The End of the Bar Code 468
valdean writes "The University of Wisconsin RFID Lab, principally funded by a dozen Wal-mart suppliers including 3M, Kraft Foods, and S.C. Johnson & Son, believes that RFID could spell the end of the ubiquitous bar code. The big draw? Speeding up supply-chain management. Wal-mart's warehouse conveyor belts presently move products at 600 feet per minute... but they want to be faster. And better informed."
Dupe! (Score:5, Insightful)
Great News (Score:5, Insightful)
Knowing what's in one's cupboards might be useful. Be great if the best before date is encoded as part of the sequence.
N.O. (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, if I'm writing a registration program, it is trivially easy to create a bar code on the registrant's invoice that they then print and bring to the event. Until that magical RFID printer is developed and marketed, I don't see Bar Codes going away.
Also, that bar code on all those pieces of snail mail ("postnet") will not be replaced any time soon.
Probably a good decision (Score:4, Insightful)
And meanwhile their main rival Tesco were busy building up a large market lead...
biased much? (Score:3, Insightful)
An RFID lab funded by huge companies thinks RFID will do away with barcode? No shit!
A basic printer and barcode scanner can still be had for under $500. You can print as many barcodes as you want - your only limits are paper and toner.
An RFID reader (the kind you would need for warehousing applications) will cost several thousand dollars, and each RFID chip will cost a dollar at the very least. Then, if you want active chips (so you don't have to be within feet of the item), you'll have to pay $20-ish on volume.
I disagree. (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm sure they would still have people working at the store in some capacity, so I think that particular fear is unfounded :)
Personally, I would be glad if these systems were introduced and saved time at stores. To me, spending time at home with my girlfriend and horses is more important than standing in a qeue waiting for a cashier to process everyone's purchases.
Mixed up Goods (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Bar codes aren't going anywhere. (Score:5, Insightful)
And what's this nonsense about barcodes and speed concerns? 600ft/minute is nothing. Standard barcode readers can easily do 700 scans/sec. [keyence.com]. So these scanners could handle speeds of 3500 ft/minute.
Re:N.O. (Score:3, Insightful)
Albeit, its been 5 years since I've worked with RFID tags, but then you simply bought them, and they already were "created", which meant that they had a unique number embedded in them.
RFID tags are pretty cool. Advantages: no need for direct line of sight, data can be uploaded to them, they are passive and require no internal energy source. Disadvantages: cost, potential privacy issues, reliability.
I don't see RFID tags entirely replacing bar codes because bar codes are so inexpensive and easy. Even if the bar code is mangled beyond laser scanning, the numbers can be manually fed into the device if need be.
Both technologies are excellent. I used bar codes as an IQ test for the cashier when I'm buying canned cat food in bulk
Too early to call the fight (Score:5, Insightful)
Standards -- For one thing, there are many different standards (the US & Europe, for example, use different frequencies). Increased globalization of supply chains will make this a royal PITA, and probably not cost-effective, for many retailers.
RFID signals are easily blocked -- often accidentally. Soda Cans, for example, can interfere with RFID to such an extent that only tags on the outside of a pallet will be read.
Developing technology -- as RFID tech becomes more advanced, new capabilities will be put into play, and a lot of these may require software and hardware upgrades both for the tags and the readers. This, of course, can be expensive.
Unreliability -- while bar codes are relatively exensive to use (since they require active scanning within line-of-sight), they are very accurate. RFID tags have a misidentification rate that is higher, and can be compounded by improper placement of the scanned goods, or many other causes (like cell phone and walkie-talkie usage).
IMO, bar codes will be around for a very long while. Sure, Walmart will use RFID for supply-chain management. But, the real reason they are implementing it is:
RFID can be used to track consumers inside a store.
Better product placement, better loss prevention, better tracking of purchases.
Only the plus side, RFID is blocked by tinfoil hats.
Re:I know... (Score:5, Insightful)
Technology isn't the cause of human strife or prosperity; humans and how they use it are.
