Guest Blogger
Today’s post on RFID technology is by Chris Landry, the Managing Director of Colourfast, an international paper and plastic card printer that is based in Ontario, Canada.
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RFID Technology — An Infographic
The concept of radio frequency identification (RFID) is becoming increasingly common among retailers worldwide, with more than 50% of product manufacturers already implementing it and a further 21% expected to do so within the next year. So what is this RFID craze and why it is proving so popular?
It refers to the placement of a small chip in a product which is scanned by an antenna within a scanning field – in theory, a similar idea to barcodes, but with some key differences. For instance, numerous RFID tags can be scanned at once and will register without human contact, whereas barcodes can only be read one at a time and require a person to scan the item physically.
Companies such as Google, Walmart, Virgin, and Coca Cola, which have already converted to RFID, will tell you that it reaps numerous benefits, such as increased work efficiency, increased sales, greater job satisfaction, and — crucially — greater customer satisfaction. In this time-short world of ours, customers do not like to be kept waiting at checkouts, so RFID enables them to get through checkouts much quicker; this goes a long way to improving customer experience.
Find out more about the potential of RFID in the infographic below, which was created by paper and plastic card printer Colourfast (http://www.colourfast.com/usa/gift-card-printing).
With the shifting of technological applications from Barcodes to RFID, which allows retailers to be able to track and manage their goods and products with higher accuracy and efficiency. At the same time, reducing labor intensity as manpower is less necessary, thus causing an inevitable reduction in the cost to operate, while indirectly lead to the increase in sales and revenues. Alternatively, firms can focus more on catering the needs of the consumers when they adopt the RFID system, improving the company or product image that will be beneficial to the overall development of the firm.
I believe that the concepts of RFID chips are really cool and innovative. I used to work in retail for about 2 years and scanning bar codes on items one by one was very time consuming. Also if a small part of the bar code was ripped off the product then it wouldn’t register when you scan it, which was annoying. I believe that more companies should use RFID since it has many benefits to it such as it being less time consuming and more accurate.
The RFID chips are so successful, because they save time and improve efficiency. Just like the picture show, by entering the information of inventory into the chip, we no longer need to open each box and double-check after it, RFID chips, computer and relevant would help us easily and quickly monitor and manage the situation.
RFID as a creative technology has been utilized by giant companies throughout the world, there will be more companies use the technology as far as I am concerned. In a long-term run the working environment would be more intelligence and efficient, companies will manage to allocate the resource and labor force more smart.
In my world of meeting planning, we are using RFID to enhance the attendee experience. RFID tags in their name badges help us to communicate with them personally in a room of thousands. We tie their preferences into the RFID tags to help notify attendees the location of specific meetings or even menu items at meals.
I believe that the concepts of RFID chips are really cool and innovative. RFID is a shift from bar codes. It is not surprising that most of the bigger companies already use this technology. Soon the smaller companies are going to employ this technology.