First purpose of RFID is to increase productivity and cut cost. RFID helps people perform fewer jobs, so people can focus on other more important tasks and the entire process is done more effectively (O’Brien and Marakas 2007, pg. 103). For instance, building inventories in supply chain is a big problem as it is difficult to know exactly how the conditions of each product are. When the value of merchandise is too high, the cost of keeping them is also very high. On the other hand, the value of merchandise is too low but there is not any insurance for the situations “out of stock” of products. This leads to losses in profit. From that point, the cost of managing and keeping inventories is very high, so the companies always choose RFID as the best decision to control inventories. It is because the time and the cost to recognize the objects is less than other solutions. This results in more productivity. (Citation http://www.rfidc.com/docs/introductiontorfid.htm, retrieved on 4th Jan 2010). The second purpose is to reduce number of times doing a particular task. Trying to imagine what if the tasks of tracking and identifying items were done by human being. It is sure that there would be many mistakes created and then people have to do the whole process again and again. This leads to the result why people use RFID. It is obvious that if that task is done by RFID, there will be less error, so that there will be fewer situations that the task is redone. (Citation http://www.rfidc.com/docs/introductiontorfid.htm, retrieved on 4th Jan 2010). Another purpose of RFID is to obtain better security and services. An example of this is in banking, RFID is used to manage users’ account. Much information including monthly bill account, banking statements of users and the fraud avoidance are all organized by RFID. In these situations, RFID tag line of number on the ATM or credit card of the customer. That number presents as an account number and is read by any ATM that is located on the street sides, in the malls and in the banks. The bank can recognize all the users’ activities such as where, how and when the user withdraws or deposits the money as the codes on the cards and the ATM have has large network connection with banks’ computer system. Then, the bank can determine immediately if there are cases of fraud or thief, so that the customers have more confidence in the bank. Therefore, RFID helps the banks gain better security and customer services. The last purpose need to be mentioned here is to make better decision in management. An illustration for this is the system of MRT stations or bus in Singapore. They are both public transports and used by a lot of people, so the tasks such as ticket services, payment or controlling the trains and busses’ journey. The solution for these problems is RFID. How the RFID technology is used here is the EZ-link card containing a line of number that has network connection with major computing system of transports service. When the customers tab their EZ-link cards at the entrance of MRT or bus, it will be recorded in the computing system and the account in the card will be deducted automatically. Therefore, the managers can get interesting information saved in the database of MRT system. The managers know which time the customers use the service most or lest, so that they can make the best decisions of providing more or less bus and reducing or increasing the time between stations coming and going.
RFID technology is implemented by organizations in many aspects, including logistic-tracking, asset tracking, personal identification, payment systems, business processes and healthcare. (Citation http://www.rfidc.com/docs/introductiontorfid.htm, retrieved on 4th Jan 2010)
An example for logistic and tracking is the Gulf States Toyota company. The organization chooses active RFID tracking system for processing vehicles annually instead of the traditional way which was to send employees doing the process directly determine a particular car for a particular buyer’s demand. This decision helps Toyota company reduce the labor cost and obtain better quality of customer service and tracking system. (Citation http://www.rfidjournalevents.com/live2006/transportation_logistics.php, retrieved on 5th Jan 2010). On the other hand, Wal-Mart also begins to implement RFID technology on products and packaging in 2004. For business process, International Paper Company is a good illustration. The company agreed to employ RFID supply chain solution in 2004. It helped the company improve the processes of workflow- management gain the first rank in its industry for many years. (Citation http://www.rfidjournalevents.com/live2006/transportation_logistics.php, retrieved on 5th Jan 2010) (Myerson 2007, pg.23). Another implementation of RFID is electronic passport (e-passport) which is seen as personal identification. United Kingdom is one of first countries begin using this technology in reality in 2007. E-passport contains RFID chip including a biometric facial image that can be scanned to identify personal information. (Citation http://news.cnet.com/U.K.-e-passports-start-their-travels/2100-7348_3-6041491.html?tag=lia;rcol, retrieved on 6th Jan 2010). Furthermore, RFID is also implemented to determine ID of students in university and colleges such as Kaplan Singapore. Each student studying at Kaplan holds a student card using RFID technology to access the college and check attendance every day. There are bars of reader located on wall put at several places in the school, so the students can tab their cards on those bars. Last implementation of RFID is in healthcare. For instance, United State hospitals nowadays use RFID tag to determine the position of their patients. Newborn babies are tagged RFID chips on to distinguish from each other and avoid the situations of mistakes.