Wal*Mart speeding up their lines is a move to provide more production per unit investment. It's motivated by profit, plain and simple. (Not that it's a bad thing.) Now, if they passed these benefits along to the public, either through paying their employees more or hiring more people, that would be a good thing. The greatest benefit for the most people. If they used it to eliminate workers and pay their shareholders and executives more, that would be a bad thing, since it benefits the fewest number of people.
I don't want to get into a debate about trickle-down economics. I'm just trying to make the point that this isn't a good or bad thing. What we make of it is how we'll be judged by history.
Re:Commercial (Score:3, Insightful)
That commercial **really** creeps out my wife. She doesn't shop at Wal-Mart anymore because of it. (Because WM is pushing the hardest for RFID in consumer packaging.)
Don't fear the RFID (Score:3, Insightful)
ATM Much (Score:4, Insightful)
So... do you use ATM machines, or visit the delightfully human tellers every time you wish to deposit or withdraw cash?
I remember when ATM cards were introduced. There were a lot of people then, just like you, wailing and gnashing teeth over how we were de-humanizing our lives, how people were being replaced by robots, etc. etc. We marveled and whispered every time one of dem new-fangled ATM machines popped up on a nearby street corner. Coupla generations later and, what? We wonder how we ever got through life without cash-on-demand boxes.
Lines -- queues -- are inherently bad. Nobody wants to be on a line. It's got nothing to do with human interaction (If any of your meaningful human interaction occurs on a cashier's line you need to be placed on your local constabulary's 'Watch List.') Anything that eliminates or reduces lines is good.
Forget WarDriving (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:600 feet per minute... (Score:2, Insightful)
Here's the thing. Various packages/items on a conveyor get read by barcode readers at various points. They then either get diverted or left on the main line, depending on the scan results. This will happen some numbers of times. And, yes, there's a maximum speed to ensure a proper scan, and scanning faster/more accuratly will allow the scan and divert process to go faster.
But at the end of the day, the item winds up getting diverted to some queue where it's manually handled. This is where all the programmers out there can hopefully see the issue. Each queue has a finitie capacity, and this is generally determined by the physical layout of the warehouse. Overflowing the queue can be a major issue--items back up onto the main conveyor line because they've nowhere to go.
So, if you plan to speed up the conveyors, you need to ensure you have significant excess capacity on the physical queues. To some extent, labor can help get things out of queue faster, but even that has limits--eventually people are elbowing each other out of the way. Actually, the "I love Lucy" comparison is pretty dead-on here.
Short version--removing one bottleneck often just uncovers the next. And, if the warehouses (and so the queues) were designed on the assumption of one level of throughput, a different level of throughput may require a significant redesign to the existing facilities, which ain't cheap...
Re:I know... (Score:3, Insightful)
Or by lowering prices, which is exactly what they will do, and which is the course of action that benefits the most people.
Overhyped as usual (Score:5, Insightful)
What does this mean for barcodes? Their "death" is nowhere near imminent. I work in the packaging industry and applications for barcode readers are as prevalent as ever.
"Bar codes" aren't just the UPC codes you see at the store when you checkout. There are a lot of different codes out there--I2of5, pharmacode, EAN, code128, codabar, etc. There are a lot of Fortune 500 companies that have invested a lot of money on systems to print and read these codes, and that process isn't going to go away anytime soon. There are pharmaceutical companies that need to have zero per million defects. That's not going to happen with RFID in the near future.
RFID chips (and readers) still have too many problems with reliable reading to use them in the industry where barcodes are currently used.
(I'm sure it's much lower these days, but I was in a plant a few years ago that laid down RFID tags in boxes on a folder-gluer. Did you know that if the carton is produced on a very humid day at the plant the failure rate of RIFD tags can be up to 10%?)
Re:Mixed up Goods (Score:2, Insightful)
yes, that would be very useful for finding the 'relocated' inventory. If you've ever worked in one of those big food stores you know it's true.
