Case Studies of RFID Practices for Competitive Inventory Management Systems

The nature of emerging business technologies, such automatic identification, and data capture innovations, such as smart cards, touch memory, and RFID, proves to be a difficult process to implement and achieve, despite recent efforts, even as implementation continues to lessen. The economy of scales associated with bar codes is a difficult barrier to overcome. Two Pittsburgh-based companies are showcased in this case study, namely Mobile Aspects, Inc., a recognized leader in the integration of RFID-related technologies in inventory management processes of large acute care, and Vocollect, Inc., which is especially noted for its voice-recognition software and small hardware platforms used in warehousing and partially automated inventory systems. The firms' goals for implementing inventory management, specific inventory recommendations and changes, comparison of inventory management processes, selected measures to ensure the quality and security of data transmitted via RFID-based technologies, and lessons learned are discussed.