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The purpose of this paper is to briefly discuss some aspects of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, potential applications, and challenges including scientific methods that will help to study the impacts of RFID implementation on businesses.

As an introductory paper, this paper conducts a brief literature review, provides personal reflection on RFID technology, and consolidates expert opinions.

This paper identifies a set of research topics that seem relevant for a large‐scale implementation of RFID systems. It brings up the importance of business impacts as a result of new RFID systems introduced to organizations.

The paper is original in the sense that it combines literature review, personal reflections, and expert opinions to draw a set of research topics that contribute to both acceptance and large‐scale implementation of RFID systems.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a virtualisation model of RFID enabled infrastructure incorporating non‐standard radio frequency identification (RFID) components. The model is implemented as a software service that draws upon other sources of internet services.

In a global supply chain environment, circumstances at different locations may not allow RFID system to be used. Some supply chain members do not have compatible network infrastructure in place. These include RFID frameworks such as China's National Product Codes and Japan's ubiquitous identification which are utilised around the world. There is also a reachability problem for consignments going offsite. The paper introduces a service abstraction layer (SAL) in the RFID architecture to remove dependency on specific RFID framework. From this principle, the paper introduces a new virtual infrastructure that interfaces with emerging identification technologies.

The model bridges the gaps that exist between various RFID standards, as well as utilising various technologies to emulate data capture devices so that the information chain remains intact across the global network. The resulting system significantly reduces the costs of commissioning and operating costs of existing RFID infrastructures.

The new system has been tested in real industry environment with defined scope and coverage. The implication due to full roll out of the technologies in global supply chains still requires further investigation.

Usability of the virtualised RFID infrastructures depends on the cooperation among partners in the supply chain rather than the technology level. New business rules are required when special stakeholders such as customs are included in this virtualised infrastructure.

The concept of virtualisation has been used in operating systems, but its application to supply chain has not been explored before. Introduction of the SAL allows interoperability of systems handling goods tracking events through the supply chain.

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of an analytical and experimental research for the development of an innovative product designated RFID environment (RFID‐Env). This software is designed for the use of professionals in computer systems and plant engineering who are engaged in research and development (R&D) of ultra high frequency (UHF) passive radio frequency identification (RFID) systems as applied to the management and operation of logistic supply chains.

The RFID‐Env makes it possible to simulate on computer screens a complete RFID‐Env by processing user data on the technical and physical characteristics of real or virtual RFID‐Envs. Information outputted can include descriptions of the performance to be expected from a given configuration and detailed reports as to whether that particular configuration will succeed in reading all the RFID tags flowing through a defined system.

The paper shows the models and methods on how these simulations can be performed, and this is the major scientific contribution of this work, i.e. what are the logical and physical models that enable the development of software simulators for RFID‐Envs.

This work will be continued to introduce more consideration of the physical environment, such as the interferences produced by the tagged products themselves by scattering the radio frequency (RF) signals, and the models, positioning and focusing of the antennas. New RF prediction models shall be created along the continuation of this paper, with the purpose to rise the amount of environments that can be simulated.

The product is intended for use by developers in computer sciences, and by engineers doing R&D for the solution of RFID problems, and makes it possible to simulate a complete range of virtual RFID‐Envs so that R&D can proceed in a non‐factory atmosphere.

There are only a few related papers that consider in an isolated form some of the problems approached here, but it was not found models that proposed as an integrated form all the processing to an RFID‐Env simulation like here presented.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the value of radio‐frequency identification (RFID) and sensor technologies to reverse logistics processes. The research is motivated by the question of to what extent the accuracy of information on product quality delivered by such technologies impacts the total recovered value that companies obtain from returned goods in an industry with time‐sensitive products.

The paper first presents a case study to examine the returns management process at a manufacturer of high‐tech consumer electronics. It then develops an analytical model to study the monetary benefits in a scenario with RFID‐enabled product disposition.

The results show that RFID allows for a redesign of the return process that performs more efficiently regarding the total recovered value depending on technology costs (i.e. tag costs) and capabilities (i.e. sufficient sensor‐delivered parameters to rightly infer product quality). Second, the results indicate that maximum benefits can be drawn with lower accuracy but early decision on the disposition option.

This paper compares traditional and RFID‐enabled returns management processes. It provides a model to quantitatively investigate whether RFID and sensor implementation is a feasible and economically viable approach.

The widespread application of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags in supply chains is said to cause enormous data volume problems that could render RFID event‐driven supply chains unmanageable. An unbiased and quantitative understanding of the characteristics and extent of these data volume problems is necessary to identify and remove adoption barriers. This paper aims to address the issues.

The paper presents a simulation study based on a real‐world scenario that reveals quantitative characteristics of the data volumes problem in an RFID‐enabled supply chain and discusses its implications.

The results suggest that data volumes will be much lower than currently assumed by practitioners. Thus, this work can be seen as a first basis for eliminating unjustified adoption concerns regarding data volumes complexity. However, it finds that the data volume problems bear still significant challenges for researchers and developers of RFID infrastructures with real‐time decision‐making applications.

The simulation study is based on a single product case study of a retail supply chain in Europe. Since a simulation is always a simplification of the real world, the results need to be interpreted carefully in different contexts. The nature and extent of the problem might vary across different products, industries and geographic regions.

Researchers, end‐users and solution providers might use our paper as a guideline how to approach and quantify the data volume problem in their particular case. Moreover, the result data can be used to benchmark and optimize RFID applications.

This paper is one of the first scholarly works that analyze RFID data volume problems in supply chains with a quantitative methodology.

The purpose of this paper is to present a case study of a hospital nursing unit that has evaluated and approved a two‐bin “e‐kanban” replenishment system based on passive high frequency radio‐frequency identification (RFID) technology.

The case study analysis is based on both qualitative and quantitative data that were collected using semi‐structured interviews, on‐site observations and experience from previous implementations. The data and simulation analysis presented in this paper were validated by key respondents thereby increasing their reliability.

Results indicate that implementing the e‐kanban RFID solution in conjunction with the redesign of the ward floor and of the roles and functions can substantially improve business and operational performance. The most important benefits for the hospital are derived from the time saved from non‐value‐added activities that can be transferred to patient care activities and the significant reduction of on‐hand inventory at distributed storage locations. The solution is considered an alternative that requires less initial investment than RFID‐enabled cabinets used in the replenishment of consignment and high‐value supplies in operating rooms and cardiac catheterization laboratories.

There is a need to conduct further research on RFID supply chain management (SCM) applications in the healthcare sector as this area holds a great potential for performance improvements. Additionally, there is a need to conduct more in‐depth research into the isolated impact of RFID technology in comparison to the change management and process redesign that it generates. One key limitation of this research is the case study approach based on a single case. This paper, therefore provides direction for practitioners on how to assess RFID's potential impact in the healthcare supply chain.

While most of the research on RFID in healthcare sector focuses on active RFID technology for asset management, this research presents a novel RFID application and contributes to our understanding of RFID's potential in intra‐organizational SCM processes.

The emergence of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology promises enormous opportunities to shift business process automation up to the wire level. The purpose of this paper is to explore the methodology of incorporating business logics into RFID edge systems, and thereby facilitate the business process automation in the RFID‐applied environment.

Following the object‐oriented modelling perspective, concepts of classes, instances are deployed to characterise the runtime context of RFID business scenarios; event patterns are used to aggregate RFID tag read events into business meaningful events; and business rules are established to automate business transactions according to the elicited events.

The paper has emphasised the synergy between business process automation and automatic data acquisition, and has identified the inter‐relations between RFID tag read events, application‐level events, business rules, and business operations. The reported research has demonstrated a feasible scheme of incorporating business process control and automation into RFID‐enabled applications.

The paper analyses the characteristics of RFID data and event handling in relation to business rule modelling and process automation. The features of event‐relied awareness, context containment and overlapping, etc. are all captured and described by the proposed object‐oriented business model. The given data‐driven RFID middleware architecture can serve as one reference architecture for system design and development. Hence, the paper plays an important role in connecting automatic data acquisition and existing business processes, and thereby bridges the physical world and the digital world.

There is no doubt about the economic importance of small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in industrialised countries. The amount of research on organisational size as a factor of radio frequency identification (RFID) adoption, however, is as yet, minimal. This paper aims to fill that gap by first determining firm‐size specific characteristics of RFID and then using organisational inertia theory to derive the hypothesis that the size and structure of SMEs can be advantageous for the adoption of RFID.

This paper is based on organisational inertia theory and survey data.

A survey conducted among German enterprises already deploying RFID is used to test our hypothesis. It confirms that smaller enterprise size can make RFID adoption and exploitation of the productivity potential easier. Accordingly, it recommends that SMEs avoid adopting a wait‐and‐see position or restricting themselves to easy‐to‐conduct RFID automation applications.

The study provides a starting point for future research and facilitates knowledge accumulation and creation concerning the role of organisational size for RFID adoption.

Time is the top priority. We now live in real time. It's no longer life in the fast lane because every lane is fast. The computer has changed the way we view time. We expect everything to occur at Pentium speed! A time lag causes stress since it is viewed as an unnecessary waste. This is not a matter of immediate gratification; rather delays—such as standing in line—are viewed as something being wrong with the system, and the company that allows it to happen is perceived as not being up to speed! (Graham, 1996, p. 4).