Back when I was in HS I worked a few summers at the local A&P, one of those big food stores for those not in the northeast. There was an excess of cashiers, for some reason they didn't hire people for other depts so a couple times a week some of us were temporarily reassigned for restocking the shelves. There was this one dept manager who for some reason didn't understand that when some customers decided they didn't want something, before they got to the checkout line, they would leave the item on the nearest shelf and she would blame us for not putting things in the right place she found a can of soup next to the peanut butter. It would have been nice to be able to walk down the isle with a scanner and have it beep whenever it detected an item in the wrong place or sensors in the shelves send a report "item '10lb frozen turkey' in isle 8 section 1 shelf 3(behind the 2L soda bottles)". And maybe a scanner for the impulse buy racks next to the checkout lines, it was funny to see how people whold try to hide things they didn't want in there instead of simply giving it to the cashier and saying "I don't want this anymore" or leaving it on the floor next to the shelves where it would be easily noticed by any of the store's staff.
Same with libraries, but they have signs asking you not to reshelf books, but well hidden books don't start to smell bad after a few days. They don't care where you put the book when you're done with it, on the empty bottom shelf or on the floor or on a table, but not back on the shelf where there's a chance it might be put in the wrong place.
Re:I know... (Score:3, Insightful)
What the g-parent is saying that you don't necessarily have to pass off cost-savings to your customers. In fact, any business would love to cut their cost of production or labor but still charge the same prices, thereby getting a bigger profit margin. That's also why business loves to have a patented method of reducing costs that only they can use so a competitor won't come in and undercut their price and squeeze their nice fat profit margin.
Re:N.O. (Score:4, Insightful)
Correct. If the cashier scans each itentical item, they're probably smart. Here's the "effort saving" alternative:
1. Look for identical items in the pile
2. Make sure they really are identical and don't have subtle differences (eg. different flavors)
3. Count them accurately
4. Can one item n times being certain that there is a beep after every scan
5. Move the n items out being certain not to accidentally sweep them in front of the scanner
Oh yes. It's quite clear what method a smart person would use
Re:I know... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, it would be a Utopia until someone decides to use the A.I. or robots/machines in general to take over. If the computer running the waste recycler was 0wn3d what would you do? What about the one tracking food distribution? How long could we go without them before wide-spread panic and chaos?
I'll stick with less intelligent, specialized systems, thank you. I'm not even happy with many of today's systems. How can we lose power to a huge portion of the U.S. and Canada and not really be sure how it happened. (I am refering to the blackout that hit New York and other major cities in the eastern U.S. and Canada in 2003. It was later tracked to a software bug that meant information was not updated properly.) So what happens if the power grid doesn't reboot? Reinstall from scratch over the next 10 - 20 days?!?
Re:Actually... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Actually... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think that means it shouldn't be done, but it's an unfortunate side-effect.
Re:Probably a good decision (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:SCM experence (Score:3, Insightful)
That sounds good, until you realize that all those groceries you just scanned still need to be taken out of the cart and bagged. Or were you just going to pile all of those canned goods onto the back seat? Should make unloading fun...
Re:I know... (Score:3, Insightful)
What walmart actually wants to do with this is have ownership of the store product remain with the manufacturer until the product is purchased by the consumer. Walmart is always working to minimize their inventory risks and this would be the ultimate reduction in that risk - the situation where Walmart owns no inventory. In order to strongarm manufacturers into accepting this scenario, Walmart must first prove that they can track the movement of inventory in and out of the store with absolute reliability.
We don't want to work. (Score:5, Insightful)
What about charging less to their customers? That's what they do now.
Are you saying they should hire more employees and then give them meaningless, unproductive jobs. That's stupid. If you're saying they should expand their operations (like by offering a wider array of services) that would make sense, they're also doing that. How about if they pay their employees more per hour, but then work them for fewer hours?
