IEN: What are the major concerns facing RFID, and how can they be addressed?
Riggin: RFID promises significant value for the future, but the technology is still rapidly evolving, with new directions, standards, capabilities, applications, and hardware being introduced on nearly a daily basis. This rate of change both fosters and hampers the adoption of the technology. It is fostered by the fact that new and value-based applications and approaches are exposed, which stimulate more thought and creativity to create even better applications and approaches. It is hindered by the fact that industry is skeptical to invest when they know the rate of change will outpace their implementation, and by the time deployed, their planned solution could already be obsolete
IEN: What innovations are in store in the next 12 months in tags, antennae, applicators/printers, readers, and software?
Riggin: The software vendors (our specific domain) will be focused on value-based applications that efficiently commission tags, use them to save labor, provide visibility, and facilitate tracking and tracing, and serve as a common means to managing inventory through the supply chain continuum. Solutions will need to start focusing beyond two-party trading relationships and look at the many-to-many relationships required across the supply chain. Applications need to view RFID as a new way of doing business -- capturing content passively -- and not just as a replacement to barcode tracking, which requires active participation/interaction.
IEN: What are the R & D hotspots? Which R & D areas are closest to commercialization?
Riggin: Using RFID for anti-counterfeiting of high integrity product represents a massive opportunity for return measured beyond monetary terms. Safety and security of healthcare product, protected using RFID technology, could save the healthcare industry billions of dollars while at the same time, saving lives.
IEN: How close to implementation are global standards?
Riggin: Our belief is that such standards are years off.
IEN: How can sensitive data be protected in light of privacy and security issues?
Riggin: New advances in auto-destructing tags are forthcoming with various prototypes being evaluated in laboratory environments.
IEN: Will there be a place for RFID in collaborative manufacturing?
Riggin: Ultimately, virtually every aspect of manufacturing, distributing, or selling product will be influenced by the "RFID revolution," but it will take years and maybe decades for it to be ubiquitous throughout day-to-day life.