It's been quite a month for everyone's poster child for leading edge supply chain technology – radio frequency identification (RFID). In a matter of days, it went from being bigger than the Internet to a complete invasion of our privacy to a high-profile cancellation.

Actually, the buzz started this spring when Gillette announced it would order half a billion RFID tags. That's not only a big number on any scale but the first of its magnitude for RFID. Certainly worth a headline or two, not to mention being fuel for the speculation firestorm that followed about RFID's future.

Then came Wal-Mart. The world's largest retailer announced that by 2005 it wants its 100 top suppliers to use RFID tags on all pallets shipped to Wal-Mart DCs.

As Robert Duvall said (or something close) in the movie "Apocalypse Now", "Don't you just love the smell of napalm in the morning?"

In many people's minds, Wal-Mart's announcement was the launch of a scorched earth policy for any other supply chain tracking technology. Good bye, bar codes. And why wait until 2005? Torch those little labels now, and be done with it.

But it didn't stop there. RFID was suddenly going to rule the world, according to CASPIAN. Also known as Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering, the group says that RFID is fine to track pallets. But it's not okay when tags that can still be read go home on products with consumers. That's when the snooping starts.

Right after that, Wal-Mart and Gillette canceled what's called a smart shelf pilot program. The idea is smart retail shelves know when tagged products (such as razor blades) have been removed. Since an unfilled shelf is a lonely shelf, retailers would use RFID to keep them fully stocked to maximize sales. The move was seen by many as a major early failure for RFID.

Now listen to this.

RFID is a technology with enormous potential for streamlining the supply chain. That's been known for many years. Today, we are in the pilot stage for the technology. Meanwhile, Wal-Mart and others are setting priorities—pallet not item tracking.

Keep in mind there is no infrastructure in place for any RFID-powered supply chain. Not anywhere. Broad proliferation of RFID will not happen overnight, or even by 2005 at Wal-Mart, which has many more than 100 suppliers. But it will happen at a measured pace over the next several years with solid results.

So look for RFID in your neighborhood, but don't expect it to invade your home.

And between now and then, let's all try to keep RFID's rise to prominence in perspective.