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T.L. ASHFORD SEPTEMBER 2005 1

BY NEIL TARDY

Past, Present and FutureRFID’s R

adio frequency identification (RFID) is a technology that has established a

presence that reaches far beyond the realm of IT. According to IDTechEx,

an RFID analyst firm headquartered in the United Kingdom, 1.8 billion

RFID tags have been sold to date, and the overall RFID market—covering tags,

systems and services—will grow from $1.95 billion in 2005 to $26.9 billion in 2015.

Reprinted with permission from ^ Magazine, iSeries edition

®

RFID is used extensively today, around the world and

in a world of ways:

• A casino embeds computer chips in plastic gaming

chips. The RFID-enabled gaming chips communicate

with sensors and antennas throughout the casino, allow-

ing operators to track gamblers’ average bets and the loca-

tion of high-denomination chips.

• Several makers of popular prescription drugs, includ-

ing Purdue Pharma, manufacturer of the painkiller

OxyContin, and Pfizer, which manufactures Viagara, are

now or soon intend to use RFID to combat thieves and

counterfeiters. Also, the U.S. Food and Drug

Administration is requiring drug makers to use RFID

labels by 2008. The proliferation of counterfeit drugs is

seen as a growing problem worldwide. Currently, whole-

salers can buy smuggled drugs and send them to pharma-

cies with little difficulty. With RFID, pharmacists can

determine a drug’s origin. Though not foolproof, one

Purdue Pharma official views RFID as the most signifi-

cant drug-counterfeiting deterrent to emerge in two

decades.

• In Japan, RFID is the next wave in Kaiten-sushi

restaurants. Kaiten-sushi meals are traditionally delivered

to customers in conveyor-belt fashion—the meals are

paraded in front of hungry patrons and claimed directly

from the conveyor. At least one Kaiten-sushi restaurant

now places RFID tags on its plates, allowing the wait staff

to almost instantaneously calculate customers’ tabs by

simply scanning a party’s accumulated plates.

• A French company launches an RFID-based system to

provide a way to reduce errors and improve productivity

in the development of dental prosthetics such as crowns

and bridges. Each prosthetic is embedded with a com-

puter chip that records each step in the manufacturing

process. The data can then be passed onto the patient,

and/or retrieved for future dental work. The solution,

which is aimed at the laboratories employed by dentists to

produce dental prostheses, is designed to reduce the time

it takes labs to accurately process each item.

Unquestionably, RFID offers the potential to revolu-

tionize the way business is conducted and the way

consumers shop. This paper explores RFID’s develop-

ment and emergence, and examines the present and

future challenges companies face in implementing the

technology.

An RFID PrimerA typical RFID system consists of a tag and a reader. The

tag, or transponder, is a microchip that contains a tiny

antenna. The antenna on the tag is capable of transmit-

ting data such as product information (e.g., ship date,

price, quantity, color, etc.). The reader is a portable device

that “reads” the information on the tag and relays this

data to a host computer system for processing.

Typically, when the RFID tag is placed on an item, case

or pallet, a unique product code is loaded into the chip.

When passed near a reader, which sends out a radio wave,

the antenna captures the signal and converts it into elec-

trical energy to activate the tag. Then the tag’s informa-

tion is transmitted back to the reader.

This description applies specifically to “passive” RFID

tags, one of two tag types. The other type—active tags—

provides greater capabilities and thus are far more expen-

sive (typically more than $20 each, while passive tags can

cost as little as 20 cents). Active tags contain a transmitter

for returning information to the reader, making them

capable of being read from distances of 100 meters or

more. Passive tags lack a power source and transmitter.

While many businesses and most consumers are just

being introduced to RFID, the technology itself, borne

from the development of radio broadcast technology and

radar, goes back decades.

The earliest notable use of RFID occurred during

World War II when the British outfitted allied planes with

transponders. Once incoming planes gave the appropriate

response to an interrogating signal, they could be identi-

fied as “friendly.” Present-day commercial and private avi-

ation traffic control is still based on what was called the

Friend or Foe system.

