SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT – SPRING 19

Faculty: Sir Sohail Majeed

ASSIGNMENT
RFID BASED INVENTORY
MANAGEMENT MODEL
by
Muhammad Saad Siddiqui
8210

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 RFID based Inventory Management Model
A commercial or industrial enterprise and the people who constitutes it, the
provision of goods or services or both; keeping in regard the financial and
commercial and industrial dimensions, or simply; occupation, work or trade of
people associated within the same, are few common expressions to define a
business; on the other hand, the art of application of scientific knowledge to
practical problems is referred to as technology. For unforeseeable time in the past,
technology has been catering business to valuable extents; however, rapidly
growing and developing technology and the present throat-cutting competitive
business environment are now the perfect example of ‘two bodies one soul’. In
counting numerous support activities of technology in businesses, RFID stands at a
top-drawer rank in the lengthy list. RFID having its roots in the early 1970s is an
extremely sensitive non-line-of-sight detection technology comprising of two main
technological components, namely; RFID tags and RFID readers, the working
principle is different to that of other digitize detection and accounting packages
working with barcodes or etc. and is based on radioactive waves; following RFID’s
success as ease of access, there are numerous inventory management software and
systems having RFID as there base; on the other hand there are standards
complementing these packages with assurance; although, there are many other
applications of RFID as well such as; tracking etc. however, it is a fact that its
major area is supply chain and inventory management, as item level tracking,
accuracy, visibility, reliability, labor reduction are some of the numerous benefits
of RFID; however, upgradation, distribution and carry forwarding of errors etc. are
few cons associated with RFID; but above all, this is an extremely expanding
technology in businesses or specifically in supply chain, keeping in regard the fact
of its continual amazing developments it can be deduced that it has a even brighter
future.

RFID is an acronym for Radio Frequency Identification, it was invented decades

ago but nowadays is quite popular among businesses for detection of their goods
and more importantly in supply chain; inventory management; warehousing. RFID
is a technology which is working on Radio frequency or radio wave, this
technology is used to identify or track objects automatically, these objects can be
anything: books in the library, any item in the shopping marts or it could be the

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inventory in the warehouse; moreover, it can be used to track not only objects but
living things such as animals or even birds.

There are two basic components on which this technology works, that are; RFID
reader and the RFID tag. This RFID tag is attached to the object we want to track
or detect and the RFID reader is continuously or on trigger sends radio waves
signals, so whenever the tag, attached with the object, is in the range of these
signals it sends a feedback signal to the reader, these feedback signals are the
information entered into the tag, mostly relating to the respective object, and the
reader manipulate the feedback signal and thus tracking is performed. It is quite
similar to the technology in barcode with the exception, that the barcode reader
should be in the line of sight of the barcode, as RFID is a non-line-of-sight
technology so as far as the object is in the range of reader it is able to detect the
signals and generate the feedback signals and this is how even numerous objects
can be identified at the same time.

As the RFID system has two components namely the reader and the tags, so these
RFID tags also comes in several types; active tags, passive tags and semi passive
tags. Active tags posses their own power supply which cater both purposes of
RFID tags that are to detect signals from the reader and to transmit the feedback
signals as well; however, a passive tag does not have its own power supply so it
rely on the radio waves sent by the reader to acquire energy for detecting the reader
signals and transmitting the feedback; whereas, semi passive tags have their own
energy supply for detection but for transmission they too rely on energy from
reader’s radio signals. Passive tags are the most common in use because they are
compact as they do not possess any power unit and the same makes them a little
less expensive as well. As far as concern with the types of RFID readers they may
be hand-held readers or they may be as large as the size of the door as we usually
see in the shopping malls.

To have an insight of the working principle of RFID, the frequency ranges play an
important part. These frequencies of operation have several classes: LF (low
frequency range), HF (high frequency range) and UHF (ultra-high frequency
range), these frequencies of operations vary country to country; however, mostly
the following frequencies are generated: LF with 125-134 KHz., covering short
distances up to the range of 10 cm, HF with 13.56 MHz, covering comparatively

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high distance of range up to 1 m and UHF with 860-960 MHz, that is capable of
covering a much larger distance of range 10 to 15 meters. The working principle is
closely related with these frequencies, for LH and HF ranges the working principle
is ‘inductive coupling’ which is also called ‘near field coupling’; whereas, for UHF
ranges the working principle is ‘electromagnetic coupling’ which is also called ‘far
field coupling’.

