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During the Second World War, the Allied commanders were having a tough time identifying friend from foe when it came to aircrafts. From ground, it was virtually impossible to discern a Lutwaffe (German Air Force) Messerschmitt from RAF’s (Great Britain Royal Air Force) Spitfire; hence the anti-aircraft batteries were not much of help. The problem was solved by ingenious British scientists with the invention of IFF radio transponder. IFF stands for identification friend or foe, and all the Allied aircrafts were fitted with one, making it easier for ground troops to identify Lutwaffe planes, using radio frequency. This was the precursor to the RFID (radio frequency identification) tags that one finds at numerous malls spread across the global.
RFID has been around for quite sometime, but has been creating news in the past few years only, all thanks to retail giant Wallmart. The technology is slowly making a mark on the Indian landscape as well. The early adopters were suppliers to international retail giants like Wallmart, etc. Now, Indian companies are also actively evaluating the deployment of RFID on a mass scale. SAP offers quite a few integrated ERP solutions that are RFID enabled.
Krish Mantripada, director, Global Solution Strategy, RFID, SCM Solutions Management, SAP, spoke to Shashwat Chaturvedi from CyberMedia News at the recently held SAP Summit about the latest on RFID and his projections about the future. Excerpts:
RFID has often been associated with the retail space only, though it promises to do a lot more. Do you think the perception is changing?
Indeed it is. With increasing RFID adoption, enterprises are becoming more and more aware about the possibilities that this technology presents. Currently, more than 16 different industry verticals are actively using RFID, from the manufacturing to pharmaceutical. Even many governments are employing the technology for tracking and identification. Pretty soon US passports will carry RFID tags. While it started off as a great retail industry tool, RFID has become much bigger now.
RFID was termed as expensive, especially due to the prohibitive costs of the tags. Has that changed?
The price for the tags has come down drastically. Currently they are hovering in the 10-15 cents (US) per tag bracket. Sometime ago, the cost was around 50 cents. As the adoption spreads, the economies of scale will bring the cost further down. Also, there has been a lot of innovation; some companies are testing polymer-based tags instead of silicon. One firm is also testing paper-based tags with the use of conductive inks.
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