2 SEPTEMBER 2005 TT T.L. ASHFORD TToTL

T.L. ASHFORD TT SEPTEMBER 2005 To 3

RFID research accelerated in the 1970s, as scientific

and academic communities explored how the technology

could be used for animal tracking, vehicle tracking

and factory automation. For example, in the 1980s,

RFID-based payment systems were being tested on toll

roads in several European countries. By the end of the

decade, RFID was being used for electronic toll collec-

tion on two heavily traveled roadways in the United

States—in the New York City area, the Port Authority of

New York and New Jersey tagged buses traveling through

the Lincoln Tunnel, and in Texas, an RFID-based system

was implemented to collect fees from motorists on the

Dallas North Turnpike. RFID-based toll collection

became commonplace throughout the country in the

1990s. Tolling and rail applications also appeared

worldwide.

Achieving StandardsWhile RFID is widely used today across many segments

of the business world, because of the cost of tags and

related technologies, mass adoption is still considered to

be a few years away. Nonetheless, RFID’s emergence is

largely viewed in terms of when rather than if. Certainly,

it’s expected that the technology will ultimately become

ubiquitous in the supply chain.

A cornerstone of RFID adoption that already appears to

be in place is the formation of standards. International

standards have been adopted for very specific applica-

tions, like animal tracking, and many other standards

initiatives are underway through bodies like the

International Organization for Standardization (ISO)

and EPCglobal Inc. (www.epcglobalinc.org).

EPCglobal in particular is credited for advancing

RFID standardization. The not-for-profit organization

is designated by the industry to establish and support

the Electronic Product Code (EPC) as a standard format

for identifying RFID-tagged items. EPCglobal is an

outgrowth of the Auto-ID Center, an academic research

project that was headquartered at the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology (MIT), which worked in con-

junction with industry leaders and academic institutions

worldwide to design a system to expand the use of

RFID in supply chains. The Auto-ID Center was dis-

banded in 2003, and its responsibilities transferred to

EPCglobal.

The most significant standard to emerge thus far is new

tags designed to the latest version of the EPC. In con-

junction with the barcode, the EPC is designed to

uniquely identify objects in the supply chain (e.g., items,

cases or pallets). While it’s based on many current num-

bering schemes used in commerce, the EPC also contains

an extra set of digits, or a serial number, that can include

detailed information about the tagged item, along with

additional fields that may be used to properly encode and

decode information from different numbering systems

into readable forms. EPC’s capability to better organize

information potentially makes it easier and quicker to, for

example, locate individual cartons of milk that have

passed their expiration date.

The new EPC UHF Generation 2 specification, com-

monly referred to as “Gen 2,” is expected to trigger a

significant drop in RFID tag prices. (These tags are

expected to be available this year.) Compared to previous

standards, Gen 2 is considered better suited for interna-

tional applications. Among other enhancements, it also

includes a dense reader mode of operation designed to

“With Generation 2 tags and compatible readers starting to ramp up in volume later this year, most of the

standardization issues are taken off the table.”—Beth Enslow, vice president, Enterprise Research, Aberdeen Group

prevent readers from interfering with one another when

many are used in close proximity.

“With the Generation 2 tags and compatible readers

starting to ramp up in volume later this year, most of the

standardization issues are taken off the table,” says Beth

Enslow, vice president, Enterprise Research, for Aberdeen

Group, a business-technology research firm based in

Boston. “That’s where the Auto-ID Center really did a

great service to the overall industry in forming those

standards.”

RFID and BarcodesAn interesting parallel to the emergence of RFID is

offered in the history of barcodes—the technology RFID

is supposed to complement. Like RFID, barcodes

evolved over a period of decades, with standardization

playing a key role in their early development. And as

with RFID, barcoding technology started to take off

when major retailers, along with the automotive industry

and the Department of Defense, showed an interest in it.

More than any other single entity, Wal-Mart is consid-

ered the primary force behind RFID adoption. Two years

ago, Wal-Mart required its vast network of suppliers to

get on board with the technology or lose the retail

giant’s business. But many may forget that in the early

1980s, Wal-Mart gave barcoding a big push. It was

Wal-Mart that invested in Uniform Product Code

(UPC) barcode technology rather than Optical Character

Recognition (OCR), its slower, more labor-intensive

counterpart. This decision helped trigger both a

five-fold increase in UPC barcode use among suppliers

and the adoption of UPC technology as the barcoding

standard.

