Pilot tales: consider the experience of the battle-worn before starting your RFID pilot

Frontline Solutions, July, 2004 by Michael Bordenaro

Groups and markets make better decisions than individuals. Or so argues James Surowiecki in his book, The Wisdom of Crowds. Following this logic, the pilot activity of consumer goods manufacturers, retailers, and military organizations now implementing radio frequency identification (RFID) technology will prove useful to all faced with such implementation challenges.

For example, when a company initiating an RFID program sees that Hewlett-Packard is already finished with a pilot and is rolling out the technology at 29 facilities worldwide, that company can look at the choices Hewlett-Packard has made and know that those choices were followed by success. That doesn't mean that mimicking Hewlett-Packard ensures success; rather, it means that HP has demonstrated one path to success based on its particular attributes as a company.

Outside the retail arena, the Department of Defense (DoD) is making available some of its extensive research on RFID implementation. Its recent pilot of Meals Ready to Eat (MRE) cases, pallets, and containers with RFID tags has proven successful at writing data to tags, using temperature-monitoring tags, reading portal tags, completing wireless data transfers, and creating shipping documents.

The DoD found handheld readers to be technologically immature, radio frequency coordination of readers to be critically important, and seamless integration a must, according to a report on the pilot at the Defense Distribution Depot in San Joaquin, Calif.

Shape the Standards

In the retail sector, industry leaders are also sharing implementation experience. Wal-Mart's manager for RFID strategy, Simon Langford, recently stated his belief in the importance of participation in standards activities: "I would encourage anyone interested in this technology to get involved with EPCglobal and help shape the standards."

EPCglobal is the governing body that has established the democratic nature of RFID's introduction into the retail world. Knowing that this quickly developing technology would impact broad areas of business, the founders of EPCglobal established the forum for ensuring that open standards would allow interoperability at the highest level possible.

Involvement in EPCglobal allows access to historic research and technical assessments of the physics behind the technology. All of the RFID leaders are involved in EPCglobal, and many have prominent positions with the organization. For example, Dick Cantwell, Gillette's vice president responsible for RFID, is the chairman of the board for EPCglobal, of which Gillette was a co-founder. Similarly, Dick Lampman, Hewlett-Packard's senior vice president for research, is an internal corporate sponsor for RFID development and a member of the EPCglobal board.

EPC Leaders

Whether or not you join EPCglobal, electronic product code (EPC) leaders are willing to share some of the lessons they have learned. Ian Robertson, RFID program director at Hewlett-Packard, says, "Once you understand the full potential of RFID in all your business applications, you want to go off and do everything at once. That is the worst thing you can do."

Because of Hewlett-Packard's technological base, the company is both a manufacturer of products that will use RFID technology and an RFID consultant. Robertson leads an umbrella group that ensures that both sides of its RFID operation benefit from each other. He advocates the use of a consultant to help guide newcomers.

He also advises that companies choose their consultants quickly because of the predictable demand on expert resources created by the imminent mandate deadlines of retailers and the government. "If I look at the outside and ask if there will be enough people, the answer is, 'No, absolutely not.'" Robertson says.

Compounding Your Risk

The not-so-subtle advice to gain RFID assistance is echoed by technology analyst Tom Ryan of Aberdeen Group: "The timeframes for compliance are so tight that if you wait you are actually compounding your risk. This year you have maybe 250 vendors shipping to a couple of dozen distribution centers. But by January 2005 there may be as many as 60,000 vendors needing to be working on RFID programs for Wal-Mart and the DoD."

Paul Fox, a Gillette spokesperson who works closely with the company's RFID initiative, says, "There are two things that you have to weave into an RFID initiative. First, the assessment of this technology requires the support of a company's most senior management. Second, a business has to establish a dedicated EPC function across all business operations, because this technology potentially touches many parts of a business. It is not just an IT initiative, it's not just a supply chain initiative; it has elements relative to sales and marketing functions because it involves the customer."

Gillette has been working on its own full-scale EPC pilot at its Devens, Mass., facility in addition to establishing case and pallet RFID programs at locations near Wal-Mart's Texas-based pilot.

Another Wal-Mart supplier, Proctor & Gamble, is currently conducting pilot tests on its Bounty paper towels and Pantene shampoo and conditioner product lines. "Paper is easiest for us to read; products with liquids and metal get hung up a little more," says Jeanne Tharrington, spokesperson, as she explains that conducting pilots on a variety of product types is useful in gaining a full understanding of the technology.