News from RFID Journal's Industry Summits

Elliot Maxwell, RFID consultant and fellow at the Center for the Study of American Government at Johns Hopkins University, said in a panel discussion on RFID privacy best practices that not all companies are doing enough to address consumer privacy concerns. Sandra Hughes, chief privacy officer with Procter & Gamble (P&G), pointed out that no matter how closely P&G follows the set of privacy guidelines EPCglobal and the Center for Democracy and Technology have developed—which include informing consumers where and how RFID tags are used to track products, and letting consumers choose whether to leave tags on products intact or deactivate them upon purchase—its actions won't have an impact unless all of its supply-chain partners, especially retailers, follow them as well.

Maxwell also stressed the importance of applying privacy and data-security protections appropriate to the application of RFID. "Identity documents need to be treated differently than a case of Pampers," he said.

Jim Dowden

Shabbir Dahod, president and CEO of e-pedigree software and services provider SupplyScape, addressed how RFID data can be used for e-pedigree adoption in the pharmaceutical industry. James Dowden, director of distributing and warehouse services at drugmaker Hoffman-La Roche, joined Dahod, describing the drug company's own efforts specific to using RFID technology for e-pedigree tracking. The e-pedigree system, intended to secure and streamline the supply chain by keeping an electronic trail of a product's movement from manufacturing to the customer, will maintain the authenticity of a pharmaceutical product through the supply chain, Dahod stated, adding that EPCglobal is currently working on an e-pedigree format to sign documents digitally.

According to Dahod, it will take three to five years for pharmaceutical and biotech companies, as well as their networks of wholesalers and pharmacies, to adopt e-pedigree systems. Bar-coding and serialization (the assigning of a specific tracking number to each product item) will happen fairly quickly, he predicted, while RFID will follow behind.

Hoffman-La Roche has begun pursuing RFID adoption at its Nutley, N.J., facility, Dowden said. It began in 2003 with the establishment of a team to pursue RFID, as well as bar-coding and e-pedigree. The group met with retailers, wholesalers, technology providers and regulatory bodies, Dowden said, and is now preparing a strategy for implementation. They intend to leverage existing infrastructure, Dowden said, as well as challenge IT vendors to enhance their existing product suites rather than deliver capabilities "a la carte."

Brian Millsap, vice president and chief information officer for Hampton Products, provided an update on Hampton's progress with integrating RFID tagging into its business practices and using read data from Wal-Mart to gain supply-chain visibility. Hampton Products, a Wal-Mart supplier of locks and lighting products, has garnered significant attention for voluntarily tagging all of its products headed to three different Wal-Mart DCs in Texas (see Hampton Unlocks ROI from RFID).