While Wal-Mart’s actions in 2003 validated RFID as a

business solution, no one is suggesting that barcodes will

soon disappear. In fact, RFID and barcodes should coexist

for many years. And already, many companies use the two

in tandem on so-called “smart labels”—this generally refers

to barcode or other labels encoded with RFID tags as

they’re printed.

“The RFID industry now is similar to what the bar-

code industry was many years ago, though RFID offers

far greater capability,” notes Greg Schulz, a senior analyst

for Denver-area storage analyst/consulting firm Evaluator

Group, Inc. “So I would say we are still a few years away,

if not further, from mass adoption of RFID—after all,

we’re still seeing plenty of life in and use of barcodes.

However, as a future and business-enabling technology,

RFID is and will be used in tandem with barcodes as

part of a tiered infrastructure of data access and tracking

technology.”

The most significant barriers to RFID—cost, and to a

lesser extent, reliability—are barcodes’ biggest advan-

tages. Barcodes can be produced for a fraction of the cost

of RFID tags.

That said, it follows that the limitations of barcodes

are spurring investigation of RFID. For instance, RFID

is seen as a way around the line-of-sight requirement

with barcodes (i.e., for the most part, barcode scanners

must “see” the barcode to read it). This isn’t necessary

with RFID. Barcodes have other shortcomings as well.

Standard barcodes identify only the manufacturer and

the product for a group of items rather than specific

information about a unique item (a unique item being a

single box and its contents among a pallet of boxes). In

addition, barcode labels can’t be scanned if they’re

removed from an item or damaged—as in an environ-

ment where they’re exposed to heat or grease. RFID tags

“The RFID industry now is similar to what the barcodeindustry was many years ago, though RFID offers fargreater capabilities.” —Greg Schulz, senior analyst, Evaluator Group, Inc.


are sensitive to the elements, and the contents of RFID-

tagged items can affect read rates.

RFID ChallengesPeople generally see technology as complex and obscure.

Most home computer users know little to nothing about

the inner-workings of their devices, the significance of

RAM amounts or processor speeds, or, for that matter,

how their ISPs deliver their Internet services. And few

people are interested in the technology that goes into

designing office buildings, flying planes or forecasting

the weather.

This isn’t surprising. But when balanced against the

response to RFID, it’s rather interesting. That’s because

the public is displaying a keen and growing awareness of

RFID.

Ernst & Young reported early last year that 77 percent

of U.S. consumers have heard of RFID. And a 2004 sur-

vey conducted by BIGresearch and Artafact revealed not

just consumer recognition but also knowledge: 41 per-

cent of 8,500 surveyed adults said they were aware of

RFID; “awareness” meaning they could accurately

describe the technology to others.

PrivacyOf course, concerns about privacy and potential abuse of

information held and delivered on RFID-based

systems is one obvious explanation for the widespread

interest in RFID. Stories like the one about the U.S.

State Department, which is now rethinking its plan to

embed RFID tags in passports, have garnered consider-

able attention from civil libertarians and other privacy

advocates. Critics of the State Department’s proposal

claim that RFID-enabled passports would subject

Americans traveling abroad to greater risk of being

robbed or kidnapped.

Others maintain that optical chips or other technolo-

gies could be employed to secure passports at reduced

cost and risk. The State Department, which sees RFID

as a way to speed passport processing and prevent use of

Three Basics toImplementing RFID

Develop a plan: Supply-chain businesses

should look into RFID, even if they aren’t

subject to mandates to adopt the technology

such as those issued by Wal-Mart, Target

Corp. and other retailers. The process of

investigating and implementing RFID tech-

nologies need not be a budget-breaker.

RFID—what the technology is and where it is

headed—is widely chronicled online and in

the technology press. Information can also

be gathered from other companies that

have undertaken RFID implementations and

vendors that offer RFID-based solutions.

Take the test: Testing is an important step,

and it may be critical depending upon the

types of items that will carry RFID tags.

Numerous technology firms provide the capa-

bility to test a pilot RFID environment. This

allows your business to address glitches like

problems getting information from tags.

Elements like water and metal can hinder the

ability of RFID readers to capture tag data. In

addition, tags may have to be repositioned on

a given product package or pallet of products.

Don’t be overwhelmed: Everyone wants the

price of RFID tags to come down, but even at

current pricing levels, an RFID implementation

need not bust budgets. Purchase only as many

readers, printers and tags as necessary. That’s

the principle behind “slap and ship.”


stolen or forged passports, is apparently planning

changes to address these concerns.

