DOD sets the record straight on its RFID plans
Bob Trebilcock, Modern Materials Handling -- Modern Materials Handling, 2/19/2004
In an exclusive interview with Modern Materials Handling, Ed Coyle of the Department of Defense (DOD) has clarified the agency's plans for implementing RFID. Coyle is chief of the DOD's logistics automatic identification technology office (www.dodait.com).
To begin, he characterized as "premature" recent reports that DOD will require its top 100 suppliers to use RFID by January 2005. "We're still working around the details of who will be required to comply right now," says Coyle. "We're going after our top suppliers, but it's not necessarily the top 100."
Coyle adds that the DOD has 46,000 suppliers (compared to about 10,000 suppliers to Wal-Mart, driver of the other January 2005 RFID mandate), and that the goal "is to have all suppliers doing this as quickly as we can."
He did say that the DOD will begin modifying contracts this October, requiring certain suppliers to include RFID tags on pallets, cartons, and some packaging materials. The tags will be required on items that carry a Unique Identification (UID) – the DOD's equivalent of a vehicle identification number -- beginning in January 2005.
The new mandate will initially affect inbound receipts at two of the 22 distribution centers presently operated by the Defense Distribution Command in Susquehanna, Pa. and San Joaquin, Ca.
"We're going to equip the receiving processes at those facilities to read RFID tags," Coyle says. "Then we'll roll it out across our network of distribution centers." In addition to the 22 centers already in operation, the DOD is adding four more centers to its distribution system in the coming years.
Like Wal-Mart, the DOD will initially accept Class 0 and Class 1 tags, and then transition to the next generation EPC global-compliant tags and data as they become available. DOD will first implement RFID at the receiving dock, but the system will eventually be used to track the storage, transportation, maintenance, and final disposition and demilitarization of materials at the item level.
Where Wal-Mart has stated that it expects its suppliers to bear the cost of complying with the RFID mandate, the DOD plans to share that burden.
"In December, Michael Wynne (the deputy under secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology) basically said to our suppliers that he didn't know of any who have done anything for free," Coyle says. "We will require the tags, but we will work with our partners. Our opinion is that in the right environment there will be money savings for everyone."
Coyle expects to have more information to share at a supplier summit in Washington April 6 – 8 at the Hilton Washington. Information about the summit will be posted on the www.dodait.com Website as it becomes available in the coming weeks.
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