However, RFID is still a new technology which is developing, so there are some limitations to use this technology. Firstly, launching RFID technology is expensive, so it will be wasted if the amount of data is not big. Secondly, there are some concerns about consumer fears using RFID. For example, the customers holding responsibility for keeping a RFID chip in their passports, so government and corporation know where they are, what they are doing and all other controlling their behaviors. (Petkovic and Jonker 2007, pg.439) Lastly, the privacy seems the issue concerned most. More data means more way of accidentally disclosing such information. The information such as personnel, facility, hardware, software and documentation needs to be protected as assets. Therefore, there are some risks losing assets then getting damages and loss of productivity. (Sabri, Gupta and Beitler 2006, pg.133) (Miles, Sarma and William eds. 2008, pg. 22)
The second popular technology that is developing at the present is Global Positioning System (GPS), which is navigation system providing position information, is available any moment and anywhere on over the world. (Citation http://www.gps.gov/applications/timing/index.html, retrieved on 7th Jan 2010). It has major effect on land, in the air and at sea. (Hofmann, Lichtenberger and Collins 2001,pg. 319). This is a user-friendly equipment as all the users have to do is setting the exact date and time, then estimating the latitude and longitude that do not need to be accurate. Then the GPS receiver will be in processes and display the position for the users (Monahan and Douglass 2000, pg. 2). However, the GPS receiver is up-to-date and changing non-stop nowadays. Whole things the new GPS receiver wants the users to do is providing information of their locations by state, country or regions (Monahan and Douglass 2000, pg. 3). Then there are processes of transmitting signal between GPS receiver and some specific satellites. In the end, it provides its own present position to the users and helps them know where they are.
The development of this technology is due to different purposes of people to seek solutions for some problems. The most usual purpose is about navigation. GPS is used by both military and civilian most as they want to know exactly partial positions. In the air, aircraft uses GPS for journal of flights such as preparing for landing which requires high level of accurate calculations (Monahan and Douglass 2000, pg. 1). On the land, any types of users can use GPS as equipment identifying or seeking a position so that they never get lost. At the present, GPS is more modern as it can enter the water environment. This makes GPS become a relevant invention for the users who lost at sea, especially on boating. Another purpose of people using GPS is surveying. Besides providing position information, this technology also can do for people the calculation of natural changes of geography such as crustal deformations, volcanic uplift, earth rotation and so on (Hofmann, Lichtenberger and Collins 2001,pg. 321). Then, scientists can predict the problems, preventing and making solutions on time. The last purpose of using GPS is timing and communications. People, especially scientists, always need to identify exact time to monitor global geophysical measurements and GPS is the best solution (Hofmann, Lichtenberger and Collins 2001, pg. 320). GPS can give users an accurate time with several techniques supporting. In business, GPS is used for tracking. GPS also can plan the business trip for trucks. The companies choose GPS to collect their location information and send the information to a core-location, so that they can reduce time and cost of trucking for thousand of labor. (Citation http://www.delorme.com/business/default.aspx, retrieved on 7th Jan 2010). Also, with GPS the companies can manage asset better because GPS can determine where the companies’ assets tracking. For the people working in marketing and sale, they often have to go travel abroad. Therefore, they do not need to waste time and money on the street by using GPS navigation. (Citation http://www.delorme.com/business/default.aspx, retrieved on 7th Jan 2010). GPS system in transports such as cars and trucks helps employees of the organization save time when they have to delivery products to a particular location. This is due to automatic setting of journal by GPS tracking. GPS is also employed in the industry of security. For example, GPS tracking vehicle helps polices determine the position of the cars stolen.
There are some implementations of GPS which is used in reality. One of these is hand-held GPS which runs on batteries. It can fit in a shirt pocket. It has ability to display position, course, speed, possible time and more complex functions. It is also waterproof so that it can be used on boating and many other places at the sea. (Monahan and Douglass 2000, pg. 9) One more advantage of this application is low-cost. This equipment can be used by any type of users, including group of people and individuals. Next implementation is dominant navigation system on land, in the air and at the sea. The major organization implements this is Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) launched the system of GPS for the US airspace in 1994 to control approaching and landing. Another implementation is Japanese, uses GPS for stations to provide and monitor near real-time. For surveying, some North Sea oil platforms in the US use GPS to survey the changes in heights and some more calculations to understand the trend monthly. (Monahan and Douglass 2000, pg. 11)
Same as RFID, GPS also have limitations as it is still a new technology and need to be improved. There are three limitations which are poor GPS signal reception, loss of GPS signal integrity and limited positioning accuracy. GPS cannot be used at several places such as marine navigation and underground as there is limited signal. Mining and surveying underground are the examples. Moreover, if there are situations that wrong satellites or measuring positioning, the user will get wrong receiver position. Then the users do not know and correct the wrong signal, they also do not know that they got wrong position displaying. Therefore, the issue of GPS signals integrity is a big problem. Lastly, for any measuring equipments, there is always a limitation for accuracy and this also happens to GPS. There are different errors creating while GPS is transmitting signals with satellites and this is because of various reasons such as about satellite errors or receiver errors. (Citation http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-5034522.html, retrieved on 7th Jan 2010.)
In conclusion, by understanding two high technologies which are RFID and GPS, it proves that technology is vital to business due to advantages about competitions, productivity and saving costs. Both technologies solve many problems for business and are implemented in reality by many organizations over the world. However, they are still need to be improved and developed better because of some limitations.
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