Abstract :
The supply chain industry is one of the largest market segments served by the company where I work. A few short years ago it was virtually impossible to pick up a trade magazine and not find a feature article related to RFID. Industry pundits were predicting a massive rollout that would transform the entire industry. Driven largely by mandates from mass merchandisers and the U.S. Department of Defense, supply chain companies were urged to get with the program or get left behind. Right now, however, RFID articles in the trade press are sparse. Industry observers say that RFID has failed to meet the early, overblown expectations, and has now become unfashionable, at least in the media. Some even believe that the current limitations of the technology will never be overcome, and that benefits to businesses and consumers will be elusive or nonexistent. I believe that the reality lies somewhere between these two extremes. That is why I believe it is important to have a peer-reviewed engineering-centric magazine such as IEEE Applications and Practice investigate emerging technologies like RFID and provide a pragmatic view from the trenches on the current state of the art, the challenges that remain, and future directions of the technology. The articles in this issue present such a cross-section.