Though RFID has a bright future, many see its wide-

spread application treading on gray areas. Consider two

other well-publicized RFID initiatives.

Michelin has been testing tires fitted with RFID

tags for about two years. A tag embedded in a tire’s

sidewall could replace the approximately 12 labels that

SOLUTION: For Hamilton Beach/Proctor-Silex, the

ramp up to RFID consisted of researching the technol-

ogy by reading articles online and talking to other suppli-

ers. The company also capitalized on the presence of a

local RFID testing facility to demo its new system. But

one of its first moves was to contact its long-time part-

ner, T.L. Ashford, which produces Barcode400. A bar-

code-labeling solution for the IBM eServer iSeries sys-

tem, Barcode400 supports a range of printers and

connectivity options, and provides wireless capabilities.

Hamilton Beach/Proctor-Silex was already a satisfied

Barcode400 customer, but the company was even more

pleased to learn that the solution included a software

add-on that supports RFID implementations. The

Barcode400 RFID Tag Module is designed to allow the

production of so-called “smart labels,” the term given to

labels that can be integrated with RFID chips. With the

Barcode400 RFID Tag Module, these labels are encoded

with data directly from the iSeries system and printed to

RFID thermal printers.

Each smart label is embedded with a miniature chip

and antenna. As the barcode label prints, the chip is

encoded with the Electronic Product Code (EPC) for RFID

labels (this is the equivalent of the Universal Product

Code or UPC for barcodes). Barcode400 supports Class

1 and Class 0 RFID labels and, according to T.L. Ashford,

will support Class 1, Generation 2 EPC once the printers

become available.

In the case of Hamilton Beach/Proctor-Silex, the

Barcode400 solution also provides the capability to print

CHALLENGE: Hamilton Beach/Proctor/Silex faced

a tall task and a short window. In 2003, the radio fre-

quency identification (RFID) initiative was driven by the

full force of Wal-Mart. The retail giant announced it was

requiring its top suppliers to place RFID tags on cases

and pallets destined for its stores and SAM’S CLUB loca-

tions in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Wal-Mart set a

January 2005 target date for its top 100 suppliers to

meet the mandate and implement RFID systems.

Like any good business, Hamilton Beach/Proctor-Silex,

Inc., strives to be responsive to its customers. For the

well-known distributor of small kitchen appliances, its pri-

mary customers are the retail outlets that sell the com-

pany’s range of products, including blenders, coffee mak-

ers and food processors. So when its largest customer,

Wal-Mart, approached the company in late 2003 about

getting on board with RFID, the company acted quickly. It

determined that it needed to educate itself about the

technology, and then deliver a cost-effective solution that

would satisfy the requirements of Wal-Mart as well as

other retail customers.

“Early on we pulled together a team with representa-

tion from various business functions,” notes Kevin

McCollough, manager, business solutions for Hamilton

Beach/Proctor-Silex. “We worked closely with our cus-

tomer to understand what was needed, educated

Hamilton Beach/Proctor-Silex Meets Wal-Mart Mandatewith T.L. Ashford Barcode400 Solution

c a s e s t u d y


FOR MORE INFO

T.L. AshfordAddress: 525 West Fifth St.Covington, KY 41011Phone: 1-800-541-4893

Fax: (859) 291-1804Website: www.tlashford.com Email: [email protected] Name: Barcode400Platforms Supported: IBM eServer iSeries

an EPC seal on each label to indicate the presence of an

RFID tag.

McCollough notes that his developers’ familiarity with

Barcode400 smoothed the process of incorporating data

into the newly created RFID tags. “The inputs to T.L. Ashford

were very familiar because we’d been using very similar type

of functionality all along for our standard barcode labels.”

Hamilton Beach/Proctor-Silex’s RFID implementation is

considered complete. Currently, the company’s use of

RFID is limited to goods sent to Wal-Mart’s Dallas-area

distribution center. But along with the anticipated expan-

sion of the Wal-Mart initiative, many other retailers are

now coming to Hamilton Beach/Proctor Silex with their

own requirements. In the near future, the company could

be delivering millions of RFID-tagged pallets and cases.

