“Wal-Mart and other retailers say RFID will help them track goods throughout the supply chain and ultimately will help them get the right products in the right stores at the right time. It’ll also help locate specific products anywhere in the supply chain, which should make recalls easier to manage. “Getting merchandise to the shelf is important to us,” Dillman said. “Tracking recalls is one of the next projects Wal-Mart is working on.”
RFID is not new. But before Wal-Mart revealed its initiative, the technology was used mainly for tracking very high-value assets. One analyst has called RFID “the oldest emerging technology,” said Julie England, VP of Texas Instruments Inc. and general manager of its RFID business.”
