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D. HUNTLEY, Ross Products Division, Abbott Laboratories, 625 Cleveland Avenue, Columbus, OH 43215 Imagine shopping in a store without going through a checkout line. Each item you pick from the shelf is automatically deducted from your account. The future is here in the form of radio frequency identification (RFID). So far, the technology is mostly at work in manufacturing and distribution processes before the point of sale. Industry observers increasingly believe that RFID technology may be as important to business in the next decade as the Internet was in the 1990s. RFID is rapidly gaining acceptance as businesses, retailers, and the federal government seek to infuse this sensor technology into daily consumer life. RFID can be used to track everything from a case of Ensure leaving a plant to a truck driving down the highway. RFID technology promises real-time supply chain visibility. In much simpler terms, RFID will allow companies to dramatically automate their supply chains, enabling manufacturers, distributors, and retailers to more effectively run their businesses. Abbott Laboratories has been investigating the promise of RFID since 1998. In 2004, they successfully conducted pilot testing of RFID technology in both their consumer products and pharmaceutical products businesses. As part of the Auto-ID Center at MIT and a subscriber to EPC Global, Abbott has been identified as a leading end user company in the development of RFID. In January of 2005 they began shipping pallets of RFID tagged cases to Wal-Mart. Mr. Wallace will share the current state of the technology, lessons learned to date and a view of the future for this emerging new technology.
Session 15, The dawn of RFID: What have we learned and where we are going?
2005 IFT Annual Meeting, July 15-20 - New Orleans, Louisiana |