Despite the challenges, suppliers like Hamilton

Beach/Proctor-Silex can manage the transition to RFID

through sound planning and attention to detai l,

McCollough says. And the company’s use of the

Barcode400 RFID module helped Hamilton

Beach/Proctor-Silex quickly, and successfully, implement

an affordable RFID implementation.

“We are focused on customer service, but on the

other hand, we can’t take on outrageous or unreason-

able costs,” McCollough says. “While the effort to date

has not been insubstantial, initially we thought it was

going to be a bigger project. Our investment has con-

sisted mainly of the purchase of two RFID-enabled print-

ers and the upgrade of the T.L. Ashford software, which

was very reasonable.”

ourselves on the technology and developed a detailed

implementation plan. This allowed us to simultaneously

support our customer while minimizing the impact to

our business.”

The company is taking what’s called the “slap-and-ship”

approach to RFID. The term applies to suppliers that

are facing retailer mandates and endeavoring to get a

working system running as quickly and cost effectively as

possible. Slap and ship specifically refers to putting an

RFID label on a case or pallet just before it ships from

the supplier to the retailer.

In contrast to the RFID adopters of choice, most sup-

pliers that utilize slap and ship, including Hamilton

Beach/Proctor-Silex, don’t currently view the technology

as a profit maker.

“We would like to take advantage of the fact that we

have labels on these things as quickly as possible, but

right now we don’t see that as an option due to the cost

of the label and the volume of the items that we’re label-

ing,” McCollough says. “Maybe within 18 to 24 months

we might have more of our items being required to be

labeled. Certainly we’re hoping the cost of the labels will

come down substantially, and when I say substantially,

we’re looking at perhaps 1 to 2 cents per label to make

it really cost effective for us. Right now we’re seeing

ranges between 30 and 50 cents.”

auto manufacturers and parts retailers currently use to

identify each tire, and ultimately be used to

allow tire-service providers to more accurately gauge

tire wear.

Then there’s the story of Gillette Corp. that emerged

in 2003. A consumer group found that, at two supermar-

kets in the United States and United Kingdom, the com-

pany had fitted a chip into the packaging of its razors.


The chip would take one photo of the buyer removing

the pack from store shelves and another at checkout.

Ostensibly the aim was to provide stock information,

though a store manager later claimed he presented pho-

tos of a shoplifter to police.

Due to the resulting negative publicity, Gillette appar-

ently abandoned the initiative. But this story and others

like it continue to receive ample play online. In fact,

the Internet houses a plethora of RFID information in

general, and you don’t have to surf far to find critics of the

technology—check out sites like www.rfidconcerns.com,

www.antirfid.com and www.spychips.com.

So are RFID “cameras” a deterrent to shoplifting or a

form of covert surveillance? Do RFID-tagged tires trans-

form your car into a tracking device? And if your credit

card, or the lining of your jeans, contains an RFID tag,

could a thief with a counterfeit reader hijack your iden-

tity? How RFID can and can’t be used isn’t always clear.

For instance, it may be possible for governments to track

active RFID tags in items that consumers keep with them

(e.g., watches and wallets), but without access to data-

bases related to the tags’ EPCs, it wouldn’t be easy. It may

be possible for a criminal to steal someone’s private infor-

mation, but the thief would likely have to bring a reader

into very close range—two feet, perhaps even within 12

inches—to be successful.

Debate is sure to continue on the privacy issues sur-

rounding RFID, and, in the wake of landmark privacy

legislation enacted in Europe and the United States in

recent years, lawmakers will likely enter the discussion.

In fact, this summer the California state assembly con-

sidered a measure that would institute a three-year

moratorium on the use of RFID components in most

state-, county- and municipality-issued ID cards. The

idea is that a moratorium would provide the time to

ensure that the most advanced security measurements

would be incorporated into the state’s future RFID-

based applications.

Businesses throughout the supply chain can learn from

the privacy debate. Lesson No. 1: Be open with cus-

tomers about your use of RFID technologies. A general

rule of thumb is that retailers that sell products contain-

ing RFID should notify consumers and offer them the

option of deactivating the tags or purchasing items with-

out tags.

By arming customers with knowledge, they may ulti-

mately become less skittish about RFID, as Enslow points

out: “Interestingly enough, a couple supermarkets in

Europe that have implemented customer deactivation sta-

tions are finding that very few consumers actually bother

to get their products deactivated.”

