The opportunities enabled by RFID beyond the supply chain fall into three categories: safety and security, mobile asset management and complex process simplification.
Safety and Security :
The first benefit among this category is the reduction or elimination of theft and counterfeiting. RFID can also be applied to important, sensitive or valuable documents, providing document security and also avoiding productivity-consuming searches for missing files.
Mobile Asset Management
Many industries have many millions of dollars
invested in mobile/moveable assets that are needed for internal
operations or to serve customers.Often, the amount of time such equipment is in
actual use, known as asset utilization, is quite low, sometimes due to
lack of information about its whereabouts or condition. This comes at a
significant financial cost. This cost can be minimized
Complex Process Simplification
Complex process simplification using RFID technology can offer
particularly important benefits to many enterprises. Many organizations
have processes and workflows with a lengthy "chain of custody," where a
product, asset, document or even a person is "touched" by many
different people and/or pieces of equipment at different times, with
few if any being involved from beginning to end.
IT Strategy should include data management, network and end-user device management, and a new category for many IT organizations, sensor management
Network and end-user management follows from the pattern that information views will be need to be constructed
assuming that a handheld computer, BlackBerry device or even a cell
phone will be the recipient's platform of choice for receiving
information and providing updates. These compact platforms will require
new thinking in how to process a great deal of data in ways that
provide essential information to the user yet doesn't filter it
excessively, in a readily useable format.
Sensor Management :IT organizations will need a new set of
capabilities and skill sets to manage the proliferation of RFID readers
and tags and to understand the processes within which they operate. To
effectively provide sensor management, IT needs to ensure that
standards are set for tags, readers and how they are deployed.
Link:The Impact of RFID on Business Operations and IT Infrastructure - Computerworld:
