RFID Changes Course

The main emphasis of RFID use and supply has radically changed course. That was the message of the large IDTechEx RFID Smart Labels USA event in Boston in February. The business is booming in just about every sector other than the supply of pallet and case tagging to retailer and military mandates, where there are two problems. A severely uneconomic price level has been established by suppliers for the tags, readers and chips and they still do not work reliably on obscured cases in a pallet load, where wet, metallic and glass items are involved ie most of what is sold in a supermarket. Yet users Michael Okoroafor of Coca-Cola and Leslie Hand of Ahold declared that they are determined to solve the problem somehow.