Waiting is the Hardest PartCompanies implementing RFID face other challenges.

For many suppliers, there is of course the need to respond

to retailers, including Wal-Mart and Target Corp., that

have mandated that they get on board with RFID.

Meeting this challenge is of course the priority for suppli-

ers, but equally as important is implementing an RFID

solution as inexpensively as possible. Out of this focus on

expediency and economy comes the “slap-and-ship”

approach, where suppliers apply RFID labels to cases or

pallets just before shipping them.

Another challenge comes in working with the technol-

ogy itself. For instance, readers don't function as reliably

on tagged items that contain or are packed in metals (e.g.,

a stove or an item stored in aluminum-lined packaging)

or have high water content (e.g., crates of fruit). Or if you

have a large pallet of tagged boxes, the reader may not

catch the tags on the inside of the pallet.

These inhibitors to widespread RFID implementation

aren’t insignificant. For instance, Federal Express, which

is experimenting with the technology, has acknowledged

that low read rates could forestall company-wide

deployment of RFID by years. And Dallas-based consult-

ing firm Incucomm estimates that Wal-Mart suppliers

alone will spend an average of $500,000 apiece on the

technology.

However, despite these issues, the business world is

focused primarily on the cost of RFID tags. Aberdeen’s


Enslow, pointing to a survey the firm conducted last year,

ranked the concerns of RFID adopters.

“Sixty percent said they were most worried about cost

issues. Only about a third said they were worried about

technology issues, and less than 10 percent said they

were worried about the actual requirements of the man-

date. Cost is the biggest issue, then it’s the technology

details,” she says. “People aren’t saying those mandate

requirements are crazy, they’re just saying they’re too

expensive and they have to deal with some technology

bumps to actually make them happen.”

While most observers expect prices to fall, how far

prices will come down is a matter of conjecture. More

than a year ago, the RFID Journal concluded that pas-

sive tag prices would drop to 5 cents by 2007, but pro-

jections since then are generally less optimistic. During

its symposium last fall, Gartner analysts were projecting

that it would be five years before tags averaged out the

20-cent level. Another analyst firm, Dedham, Mass.-

based ARC Advisory Group, said prices would bottom

out at only 16 cents.

RFID: Today and BeyondRFID is here to stay. That’s apparent when some of the

world’s largest and best-known companies are investing

in the technology. It’s apparent given the potential RFID

offers as a tool for businesses and consumers alike.

It’s also a given that costs will continue to be watched

closely and that concerns about privacy will continue to

be voiced.

As noted, despite the challenges posed by cost and

technology, countless private businesses and public enti-

ties worldwide now use RFID. The technology perme-

ates the transportation industry; the auto industry relies

on RFID for parts tracking, while airports l ike

McCarran International in Las Vegas use it for baggage

tracking. It’s used to speed book checkout in libraries.

And big technology players from IBM to Texas

Instruments and Philips Semiconductors provide every-

thing from RFID products and services to chips and

tags themselves.

In the supply chain, suppliers’ current aims with

RFID are for the most part modest, as the

slap-and-ship approach predominates. However, looking

ahead, it’s logical to expect that even the most conscious

suppliers will find business value in the new data

they will accumulate through RFID-based systems.

Assuming RFID’s potential is realized, these companies

can use the technology to bring greater efficiencies to

the supply chain by reducing paperwork and eliminating

the need for traditional stock counting and other

manual tasks.

“I would say the greatest potential benefit of RFID is

the ability to more dynamically track items to help

streamline supply chain and logistics,” Schulz says.

“While they are a cost item to implement, as costs come

down, some firms will benefit by investing in the tech-

nology to ultimately gain timely access to information.

This in turn can help reduce costs or more effectively

support and enable their businesses, much the same way

that barcodes have.”

The majority of analysts and industry experts are

encouraging manufacturers and suppliers—whether or

not they’re facing retailer mandates—to start investigat-

ing RFID now. At minimum, these companies should

learn about RFID and understand how their warehouse

processes may have to be modified to accommodate a

future RFID implementation.