In today’s time the applications of RFID have a vast scope, including: library,
hospitals schools and colleges, transportation and logistics, access control, sports,
animal tracking; however, inventory management leads the list. Inventory
management may be at departmental store or a library; however, at a warehouse its
importance is the most as the efficiency of the system may provide cutting edge
business benefits in the shape of cost reduction, timely and correct delivery of
goods hence improved customer satisfaction which not only helps in retaining the
current customers but also in enlarging the customer’s scope and suite.

In most warehouse operations goods go through a series of inbound and outbound

processes, RFID is used to automate and improve every step of the logistic cycle. A
thorough comparision of the traditional warehousing and the warehouses using
RFID, is a tool in understanding that how RFID ensures more effective and
efficient operations. The first step is ‘receiving’ where the information regarding
the goods received is input in the warehouse management system. In traditional
warehouse a barcode is attached to the pallet load associating the description of the
goods, in RFID based warehousing an RFID tag is attached to the pallet which may
be reusable as well, the barcode is scan through hand held apparatus, however, tags
are signaled automatically through RFID readers.

The next step is the inbound zone transfer process, where goods are handed over
from the receiving zone to the storage zone, in conventional warehouses the
handover is performed manually between two parties, where each pallet is
inspected manually recorded and signed off, in RFID the RFID gantries are
installed at the handover zone boundaries, when a driver passes it is automatically
detected and recorded electronically without the driver getting slow down for
manual proceedings.

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The next step is put away which includes the placement of the goods received in
the bin at an appropriate location or wreck, conventionally this is done by scanning
the barcode on the pallet or manually analyzing the goods and after placing them in
a wreck recording the location manually or by scanning the barcode at the location.
In RFID this is done automatically when the pallet is loaded in a truck, it is
scanned on its own the driver is then guided to an appropriate location, on during
placement of the pallet the tag of the location is also read by the same truck
installed reader and the location is automatically associated and recorded.

When goods are ordered by the customers, items need to be pick from the storage
locations this is referred to as ‘picking’. A picklist is generated by the warehouse
administration and then the goods are physically picked on the requirement of
those picklists manually and recorded which is later on updated in management
system. In RFID the picklist is automatically updated in the readers mounted on
trucks or hand-held, the pallet is picked as per the location in the reader and
scanned therein, which directly updates the management system, eliminating the
paper work at all.

The next step is zone transfer out in which goods ordered, are taken out from the
storage to the shipment zone this is conventionally done by manual recording and
now with RFID again the gantries are installed at the boundaries which
automatically scan and detect the right goods are being transferred out and record
is also made then and there automatically.

The abovementioned RFID operations in comparision to that of the traditional

ones, implies the gigantic merits of item level tracking of the entire inventory, real
time processing including prompt updates, clear visibility of even minor factors,
accuracy at all new levels, reliability including less human intervention and above
all tremendous efficiency resulting in overall improved inventory management.
However, there are few issues associated with RFID as well, such as it is capital
intensive, including high initial investment, continual system upgrades are a must,
this system tends to be difficult in understanding requiring more trainings, if one
wrong description is associated with a pallet it will carry forward till the end
remaining undetected.

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Above all RFID is a tremendous approach in today’s business and is increasing its
scope day by day, more and more RFID system are being introduced more
efficient, easier, more compact, more innovative, along with these packages comes
the standard maintenance as well; ISO and IEC standards are most commonly
applied to RFID software packages. The most popular paid and self-made RFID
packages include ‘Warehouse SMS’ and ‘REAP’ respectively. The future of RFID is
scoping humans; moreover, GPS and mobile connectivity are all inline
developments of RFID. For sure future of modern Supply Chain and logistic is
nothing but RADIO FREQUENCY IDENTIFICATION.