, academic researchers have become moreinterested in engaging in scholarly investigations ofhow RFID technology is developed and implementedin organizations. At present, users need to be workingwith RFID solution or middleware providers that havedirect experience of customer applications. It is verydifficult to find some robust RFID case studies that arepublicly available in academic journals or privately.The need for RFID academic research was highlightedas a research agenda in Ngai et al. (2007). This area ofresearch is relatively underexplored and may be fruit-ful for further research on the adoption, implementa-tion and deployment of RFID systems in organiza-tions.

Since RFID technology is still relatively new and thecomplete range of its potential is not yet fully known,it is important to examine its proposed and specula-tive uses. Since the development of such a passiveUHF system can require significant resources, it isimportant to understand the benefits up-front and tosolidify the quantification of these benefits (Lee andOzer 2007) before embarking on implementation. Atpresent, the RFID-based traceability system reportedin this study has yielded a number of advantages asfollows:

1. Improving lead timeBy applying RFID technology in the maintenance cy-cle, the company could keep track of the status of eachrepair order. In case an item is delayed due to sched-uling, an alert will be sent, and immediate action canbe taken to correct the problem. The system can alsohelp identify bottlenecks in the maintenance cycle sothat management can focus on solving problems in-stead of finding problems.

2. Competitive differentiationThe company can gain a competitive advantage overits competitors by offering customers timely informa-tion about an item, including its status, estimated jobcompletion time, etc.

3. Saving from reusing RFID tagsIn the RFID system, RFID tags are associated anddisassociated with the repair order for the mainte-nance cycle of each item. This allows the tags to bereused. As the cost of RFID tag is still high nowadays,this can reduce the running cost of the RFID system.

4. Breakthrough productivity by automationIt can automate in/out registration of repairableitems. The RFID system provides the operators witha means to keep track of the status of all the repairorders. They will also be warned if there is anyabnormality. Management can also receive statusreports in a customized format automatically. Thisresults in improved productivity of the maintenanceoperation.

5. Reduce human errors in handling the repairablepartsAs all the repair order related information is trackedby the RFID system, the system would stop operatorsfrom shipping wrong items between the two sites bygiving warnings at each RFID check point. This couldreduce human errors in picking and sending wrongitems, as well as any unauthorized use of them.

6. Improve inventory management of the expensiverepairable partsAs the RFID system provides improved visibility ofeach item within the two sites, the inventory level andthe location of expensive parts can be tracked. Thissaves the time needed to look for replacement parts.With further improvement in the RFID system, theshipping and maintenance schedules can be plannedautomatically. This allows better utilization of replace-ment parts in the maintenance site, thus reducing theinventory level of the parts.

7. Reduce manpower and manual data recordingUnlike bar code and other manual data capture sys-tems, RFID can capture data automatically withouthuman intervention. This reduces the manpowerneeded and human errors during the data capturingprocess.

8. Real time monitoring and access to detailed in-formationThe RFID system also provides real time informationon each item in the maintenance cycle. Detailed infor-mation such as the full history of an item can betracked in the system. Such information can be furtheranalyzed for the improvement of the maintenanceoperation.

9. Reduction of repairable parts lossTemporary loss of items sometimes occurs in themaintenance operation. With the RFID system, wherean item has been sent is tracked, if an item is lost, theoperators can immediately identify the last pointwhere the RFID system tracked the item. With thisinformation, chances of losing an item can be reduced.

10. Improve customer relationshipsWith the RFID system and by opening the tracingapplication to customers, detailed information on re-pairing schedules, repairing status, etc. can be trackedby customers. Such customer services can improvecustomer relationships and attract more new custom-ers.

Although RFID technology is a promising technol-ogy, it is not without challenges in system implemen-tation. The extent to which information systems re-searchers and operations management researcherscollaborate with other disciplines will provide adeeper and more meaningful stream of interdiscipli-nary research in the context of RFID technology. Fromthis study, we propose that further research focus onthe following areas:


• Integration with internal systemsThe integration RFID with a company’s internal sys-tems is challenging. In this case study, the RFID sys-tem was developed as a separate system, which wouldneed to integrate with existing systems. Integration islikely to bring about changes to both the RFID systemand the existing legacy system. In order to minimizechanges to existing systems, a Web services interfacefor the retrieval of RFID captured data was proposedas a solution. A Web Service Definition Language filewas defined for the generation of both Web servicesserver and client server. Software codes were thengenerated and passed to existing internal systems forintegration. Currently, the RFID system provides in-terface for the company’s internal systems to obtaindata from the RFID system. However, we still havenot studied how these data can be used within thecompany’s internal systems. Further study with thecompany’s MIS team would be required so that thecompany can make further use of the RFID data toenhance its internal operations.

• Extending the RFID system to the supply chain part-ners

The maintenance of the repairable items requires col-laboration with their partners, e.g., airlines, and couldeventually be rolled out across the supply chain. Ex-tending the RFID-based system by sharing trackinginformation with the company’s supply chain partnerswould achieve better customer services as reportsbased on consolidated tracking data could be pro-vided.

• Development of analytical models to measure the im-pact

It is desirable to develop analytical models to measurethe impact of RFID technology on the value (Gaukleret al. 2007) and productivity for system development.A better understanding of the RFID system’s impacton the enterprise after its roll out is essential, in par-ticular when considering scaling up the RFID net-work.

• Sustainability of the RFID systemThe sustainability of an RFID system during thepostimplementation period needs looking into, too.There is a lack of a clear understanding of the strategicneeds and requirements for sustaining the effective-ness of large-scale information systems after a periodof relative stability following initial implementation.Sustainability management of RFID is therefore a veryimportant research direction that needs to be exploredto maximize the benefits of an RFID investment.

• Analysis of the data captured using data miningAfter the system is deployed, we can start analyzingthe data captured from the RFID system. Currently,we can only identify when and where bottlenecksoccur in the maintenance cycle. However, the causesof the bottlenecks will need further careful investiga-

tions. Further process studies can be carried out afteranalyzing the captured data to find out the root causesof the problems.

• Standardization in aviation industryAs RFID is becoming mature, aircraft manufacturersmay add RFID tags to parts of the system. In order toallow the whole industry to make use of RFID tags,standards need to be defined. Further studies on howthe existing RFID system can be migrated to followand make use of industry standards is needed toensure that the company can leverage the benefitsfrom industry standards and best practices. Recently,the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration approvedthe use of RFID tags on individual airline parts (Rob-erti 2005).

Understanding the critical success factors, and shar-ing the experiences and lessons learned from this casewill enable managers to be more proactive and betterprepared for RFID system implementation. The expe-rience obtained from this project can be further ana-lyzed and generalized for RFID adoption in othermaintenance facilities such as automobiles, ships, rail-ways, etc. There should be similarities in maintenancefacilities in other industries. Other maintenance facil-ities will also encounter the problems of being unableto identify bottlenecks in their maintenance cycles.Although our research was only for a specific com-pany, there is nothing unique about the environmentof the case study, and thus this approach could begeneralized to any company. We believe that manage-ment should be ready to understand all the potentialimpacts of RFID technology. It may come sooner thanmost of us think it would. Managers should plan theintroduction of this emerging technology after analyz-ing their potential impacts. We believe RFID technol-ogy can change our world. Let us be ready to make thebest of it.

AcknowledgmentsWe are grateful for the constructive comments of the guesteditors and the senior editor. This research was supported inpart by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University under aresearch grant from the Area of Strategic Development inChina Business Services, ”IT for Logistics Management inChina (Grant Number A632)”. We appreciate the ina EliteTechnology Co. Ltd.), for their support. Thanks are also dueto all the personnel from different departments of the air-craft engineering company for providing details of the busi-ness workflows for the repairing parts, expressing theirrequirements for the traceability system, and offering expertopinions on generating specific reference data, and thosethat are currently acting as gatekeepers in the system.

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