| June 2007 |
| Supply-chain management will be reinvented in a world beyond bar codes. Here's what you need to know to get in early. |
| by Don Willmott |
It's a brilliant idea really: Replace bar codes and other tracking technologies with tiny, inexpensive radios that communicate over short distances and don't require physical contact. That's what RFID (radio frequency identification) is all about. As the technology takes off, people who understand it, and can implement it, are finding themselves in great demand.
What Is RFID?
Think of key fobs like the Exxon/Mobil Speedpass. Think of the electronic toll-taking gadget attached to your windshield. That's the concept. Miniscule microchip-equipped RFID tags can be as small as a fraction of a millimeter and can cost just a few cents to produce. They're basically sophisticated ID tags that report their coded information whenever they pass by an RFID reader. If every product in the supermarket were tagged, you could load up your cart and simply walk out of the store without stopping at a cashier. A reader would scan the contents of the cart and add them up as you passed by.
So far, organizations as large as Wal-Mart and as small as sushi restaurants have latched onto the idea for supply-chain management and inventory control. For four years, Wal-Mart has insisted that its biggest suppliers put RFID tags on large shipments to help everyone up and down the line track inventory with split-second accuracy. Though it's off to a slower start than expected - mainly because tags is still cost around 40 cents each, and must drop to 10 cents or less to be widely cost-effective - 600 of Wal-Mart's suppliers are on board. Meanwhile, the Department of Defense requires all its major capital purchases to carry RFID tags.
A more imaginative application: Singapore's Underwater World, where fish implanted with RFID tags identify themselves on TV screens as they swim by adjacent RFID readers. Picture pill bottles, library books, airline luggage, pets, tax forms, beer kegs, passports, or prison inmates all tracked through RFID. It's even been reported the Mexico City police department has tagged some of its officers to keep track of them and help protect them in case of kidnapping. (As you might expect, privacy advocates are sounding the alarm on several fronts.)
Growing - More Slowly Than Expected
According to market research firm In-Stat, 33 billion RFID tags will be produced globally by 2010, 25 times the 2005 production run. The total market size could be as large as $14 billion in 2011. Tag costs will have dropped by then, and new implementations will be appearing everywhere in both the private and public sectors.
A little farther down the line is yet another innovation: Wi-Fi RFID, in which slightly larger and more expensive battery-powered tags can identify themselves from greater distances, opening up another range of applications from shipping container management to student IDs for college campus security systems.
Who'll be designing and rolling out all these implementations? Well, maybe you. In late May, the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) released a survey of 64 IT resellers, VARs, integrators, and others in which 68.8 percent of respondents said there was a shortage of RFID talent. That sounds like a big opportunity, although some of the heat has dissipated over the past couple of years. (Last year, 80 percent of respondents saw a shortage of RFID talent.)
Still, the need for IT smarts in supply-chain management is always there, and RFID is on the cutting edge. On Dice, there are currently 175 jobs with "RFID" somewhere in their titles, in categories ranging from consulting and engineering to software development. Consultants and engineers who can picture how RFID technology should be integrated into the flow are needed, as are network integrators and software developers who can help put plans into motion. As information from RFID tags floods in, database gurus are needed to create ways to process the streams.
RFID Tribe (www.rfidtribe.org), an association for RFID professionals, recently released its in-depth 2007 RFID Workforce Study, a worthwhile $99 investment for anyone seriously exploring this career track. It predicts 30 percent to 40 percent annual growth in jobs through 2011, with the majority to be found among end users of RFID as opposed to government, academia, or RFID vendors. RFID Tribe also reports that a quarter of all related jobs are in engineering and R&D. The bottom line: Anyone who has ever dipped a toe into supply-chain management should be getting up to speed on RFID as a way to get into position for the future.
And Certification?
As a relatively new industry that embraces skill sets from all parts of IT, there is no single industry-wide set of certifications for RFID expertise. However, the industry understands that one may be needed to help the technology proliferate more quickly.
Today, a few classes and boot camps are available. The best-known certification comes from the vendor-neutral CompTIA (certification.comptia.org/rfid), which, for few hundred dollars, covers installation, maintenance, repair, and upkeep of hardware and software functionality of RFID products. Penn State University offers a two-day course (pserie.psu.edu/outreach/rfid) that costs $329, plus $250 for certification testing.
Spend just a few minutes thinking about how RFID works, and you'll probably come up with your own creative applications for it. Can you convert your great ideas into a new career path? It could be worth a try.
Don Willmott is a New York City-based journalist who focuses on Internet and technology trends.
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