Finding RFID's Business Case in China

By Steven H.T. Wong

Nonetheless, RFID's promise of better visibility is still useful for manufacturers here. Increasingly, they ask us about RFID-enabled shop floor systems for work-in-progress (WIP). They need to compare raw materials with finished goods to figure out what they're losing on the production line. They want to locate bottlenecks and identify workers who are slowing down production or creating goods that don't pass quality control. And, most important, they need to know how many units will be completed on time.

The greatest flaw with traditional shop floor systems is that the data capture is largely done by hand, which tends to be an inaccurate, inefficient process. Automatic data capture for WIP systems is a compelling RFID business case, but we do not yet have enough solutions to offer.

WIP environments, for example, use many more interrogators than a dock door environment, so the readers must be less expensive and small enough to fit on the assembly line. Instead of RFID labels that leave with the product, we in China have to design reusable RFID trays and boxes—and come up with a way to associate and disassociate them with their contents efficiently. This means producing desktop interrogators designed specifically to register reusable tags. Read ranges must also be shorter because tags will be small, clipped on and removed from one product to the next.

Other frequently requested solutions in China include tracking systems for exhibitions, real-time location systems for expensive equipment and low-cost handheld readers for small warehouses. And of course, everyone wants the holy grail of an RFID-based anticounterfeiting system.

While not all of these potential uses may turn out to be lucrative businesses, clearly the Chinese market has unique needs that bear further exploration. Equipment manufacturers need to work with Chinese RFID vendors and manufacturers to develop their product roadmap. Standards bodies need to expand their scope to include guidelines for a wider range of applications. Systems integrators need to let their customers understand that they are early adopters of this technology and must commit significant resources if they are to get any real benefits.

If RFID is to succeed at all in China, we can't be blind to the world's factory floor. The time to begin developing this market is now.


Steven H.T. Wong is the product development director of China Elite Technology (CET), and a member of the EPC Partners Advisory Board to EPCglobal Hong Kong. CET consults for Chinese factories and is a leading supplier of RFID transportation tokens in China and Russia.