“I would say the greatest potential benefit of RFID is theability to more dynamically track items to help streamline

supply chain and logistics.” —Greg Schulz


Note: This section is reprinted from The Beginner’s ReferenceGuide to RFID & ‘Smart Labels.’ The publication is produced byT.L. Ashford, and available free of charge from the company’sWeb site (www.tlashford.com).

Active tag—An RFID tag that is battery powered, allowing it totransmit its information over an extended distance.

Antenna—The component of the RFID tag that both transmitsinformation stored on the tag’s chip and receives radio frequencyenergy from the reader device which activates the tag.

Class 0 tags—These tags are read only (programmed onlyonce), have 64-bit or 96-bit memory capacities, and operate inthe UHF frequency band between 868 and 930 MHz.

Class 0+ tags—Same as Class 0 tags, but are re-writeable.

Class 1 tags—These one-time programmable (OTP) tags can beupdated one additional time after being encoded, have a 96-bitmemory capacity, and they operate between 868 and 930MHz.

Collision—Signals of different tags and readers interfering witheach other.

Compliance labels—See Smart labels.

Data synchronization—A technology that compares and reconcilesselected transactions and other data between trading partnersto ensure that each partner has the same information aboutitems of interest at the same point in time.

EPC code—EPC is a unique number based on a global standardfor product identification called a global trade item number(GTIN). This number uniquely identifies the manufacturer andproduct in any market in the world.

EPCglobal—A non-profit trade organization that is an affiliate ofthe Uniform Code Council (UCC) and EAN International and isinvolved with creating different specifications for the frequency,encoding characteristics and other attributes of RFID technology.

Frequency—RFID tags are manufactured to transmit at differ-ent frequencies, which range from 30 KHz to nearly 1000MHz. In supply chains, most tags are used in the frequencyrange of 13.56 MHz (high frequency) or 960 MHz (ultra highfrequency).

Global Data Synchronization Network (GDSN)—This is essentially aprivate “Internet” for global trading partners that allows part-ners to access standardized information about a product.Before a company can program EPC codes into RFID tags tomeet basic RFID compliance requirements with major retailcustomers, it must ensure the codes meet global standardsand that they are registered on the Global DataSynchronization Network. To register EPC codes, a companymust subscribe with a trading partner that is a member ofGDSN. Trading partners include UCC.net, Transora, WorldWide Retail Exchange and many others.

Global trade item number (GTIN)—A 14-digit standard for globalidentification of an item in supply chain applications. For mostcompanies in the United States, a UPC is used interchangeablywith a GTIN.

High frequency (HF)—HF tags typically operate in the 13.56MHz range.

Integrated circuit (IC)—A microelectronic semiconductor devicecomprising many interconnected transistors and other compo-nents. Most RFID tags have an IC chip which stores informa-tion about the attached object.

Interrogator—See Reader.

Passive tag—An RFID tag that does not use a battery for power.Passive tags get their power to activate and respond from theelectronic field (radio waves) transmitted by the reader.

RFID—An acronym for radio frequency identification.

Reader—Also known as an interrogator, an RFID reader detectscompatible RFID tags within its range. A reader transmits anelectronic field (radio waves) at a set frequency, which acti-vates RFID tags designed to receive this frequency. When atag activates, it transmits the information stored on its chip,which is received by the reader.

Read-only tag—A tag that cannot be changed or appended onceit has been programmed. Read-only tags are the most com-mon and are typically the least expensive.

Read/write tag—Also known as a reprogrammable tag, this kindof tag can be changed, appended and erased after it has beenprogrammed.

Reader/writer—A device that can both program tags and receivedata from tags that pass through its signal area. In addition,reader/writers usually have the ability to append or reprogramdata on tags from which it receives data.

Smart labels—An RFID tag that is embedded inside of an adhe-sive label, which is typically printed with a barcode and otheridentifying information. This allows the dual purpose of beingread by RFID readers and scanned by barcode scanners.Smart labels are sometimes referred to as smart tags andcompliance labels.

Tag/Transponder—An RFID tag consists of an IC chip that con-tains information about an object and an antenna thatreceives information from a reader, which transmits informa-tion back to the reader. RFID tags are sometimes referred toas transponders.

Ultra high frequency (UHF)—Tags that are ultra high frequency(UHF) typically operate at 915 MHz in the United States and868 MHz in Europe.

Universal Product Code (UPC)—The standard barcode symbol forretail food packages in the U.S.

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