She adds that the determination of what data to retain will be tied directly to business processes. For example, once an item is sold, a company may want to retain data indicating that fact, but it may want to purge the RFID-generated supply chain data about the item’s journey from the factory plant to the store.

Starkoff also thinks that CIOs may find relief from the data glut through software being developed by Manhattan Associates, SAP and other vendors that collects the reader data and turns it into clear and concise messages that say that the shipment is as it should be or that there is an exception to the order.

To mitigate the impact of all this data on Limited Brands’ network, Starkoff plans to leverage the network management tools the company currently uses to optimize the bandwidth she has today. Also, because the tags allow storage of data specific to each unit?whether pallet, case or garment?it’s possible for readers to determine the content of a box or the origin of a particular shipment without having to make a network connection to a central database. She says this will minimize bandwidth demands.

Starkoff realizes that if Limited Brands has to spend for bandwidth and storage upgrades on top of its investment in tags and readers, the total cost of an RFID implementation will skyrocket.

"If you deploy RFID technology without thinking it through and without optimizing your infrastructure, you can see where the ROI would just dissipate," she says. So, to minimize her investment and mitigate the impact of all this RFID data on Limited Brands’ infrastructure, she’s trying to figure out what information needs to be transmitted in real-time and what can wait 24 hours for a batch update. Right now, she believes inventory and replenishment information will be most valuable in real-time. "When RFID moves beyond the supply chain and onto the sales floor, real-time RFID information could make for a dynamic, sales-driven replenishment system," she says.

RFID Remediation: Y2K Redux

Today, most retailers’ systems have been written to hold 11-digit UPC bar codes. But the serial numbers encoded on RFID tags, known as electronic product codes (EPCs), are composed of 13 digits. To accommodate those two extra digits, CIOs are going to have to expand the numerical structures inside their systems.

An initiative called Sunrise 2005, launched in 1997 by the Uniform Code Council (UCC), a standards body for the retail and manufacturing industries, mandates that U.S. and Canadian companies be capable of scanning and processing up to 14-digit bar codes by Jan. 1, 2005. If they don’t, they won’t be able to share information with their trading partners and they’ll experience time-to-market delays and added costs. According to the UCC, this will require retail CIOs to either replace legacy systems with so-called RFID-ready systems or undertake a Y2K-like effort to reprogram their systems so that they recognize 13-digit EPCs.