"If they used it to eliminate workers and pay their shareholders and executives more, that would be a bad thing, since it benefits the fewest number of people."
That is not true, it depends how many shareholders and how many employees there are. I think I wal-mart's case, many of the employees are shareholders, but they also have a lot of shareholders who are not employees. By the way, executives are workers and their positions are made irrelevant and eliminated by technology just the same as any other employee.
Yours is a typical anti-industrialist argument. Change is bad because it eliminates work. But that assumes that people want to work in the first place. If people wanted to operate a check-out line, you wouldn't have to pay them to do it. So, no it's not bad to get rid of these kind of shitty, meaningless jobs that no one wants.
Re:I know... (Score:3, Insightful)
I know someone that was involved in talking to Wal*Mart about RFID early on and when they mentioned that Wal*Mart could increase their profits the executives looked at him like he had three heads. Wal*Mart has a very strong corporate culture that always seeks to lower prices at the expense of almost everything else. All that heavy handed pressure to cut costs goes right back out as low prices to the consumer, the profit they make is all they want to make, they want to increase their business by making that same (fairly modest) profit on more revenue at the absolute lowest possible price. Even aside from that pragmatic business model I think the top executives have also (to one extent or another) "drunk the cool-aid" and really do feel a something like a moral obligation to drive their prices lower (at the expense in many peoples minds of *other* moral obligations). Business week once famously remarked that the obsession with low prices was so extreme that Wal*mart is a "cult masquerading as a company".
The article doesn't make this clear (Score:3, Insightful)
It is a misconception that this is for use within the retail stores. In reality this is for use within the warehouses that supply the retail stores. I blame the reporter for making the assumption, and to a lesser extent the summary for running with the bait.
RFID is still too expensive to be placed within each individual package of Ramen noodles. It won't replace bar codes on the packages bought by consumers, but it is already replacing bar codes within the distribution centers.
In other words, each crate of Doritos will have an RFID chip that identifies the product. This is useful within the warehouse, as the warehouse deals with crates of product, not with individual packages of Charmin. You'll still see bar codes on products you buy.
Technoutopia, here we come! (Score:2, Insightful)
Technology is not your friend, people. Luckily, the impending economic collapse of the US a la Argentina in any given decade will spell the end of this silliness. We'll all be sewing clothes for the Chinese and too busy/poor to actually purchase anything.
Re:Actually... (Score:2, Insightful)
For those with cash? Have a set of kiosks just like the airport or some cart id you enter and insert the dollars, etc... Okay, that some level of checkout.
Can't these companies realize the the real problem is parking lots?
Re:I know... (Score:3, Insightful)
Most people do not "make" society, they just live day-to-day and hope they'll have peace and some measure of prosperity. I say this as someone who is now waking up from this slumber, as I learn all the history and politics that they never taught in school. The only time the masses wake up and do something is when some basic need is threatened, then they tend to form ranks behind some few leaders and go crashing through the status quo.
And what will they do when the corporate masters send millions to the unemployment office? They will demand basic services for free, and we'll have a welfare state where the managers decide what level of services to provide based on what the majority will accept.
Your choice: be one of the managers -- be an activist for social change -- emigrate and delay the inevitable -- or be one of the masses.
In America, we are lucky. We have food, space, raw materials, low population growth, technology, capital. With these, the equilibrium living standard could be relatively comfortable as long as the managers apply an even hand. But if they blow it, or if other countries try to force our hand? Far better for us to effect social change, with near-100% employment (e.g. by lowering the student-teacher ratio from 25:1 to 4:1 or so, and whatever else it takes) and lower-cost housing. It will require legislation, technology directed to people instead of profit, a change in the rights of corporations, many things. I consider it highly unlikely at this point. The change would have to have already started, just like with energy. The population is just too used to having things as they are to make a timely change, instead they'll wait until the crisis and then react. Most won't know what hit them because they were too busy watching TV, professional sports, and the price of their mutual funds.