For the 100 plus Wal-Mart suppliers shipping product with RFID tags, the initial challenge was just to get up and running. Some started with automated print-and-apply systems while many others used manual slap-and-ship. Which raises the question, which is better?

"It's all about speed and cost," says Bob Cornick, vice president and general manager of RFID at printer supplier Zebra.

"The more cases you're tagging, the more cost prohibitive slap-and-ship becomes," he says. "A good rule is once you start to ship more than three truckloads a day a shift from a single location, an automated system would be more economical."

Cornick went on to say that the new Gen 2 tags will actually help to speed printer lines to keep pace with increasing volumes of cases and pallets tagged with RFID. With Gen 2, the speed of encoding tags will be significantly increased, making it possible to encode 100 or more tags per minute.

In an exclusive interview with Modern, Cornick also discussed the three techniques for encoding tags. One is encoding tags in labels. Another is encoding an inlay and combining it with an ink jet code printed directly on the case. The third is encoding encapsulated inlays pre-embedded in corrugated or other packaging materials.

Cornick says only encoding tags embedded in labels guarantees that the data on the tag reflects the contents of the case or pallet. The other two, he says, have an inherent margin of error that could result in the wrong data on the wrong case.