By Mark Roberti

Dec. 8, 2003—Last week, the U.S. Department of Defense held a meeting with some 200 suppliers to begin spelling out its plans for using RFID to track everything from missiles to boots and to solicit feedback on its initial plan, outlined in October, from suppliers and RFID vendors. The meeting was attended by representatives from a cross section of the military's supply base, which includes large weapons makers, pharmaceutical companies, consumer goods manufacturers, and large and small companies from many other sectors.

Michael Wynne

At 9 a.m., Alan Estevez, assistant deputy under secretary of defense for supply chain integration, opened the meeting by explaining its purpose. He said that the DOD wanted to "open a dialog" with suppliers. Specifically, it wanted to explain the DOD's policy and begin to solicit feedback. Although there were many vendors and systems integrators in the packed room, he said that the focus was on the companies that would have to tag the supplies they ship to the DOD.

Estevez then introduced his boss, Michael Wynne, the acting undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics. Wynne talked about the military's goal of becoming a faster, more mobile, high-tech fighting force. "If you want to transform defense and you don't transform logistics, you're [foolish]," he said.

"The DOD talks about knowledge-enabled warfare, which means you have great situational awareness [about battlefield conditions] and therefore have the greatest opportunity to overcome any enemy," he said. "In the same way, I want to have knowledge-enabled logistics" so that the DOD has complete information about its supplies. He said his view was to one day be able to drive down the middle of the warehouse in a golf cart and have the supplies tell him what's in the warehouse.