May 19, 2008—RFID Journal LIVE! 2008, RFID Journal's sixth annual conference and exhibition, was held April 16-18 at The Venetian hotel in Las Vegas. LIVE! 2008 marked the company's largest RFID event to date, with more than 3,300 attendees gathered at the conference. Speaker presentations and videos from the event are now available—see the final page of this story for downloading instructions.

The conference commenced with general-session presentations from Gregory L. Johnston, executive VP of Wal-Mart's Sam's Club subsidiary, and Anush Kumar, senior product director of Microsoft. The event also featured keynote speeches from Bob McDonald, chief operating officer of Procter & Gamble (P&G), and Ray Martino, chief technology officer of Motorola's Enterprise Mobility division. (See Sam's Club, P&G Discuss Sharing RFID's Value).

Bob McDonald, COO of Procter & Gamble, delivered a keynote speech at this year's RFID Journal LIVE! conference.

Wal-Mart was among the early adopters to use Electronic Product Codes (EPCs) to improve on-shelf availability and reduce supply chain costs, and the retailer is now taking steps to implement the technology at its Sam's Club locations across the United States. In his opening speech, Johnston discussed how Sam's Club is using RFID technology in its operations.

Explaining the differences in applications between Sam’s Clubs with different formats, Johnston said he believes the retailer and its suppliers will all profit from RFID implementation. Though he noted that Sam's Club considers its RFID mandate plans (see Sam's Club Tells Suppliers to Tag or Pay) to be reasonable, he also acknowledged and thanked the many suppliers in attendance at the event. "We ask a lot of our suppliers, and you deliver a lot," Johnston said, adding that RFID "will bring a benefit to all of us."