Active RFID Solutions begin to take Center Stage

With retail mandates like those from Target and Wal-Mart continuing to put the spotlight on the use of passive RFID tags, active tags have escaped the limelight. That might be about to change, as active tags appear primed to make a big push in the next several years. A new industry research report says that one million active RFID tags will go into use over the next five years, and that active RFID technology looks set to increase massively before the end of the decade.

By adding sensors, long range communication, and other exciting technologies to RFID and short range communications, there is an opportunity to achieve improvements in a wide range of industries such as real time tracking of items and remote diagnostics.

According to the IDTechEx RFID Knowledgebase study, there are now 210 applications that rely on the use of active RFID tags, up from 121 applications a year ago. Europe has the largest number of active RFID case studies, while the U.S. Department of Defense continues to invest heavily in active RFID systems. Japan and Korea are setting the pace for innovation with new concepts such as Ubiquitous Sensor Networks.

The maritime industry is another area where active tags are expected to see much greater use going forward. According to a research study on the application of RFID in the maritime market by ChainLink Research, RFID is being used more and more to track containers as they move across oceans, provide real-time location of containers in maritime yards, help product flow through customs, reduce demurrage, and increase the throughput of constrained ports.

Surprisingly, the report says that trace and tracking capabilities are far more important to executives than security initiatives. That’s understandable when you consider the financial implications involved.

"Above and beyond Homeland Security concerns, firms report over $50 billion in losses due to lost or damaged freight and equipment on the high seas or in ports," says Ann Grackin, the main author of the ChainLink study. "The executives we surveyed rated supply chain objectives like trace and track and supply chain effectiveness as more important motivators for use of RFID than container security."

Of the 106 companies surveyed by ChainLink Research, 92 percent said the first priority for their RFID project was trace and track capabilities. Primarily, many hope to address the chain of custody for products as they move through the supply chain, and have identified RFID as one way of doing that. "The customer doesn’t want to own the product until they’ve sold it, and the shipper doesn’t want to own it, but with Sarbanes Oxley these things need to be accounted for," says Grackin. "The big issue with trace and track includes determining the financial custodian for the products being shipped."

The survey also revealed a renewed desire to fulfill issues around diversion of assets, and being able to deploy products to a new destination when they are already en route within the supply chain. Although total asset visibility is common in military applications, Grackin says she sees consumer product goods manufacturers making use of the application as well. She says that Proctor & Gamble, for example, wants to be able to easily divert several pallets of laundry detergent to a different Wal-Mart distribution center at the last minute, or to a different retailer altogether. That application would make use of passive tags, not the active tags required for most maritime and military applications.