The rupees 1.5 billion Chitale Dairy Farm at Bhilawadi, which handles 60 million litres of milk per annum, has achieved considerable success with a 20% improvement in total milk yield, with the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags.
Soon, everyone who wants to visit Parliament will have to wear identification cards with radio frequency tapes to verify their identity. From tracking cows and pets or triggering equipment down oil wells, or tracking goods in supply chain, to reusable containers or manufacturing lines or security or payment systems, the usage of RFID technology will become inevitable.
RFID is gaining ground across the world including India, according to the latest report of the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom). Though the RFID market is still in a nascent stage, the biggest mandate from global retail major Wal- Mart and US Department of Defence (DOD) to use RFID technology will provide a huge potential for Indian software companies, the report pointed out. According to a report from Nasscom, the international RFID- based applications market is expected to touch $11.7 billion by 2010 from last year`s $1.7 billion.
One of the key benefits of RFID is the easy flow of information along with the entire supply chain and resulting cross organisation. Its other benefits include reduction of labour costs, more efficient business processes and tighter connection with business partners and suppliers.
The report further says, the demand for RFID technology continues to be strong in established applications such as toll collection, auto- mobile immobilisation and security and access control. The falling prices, supplemented by increasing end- user knowledge, are expected to spur deployment in more stable segments such as point of sale payment and baggage tracking. RFID adoption can be seen in two stages – in the short to medium term, RFID tag costs would not have dropped enough to apply the technology for item level tagging.
Large scale adoption of RFID rests on several other factors including lowering of tag and reader costs, RFID standardisation, addressing privacy concerns and integrated support for RFID in all enterprise software.
