{"id":323,"date":"2007-06-19T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2007-06-19T05:11:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2007-06-19T07:11:00","modified_gmt":"2007-06-19T05:11:00","slug":"wireless-tagging-on-its-way-to-a-shelf-near-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/hardware\/323-wireless-tagging-on-its-way-to-a-shelf-near-you.html","title":{"rendered":"Wireless tagging on its way to a shelf near you"},"content":{"rendered":"

Market commentators say the wireless tags, which are able to transmit information, could be attached to products in South African stores within the next two years. Although the system has the potential to streamline shopping, cut down on stock shrinkage and make supply chains transparent, concerns have been raised about violations of shoppers’ privacy. <\/font><\/p>\n

RFID allows companies to trace the entire journey of a product from start to finish. Some SA companies are already using the system in its simplest form — to tag containers or pallets. <\/font><\/p>\n

Massmart group commercial executive Jay Currie says the company may look at individually tagging high-theft items such as razor blades. Small, high-value items that are easy to resell are ideal for tagging. <\/font><\/p>\n

Such items would also justify the cost of the tags, which work in conjunction with hardware such as scanners. Currie says costs have come down in the past five years and will continue to drop as tagging becomes more popular. <\/font><\/p>\n

Massmart is investigating RFID, and will test it with pallets in the next few years, he says. <\/font><\/p>\n

Currie does not expect any large capital expenditure in the next three to five years. <\/font><\/p>\n

While the technology will streamline supply chains, Currie says, these chains need to be robust and mature. Locally, unlike in Europe and the US, supply chains require some work before RFID at individual item level will become a reality. <\/font><\/p>\n

Currie says some companies could start rolling out RFID at stores within the next two years, but SA is between three and five years away from nationwide RFID tags in stores. <\/font><\/p>\n

SA is still a long way away from the RFID utopia that will see shoppers load up their trolleys and simply push them past a scanner, pausing long enough to swipe their credit cards, before loading up the car and going home. <\/font><\/p>\n

RFID is not without its problems. The Metro Group in Germany, which has been using RFID along its entire supply chain since November 2004, has come under fire for the way information captured by the chips is being used. <\/font><\/p>\n

Karel Rode, solutions strategist at information technology company CA, says the use of RFID — and the smart chips at the heart of the system — do pose security challenges. <\/font><\/p>\n

Rode says because scanners can read all the information embedded in the chip, consumers can be bombarded by targeted advertising. And, as technology progresses and chips become smaller, they can be read by anyone, he says. <\/font><\/p>\n

Information read off the chips can be used to build up an “image” of the consumer, which can then be exploited. <\/font><\/p>\n

Worse still, identity thieves can obtain personal information such as identity numbers that are embedded within the chips, he says. <\/font><\/p>\n

And the chips, which can be embedded anywhere on a product, will not be easily removable, says Rode. <\/font><\/p>\n

“From a theft point of view, suppliers are not going to tell you where the chip is hidden because they don’t want it removed and replaced.” <\/font><\/p>\n

On the plus side, Rode says the fact that the tags can be embedded into any consumer item negates the need for items to be individually scanned at till points. Examples of chips already in widespread use include the tags attached to clothing, which are removed at the till, and the microchips pet owners can place under a pet’s skin. <\/font><\/p>\n

RFID chips also have the potential to be reprogrammed, which could make the need to collect till slips for warranty reasons superfluous. “Suppliers could embed warranty details into the product,” says Rode.<\/font><\/p>\n

Comments<\/a><\/p>\n

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SA MAY soon have stock theft and supply chain savings buttoned up with the widespread introduction of radio frequency identification (RFID) labels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hardware"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}