The End of the Bar Code

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."

I know...

[trevordactyl]

Things like this are fun to experiment with, and in some applications they're very useful and make people's lives better. But what do we really have to gain by developing RFID in our personal lives? So we don't have to "deal with" the cashiers at a store? We're eliminating the need for human contact .

"... but they want to be faster
" Why do they want to be faster? So they can continue to work a 40-hour week and rush home to...to what? The internet?
Sorry, but my life is too fast-paced as it is, the last thing I need is another thing to expedite my trip through life.

too much!

[fuelvolts]

"And better informed."

I went to apply for a walmart credit card whan I was 18 - they already had my information and SSN - I was shocked.

They know too much already!

Commercial

[Jestrzcap]

Did anyone else see that commercial a while back that had this guy in a long trenchcoat walking through a supermarket, stuffing things into his coat. He take a whole bunch of stuff and sticks in inside his coat and then walks out, and as he walking out a employee stops him and hands him his receipt for all the stuff he just bought.

They won't be going away soon...

[ap0]

This technology isn't going to replace barcodes. Many companies (like UPS or FedEx) would have a difficult time adapting their systems because of the large amounts of accidental "scanning" of RFID tags. If companies can use it effectively, that's great, but for many companies, barcodes are a more ideal solution.

Barcodes will be dead when....

[fostware]

they figure out a way only I can scan my items.

At the moment, barcode scanning is obvious enough that I know when I'm being sized up consumer statistics-wise. RFID could allow the lady at the end of the aisle to scan from a distance, and loudly pronounce that you buy X brand and that Y brand is better - there's no limit or control over who could scan what you have...

Tidbit... I've seen a conveyor belt spin the items slowly to allow the barcode scanner ample time and angles to read every item.

Re:It took bar codes 50+ years to mature...

[It doesn't come easy]

The fact it took barcodes 50 years to be ubiquitous doesn't mean that it will take 50 years for RFID to be ubiquitous too. In fact, if you estimate the time it will take RFID to be adopted based on barcode history, RFID usage will be universal in 10 years. Why? Because during the 20th century (1901-2000) mankind made 20 years progress in terms of the rate of progress for the year 2000. So on average, 50 years of progress in the 20th century leading to the adoption of the barcode will equate to 10 years today.

barcodes are everywhere

[savuporo]

I dont know about you, but over here ( Estonia ) we can for example purchase movie theatre tickets online and print them anywhere. The very same barcode-carrying tickets lets you in through the gates in cinema. How's RFID going to replace so simple and cheap system ?

What about rebates?

[lildogie]

Will we be taping the chip to the form instead of the bar code?

Re:600 feet per minute...

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Siemens Dematic was working on a conveyor belt so fast that the air resistance was lifting the parts, and I'm certain it was faster than this.

SCM experence

[Chaotic Spyder]

man... I used to work at SCM plant that dealt with Ontario Canada, yes that is correct, one location handled every Wal-Mart in Ontario. That place was ridiculously fast, thousands of boxes were running on Km's and Km's track in the ceiling. It was quite the experience just touring around checking out how boxes were tracked with their barcodes and then kicked off onto correct ramps to corresponding waiting trucks for a specific location. Now they intend to make it even more efficient and faster... wow..

If only they could put half of the engineering they put into that plant into every Wal-Mart so checkout lines would disappear. Something like the self checkout at Loblaws combined with this RFID would be very sweet. Walk through a sensor and swipe my credit card and then off to the car in seconds...

Re:I know...

[bmeteor]

As a former retail manager, I think I can lend some insight into this.

Remember, your retail experience is not necessarily defined by the everyday experience, but the worst case scenario. Think Christmas time. People will leave, not shop, put off shopping if there is a line, it's called line abandonment. During the shopping season, this happens all the time, I've done it. RFID makes it easier, because someone bags your parcels, and then you pay. It cuts out cashier error.

It doesn't necessarily eliminate the need for human contact, but it could possibly facilitate that.

Another reason why retailers want this is loss prevention. It'd be really easy to tell if something was stolen if it had RFID in it. It's great for business to have a liberal return policy, but there are tons of people that abuse that with trying to return stolen merchandise, etc. If retailers had RFID, they could save a lot of money, through lessening theft and LP training. Some may pass those savings on to you, something to the order of 5 bucks on a 40 dollar shirt.

I'm personally for it. I hate having to wait in a line for a half an hour during christmas.

One small problem...

[Foobar of Borg]

Bar codes are often used to track documents and forms in large companies, organizations, government agencies, and so on. I don't think placing a RFID chip on every sheet of paper that has to be tracked is a practical solution, to say the least. RFID is great for bulky things and will no doubt replace the bar code for tracking packages, shipments, and things placed on top of other things, but I this is hardly the death of bar codes.

meanwhile in japan

[mxpengin]

Here in Japan I have been surprised by massification in the use of bar-codes that can be read by the cell phones( Services in phones by docomo [nttdocomo.co.jp]). They put this codes basically everywhere ( posters , web pages , products ) , and people can recover information from them with their cell phones . For example, in a poster from a cinema they put a web adress in this codes and people makes use of the camera in the phone to retrieve the web adress of the cinema from it and check for the schedules of the cinema. Some telephones as well have the capabilitiy to create bar codes , that can be displayed on the LCD of the phone and read by other phones. But, as I say , here is Japan and japanese people sometimes has trends that dont leave the island.

