RFID: not quite prime time, but dawdle at your own risk

The new year signaled a turning point in the deployment of supply chain management's "next big thing" - radio frequency identification, or RFID. RFID isn't really new. For several years, military and security applications have deployed fairly sophisticated implementations of active RFID, which uses battery-powered radio-equipped tags to transmit pertinent information. However, the next wave of RFID, known as passive RFID, features cheaper nonenergized tags and is just poking into the marketplace.