It’s been hinted before, but now it seems official. Most Wal-Mart suppliers will not be meeting the January 1, 2005 deadline to incorporate RFID tags in all their products, according to this New York Times story.

To date, most of Wal-Mart’s suppliers have not figured out inexpensive ways to automate the printing and application of the tags. Although read rates are improving, no one who uses the technology has systems that can reliably read the information 100 percent of the time in factories, warehouses and stores; Wal-Mart said the rate was around 60 percent in its stores.

Nor is the data currently integrated well enough with other technology to initiate changes in manufacturing or shipping schedules that could actually save the large sums of money that would make the investment worthwhile.

A good reminder of the fact that, despite all the hype and interest, RFID technology may not be yet as ready for primetime as believed. Could Wal-Mart’s famous transition to RFID become another Prada?

It’s been hinted before, but now it seems official. Most Wal-Mart suppliers will not be meeting the January 1, 2005 deadline to incorporate RFID tags in all their products, according to this New York Times story.
To date, most of Wal-Mart’s suppliers have not figured out inexpensive ways to automate the printing and application [...]