Actually...

[Otto]

With RFID, there is the possibly of doing entire cart checkouts. Roll the cart into the scanning area, it gets all the RFID info, gives a total and you pay for your items. No need to remove everything from the cart.

Of course, this means that you likely want to bag the items as you shop instead of afterwards.

Re:Actually...

[EmperorKagato]

Sounds like another big blow to Employment with the loss of the cashier.

Re:600 feet per minute...

[lcsjk]

This could be interesting, and the total logistics impact is staggering.

When the post office first started using letter sorters, there were those times when the system glitched and a letter clogged the sorter path. After a few hundred letters piled onto the stack, the sorter stopped.

Now consider a conveyer moving at 1200 feet per minute. If one package redirector misses, the system will have to stop for manual intervention. So how fast can the conveyer be stopped to avoid slipping and pile-up of other packages. Then how long will it take to un-pile those items that were moving at 1200 fpm and get the conveyer started again. It's like taking a trip. If you have to stop for gas and rest-room, the average trip speed is greatly reduced.

How does Wal-mart plan to get packages onto the conveyer at that rate? It will take twice as many people and twice the number of conveyer entry points and exit points. Then they will have to double the number of people doing the final stocking to shelves or taking to trucks. Also the number of trucks entering and leaving the warehouse will have to double and the roads will have to handle the increased traffic.

RFID speeds things all along the route and will allow much faster distribution, especially perishables like fruit and vegetables, and that also translates to less refridgeration time and lower cost in keeping environments cool or hot or in special gasses to control ripening rate.

Now consider what happens at the high speed checkout when one of the items registers as alcohol and the buyer is less than proper age. The line manager will be over helping at the cashierless line since the stupid system stops because the weight is not what it expected, and if you think Wal-mart is going to add another line manager just so you can get through faster...!

One of my fears is that with the new handling speed the bananas will be too green to eat and I will have to buy them two days early.

Re:Overhyped as usual

[Homr Zodyssey]

I'm a programmer for a company that develops supply-chain software. We are currently working on interfaces to support RFID, because many of our customers are suppliers for Wal-Mart. From our observations, it is true that the technology is not perfected, and the failure rate is unacceptable for industries such as pharmaceutacals.
I don't see anywhere in the article where the "death of the barcode" is prophecied -- although there is one sentence saying that it "could one day replace barcodes".
As far as Wal-Mart and their use of RFID, this for supply-chain management only. We are not talking about the trenchcoat guy in the aforementioned commercial. RFID is nowhere near being used in the retail sector. We are talking about loading boxes on and off trucks -- not an individual apple or bra. The items will still need barcodes for use inside the retail outlets.
As far as the privacy concerns, we are talking about a technology that is only readable from a few feet away. The Men In Black will not be able to drive past your house and see whats in the fridge. You're worried about chips being in your underwear when you leave wal-mart? Guess what -- Every time you leave wal-mart you walk between these two sensors that sound an alarm if you're carrying stolen goods. Thats because a little tag on the products alerts the sensors...how is this different from RFID?

Big, bad downsides of RFID as opposed to barcodes?

[D4C5CE]

RFID could spell the end of the ubiquitous bar code. The big draw? Speeding up supply-chain management.

It only sounds harmless because bar codes are hardly known to have ever caused humans to come to harm - but for RFID, see these [nocards.org] sites [rfidkills.com] with a much more down-to-earth discussion of the grave differences, and dangers: RFID could spell the end of much more than just the ubiqitous visible and removable arrays of black and white dots or bars - in fact, when carrying numbered tags (or worse) that most customers can neither see nor conceal, let alone prevent from being read without their consent or knowledge, the outlook may be a rather gloomy one...

Where RFID *might* Help

[mpapet]

Barcodes work great on individual items. There's already loss prevention systems using some kind of RFID for tracking those really expensive/high profit margin retail items.

It's further up the supply chain when you've got a pallet with maybe 50 cases on it. Barcode doesn't work very well because:
1. You have to trust the person creating the pallet's barcode. There is no incentive for walmart to pay an employee more for that trust, so they want a computer instead.
2. The 50 case pallet needs RFID to accurately report what's on the pallet. If a case or two might "fall off" a barcoded pallet then the barcode is none the wiser. In theory RFID would report the entire contents of the pallet as it's passing through the door.

The problems:
A. Cost. Barcodes got RFID beat hands down.
B. Accuracy. An RFID chip can't communicate through many layers of cardboard/product/cardboard so a pallet with boxes on the inside bottom do not get reported. If you want to be a millionaire, patent an amplifier/antenna that can be sprayed onto a paper tube and dropped down the center of a pallet of goods to get those inside boxes to accurately report. Now, if you don't pay me for this great idea, I'll unleash my submarine patent on you.

In this application it's not so much what's on the retail floor they're so concerned about it's keeping accurate track of goods at a logistics/warehouse level.

I gotta stop ordering double-espresso.

Re:N.O.

[ultramk]

Apparently you don't watch closely.

It's more like:

1. look for identical items in the pile.
2. count them accurately (if they can't count cans of cat food, wtf are they doing with a cash drawer?)
3. scan one item from the pile and enter the quantity with the keypad
4. move the stack over to be bagged.

Tell you what, you use your way, I'll use mine, we'll see who is faster? Pay attention next time you buy 6 cases of Jolt at Costco...

m-