Advances in RFID may benefit the warehouse

The head of the RFID Research Center at the University of Arkansas highlights two new technologies with advantages for warehouses and DCs.

By Corinne Kator, Associate Editor -- Modern Materials Handling, 2/14/2008

The University of Arkansas’ RFID Research Center recently demonstrated two advances in RFID technology that, according to center director Bill Hardgrave, offer tremendous benefits to warehouse managers.

Real-time location with passive tags

The newest of the technologies uses RFID tags to create a real-time locating system (RTLS) that shows the location of every tagged item in a three-dimensional zone. Most RTLS use expensive active tags, says Hardgrave, but this new system uses passive UHF tags—the less expensive tags many retailers are already applying to their products.

The RFID Research Center demonstrated the technology in a retail store environment, but Hardgrave imagines it being even more impressive in a warehouse.

The technology offers warehouse managers a level of inventory visibility they’ve never had before. “The concept,” says Hardgrave, “is continuous cycle counting.”

“This is a game changer in the field,” he adds. “It’s really amazing. I’m anxious to see it in production.”

While many RFID suppliers talk about creating real-time systems with passive tags, Hardgrave says he’s only seen one company—St. Louis-based RF Controls—actually demonstrate a working system.

Poor man’s GPS

The second RFID system is something Hardgrave calls “a poor man’s GPS.”

Setting up such a system, he says, involves mounting mobile RFID readers on your lift trucks and affixing passive UHF tags to your products and to your storage racks. With these pieces—and the right software—in place, you can record the movement of your products without asking your lift truck drivers to key in information or scan bar codes.

“This technology has really developed in the last six to nine months,” says Hardgrave. “The technology is there. Somebody could go out and buy this now.”

These and other technology demonstrations took place during an RFID forum sponsored in January by the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals.