Does the Introduction of RFID Technology Improve Livestock Subsidy Management?: A Success Story from an Arab Country

Does the Introduction of RFID Technology Improve Livestock Subsidy Management?: A Success Story from an Arab Country

Kamel Rouibah, Abdulaziz Al Ateeqi, Samia Rouibah
Copyright: © 2013 |Pages: 28
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-3619-4.ch002
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Abstract

While the expected benefits and challenges of RFID technology have been well studied in the manufacturing and service sectors at the private organization level, little understanding exists of these two issues when exploring RFID adoption in the agricultural field and at the public organizational level. Previous tracking programs in Kuwait have been unsuccessful in reducing illegal activities that lead to fraud and the wasting of public money in animal feed programs. To alleviate these problems, an RFID program, supported by information systems, was designed to help monitor and control feed distribution and animal tracking. Unlike previous studies, this case describes the application of RFID for the tracking and monitoring of livestock by the Kuwait Public Authority of Agriculture Affairs and Fish Resources. It reviewed the subsidy process before and after RFID adoption and found a large reduction in the actual number of animals claimed after RFID adoption, which reduced fraud and increased animal accountability.
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Organization Background

Even through RFID technology seems to have emerged quite recently, the concept is not new. It has its origins in military applications during World War II, when the British Air Force used RFID technology to distinguish allied aircraft from enemy aircraft with radar (Asif & Mandviwalla, 2005). RFID received great attention by academia and practitioners after the Society of Information Management (SIM) conducted its last survey of Information Technology executives, and RFID was rated among the top 20 developments in application and technology (Luftman et al., 2006).

Literature review papers on RFIDs (Roussos & Kostakos 2009) identified a variety of RFID applications including supply chain, ticketing, asset tracking, retail stores, personal identification, library books, hospitals, and animal tracking. Moreover, these studies have shown numerous potential advantages as listed in Table 1.

Table 1.
Summary of expected benefits from RFID adoption from past studies
Enumerated benefitsReferencesCategorized benefits
Improve quality Leimeister et al. (2009)
Automate manpower Leimeister et al. (2009) Improve process management
Reduce errors Leimeister et al. (2009)
Reduce inconsistencies in stock Leimeister et al. (2009)
Optimize stock keeping Leimeister et al. (2009)
Improve customer service Leimeister et al. (2009)
Shrink reduction Kinsella (2003); Gozycki et al. (2004)
Reduce manpower Leimeister et al. (2009) Cost saving
Reduce counterfeits Kinsella (2003); Leimeister et al. (2009)
Reduce labor cost Kinsella (2003)
Reduce inventory cost McFarlane and Sheffi (2003); Gozycki et al. (2004)
“Bullwhip effects” reduction Higgins and Cairney (2006); Roh et al. (2009)
Uncertainty of product availability reduction Asif and Mandviwalla (2005); Roh et al. (2009)Supply Chain visibility
Reduction in out-of-stock, delivery and safety stock Kinsella (2003); Roh et al. (2009)
Inventory obsolescence material handling cost reduction McFarlane and Sheffi (2003); Roh et al. (2009)
Rich information change among suppliers Asif and Mandviwalla (2005); Roh et al. (2009)
Inventory monitoring McFarlane and Sheffi (2003); Higgins and Cairney (2006); Roh et al. (2009)
Efficiency measurement Higgins and Cairney (2006); Roh et al. (2009)
New process creation Sheffi (2004); Asif and Mandviwalla (2005); Hoffman (2006); Roh et al. (2009)
Communication of the components parts to a reader Higgins and Cairney (2006); Roh et al. (2009)New process & product creation
Quality control Hoffman (2006); Roh et al. (2009)

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