Abstract
This chapter is proposing an empirical study to examine RFID sectors or businesses personal use of such technologies, especially with green of eco-friendly applications. For example, the Green Clean Institute defines this strategy as an attempt to promote the manufacturing of green products and services and using green business practices. This strategy hopes to accomplish products and services that cause no immediate, residual, or long-term harm to the environment. However, due to increased competitiveness and shorter product life cycles more and more attention is being paid to a reduction of resource usage and environmental protection. This chapter is meant to discuss the current and future practices of GSC management and how RFID can be incorporated into the business as a green, environmentally conscious enabler.
TopIntroduction
Green, Supply Chains, and RFID
There is considerable evidence the next frontier for achieving a competitive advantage in marketplace is taking up the idea of a green supply chain (GSC) by introducing corporate responsibility (CSR) and sustainability into your day-to-day operations. This chapter of applications of supply chain management (SCM) emphases the role of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. RFID-embedded has been a major technological advance that appears to be on the verge of universal acceptance as an industrial standard that will enable companies with improved data gathering. Therefore, helping managers make more informed decisions, saving capital while improving their environmental friendliness. Since the beginning of RFID since the early 1980s, the technology has blossomed into many sectors and different purposes but there is no consensus on the actual popularity, familiarity, and overall likeability of RFID in any of this. Some of these business sectors include retail, finance, information technology (IT), healthcare, and aerospace industry. As consumers continue to educate themselves and become more environmentally conscious, they will begin looking at a company’s green profile or their energy efficiency profile and begin making their purchasing decisions with that in mind. The speed at which companies peruse these indicatives will be directly related to the dollars spent on product by customers demanding green indicatives. Many firms are requiring their suppliers to be cognizant of these ideas and these customer demands, which will in turn drastically affect B2B commerce between the firm and its suppliers. With the wave of environmental friendliness emerging, these supply chains still have to deal with the challenges of keeping their strategy cost-conscious and effective; this is where RFID comes into play.
In a world that is bent on eliminating waste from its operations (i.e. eliminating redundancies, streamlining manual data collections, etc.), there is another form of west that occurs, physical waste. In other words, the waste that is created by transportation, outside warehousing, damaged inventory, wasted effort in managing these larger fleets, etc. RFID can increase the visibility for manufacturers, distributors, suppliers and retailers, and with real time information, firms can access much more accurate information regarding inventory movement and usage. This will not only reduce wasted costs but can have a large impact on the company’s overall environmental standing by reducing the operational west in the supply chain.
Purpose
The purpose of this research study is to find out, using a wide birth questionnaire to real world, multi-sector participants, how people feel about the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. RFID technology, which is not only a multi-billion-dollar industry but also the grandchild of Radar technology, has only been recently becoming more popular across many business sectors, far more than run of the mill retail security tags. This diversification comes at the forefront of oftentimes, the problems of RFID persisting or even getting worse across a supply chain.
The expressed purpose of the propositions presented in this study is to aid in the discovery process of what is the best business practice concerning the usage of RFID technology in the manufacturing and service industries and see if the results corroborate with that much of the current literature says about the popularity of the technology. Across practitioner and scholarly research, have generated many different and often contrasting opinions on how well RFID works in the real world. As well, because the technology has changed so much, many of the articles about RFID scholarly articles and research models are simply obsolete. This study stands to make a more modern look at whom is using RFID technology, based on sector, business, size, longevity, and most of all, the feelings of the business/respondent on the matter.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Vendor-Managed Inventory Systems (VMI): VMI-based systems are designed to transfer the control of inventory and its planning activities to a manufacturer or distributor in order to provide a beneficial relationship to promote a more transparent and seamless flow of goods and services at lower costs. As in many recent retailer applications, the supplier/vendor assumes responsible for replenishing and stocking inventory at appropriate levels to minimize inconvenience to the ultimate customer.
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID): RFID technologies are types of automatic data capture techniques that use a combination of active and passive senders and receivers to collect and store codified information for further uses. The implementation of such technologies should lead to improved managerial and/or supply chain performance. On the surface, there appears to be few drawbacks to implementing such technology into a production process, assuming it enhances performance and improves output of the product. The main issues surrounding the RFID applications are whether the initial costs and labor required to utilize this technology are worth it and will result in a positive outcome of revenues.
Barcoding Technology: A long-term and very reliable type of AIDC technology, it is known for its very accurate and economical approaches to identity products and machine-readable information from a variety of manufactured goods and services. Most barcodes use a type of standardized bars and spacing coding or symbology that is certified by an international standards body (GS1 System). This system provides for the universal global acceptance of many types of barcodes designed for a variety of shipping and identification applications. Example barcode formats that are in common use today include EAN/UPC, GS1 DataBar, GS1-128, ITF-14, GS1 DataMatrix, GS1 QR Code and Composite Components.
Automatic Identification and Data Capture Technologies (AIDC): Types of AIDC-related technologies to leave the human element out of the data collection and storage functions of information derived from manufacturing, integrated through the manufacturing process, types of authentication concerns and/or e-security strategies, and relationship links to customer profiles. Typical types of AIDC include, bar coding, RFID, magnetic strips, touch memory, and smart cards.
Virtual Asset Trackers (VAT): Increased transparency in supply chains and the need to track personal as well as physical assets has led to the development of Virtual Asset Trackers (VAT). VAT-based technologies allow for hosted users to automatically received updates on inventories on their RFID handhelds and Web Asset Managers. VAT is a type of application of active RFID tagging that allows healthcare practitioners to enhance security to patients, residents, and hospital staff while providing better patient and resident-care services. Ideally, proper leveraging of VAT-based technologies allow management within the healthcare setting to simultaneously improve regulatory compliance, preventing or reducing inventory shrinkage, reduce labor intensive staff assignments, and lessen spoilage of perishables. These are mainly operational advantages that are commonly associated with active RFID applications.
Inventory Control: Inventory control is the concept by which the negative aspects of maintaining inventories (i.e., less capital to invest elsewhere, costs associated with shrinkage and storage) are balanced with its positive aspects (i.e., having goods and services available in a JIT fashion). A number of traditional models are used to optimize levels of inventory (i.e., Minimum Stock, Economic Order Quantity (EOQ), and Safety Stock methods) that help determine minimum stock necessary to adequately maintain production levels.
Supply Chain Management (SCM)/Performance: In basic terms, supply chain is the system of organizations, people, activities, information and resources involved in moving a product or service from supplier to customer. The configuration and management of supply chain operations is a keyway companies obtain and maintain a competitive advantage. The typical manufacturing supply chain begins with raw material suppliers, or inputs. The next link in the chain is the manufacturing, or transformation step; followed the distribution, or localization step. Finally, customers as outputs purchase the finished product or service. Service and Manufacturing managers need to know the impact of supply on their organization’s purchasing and logistics processes. However, supply chain performance and its metrics are difficult to develop and actually measure.
JIT: JIT methodologies are intended to maximize the ability to respond to consumer preferences but simultaneously reduce levels of inventories via lean or cost-sensitive approaches. It is hoped by the eliminating any wasteful or non-value-added activities, a firm can strategically level automation and its highly skilled.