RFID and Wireless Personal Area Networks for Supply Chain Management

Abstract

Efficient supply chain management relies on knowing where products in the supply chain are located. The ability to track items from manufacturing plant to warehouse to distribution center to wholesaler to retailer is currently provided by RFID, radio frequency identification (Weinstein, 2005). Case examples of commercial applications of RFID in supply chain management are evaluated by Jones et al. (2004). A recent development, low power wireless personal area networking, WPAN, can offer advantages over RFID in certain circumstances. It is the purpose of this article to evaluate RFID and wireless personal area networks with respect to each other and to identify the features that give one an advantage over the other. We first describe the two technologies.