RFID Creates Fast Asset Identification and Management
Then there’s the potential for people-tracking. Sporting event and concert tickets could incorporate tags that allow event organizers to sidetrack counterfeiting, achieve improved crowd flow management and ensure that people sit in their assigned seats. Likewise, RFID could help parents track their kids’ movements around an amusement park. More ominously, authoritarian governments could use implantable tags to track people and create lists of places they’ve visited. "There is a dark side to this technology," says Abell.
Plan and Pilot
As RFID gradually rolls out during the next few years, CIOs should remain aware of the technology and be ready to exploit it when the need arises, advises Woods. "What a CIO needs to be doing right now is to plan and pilot," he says. "I don’t think we’re going to see a tidal wave in 2003 of RFID adoption, but I do think we’ll see some really encouraging stuff going on."
Start small, but think big, suggests AMR’s Abell. "RFID has promise, and if you prepare your enterprise for incremental deployments, you will be ahead of the curve but within budget." The danger lies in procrastination. "Organizations that wait too long may watch the competition, as well as potential savings, pass them by," says Abell.
