RFID technologies are expected to grow quickly over the next few years as companies seek to improve their supply chain operations, and as the price of RFID drops. According to an analysis from Venture Development Corporation (VDC), “Global shipments of RFID systems (including transponders, readers, software, and services) reached $890 million in 2000.”12 The forecast from VDC’s market study entitled “Global Markets and Applications for Radio Frequency Identification Equipment and Systems” predicts shipments of RFID to increase by approximately by 24% annually to reach $2.65 billion by 2005.
The applications for RFID in 2000 reached most economic sectors although the most use was in industrial/manufacturing, transportation, distribution, and warehousing industries. Smart label applications as well as high-speed processing will fuel growth in these sectors. Other growth sectors include health care, commercial, and retail services. For example RFID could be used as a tool against product counterfeiting by permitting more precise identification and verification of the sources of shipments.
According to VDC, “Virtually every economic sector and industry where data need to be collected contains potential applications for RFID technology.” VDC’s research reveals that RFID hardware shipments were concentrated among industrial/manufacturing and transportation, distribution, and warehousing organizations in 2000 (see Exhibit 1). Future revenue growth within these economic sectors will primarily be driven by the development of the smart label market, particularly to support growing applications such as baggage handling and high-speed processing. In addition, these two economic sectors are expected to account for the largest percentages of RFID hardware revenues in the near and long term; however, their annual growth will be slower in comparison to the annual growth of the emerging health care, commercial, and retail services sectors
v Interest is increasing among healthcare organizations to support applications such as waste management, high-value asset tracking, record/document tracking, and real-time location systems.
v The commercial services segment is expected to grow rapidly through the emergence of consumer applications such as automated payment systems, m-commerce (mobile commerce), libraries, rental item tracking, and reusable media.
v Adoption of RFID systems in retail environments has been limited and con centrated primarily in security/access control applications. Future develop ments in the retail sector are largely focused on creating smarter EAS (elec tronic article surveillance) transponders to support, for example, the storage of pertinent product information within a retail item, such as warranty information.”
“While the potential for viable RFID applications within economic sectors appears virtually limitless, few applications have translated into consistent and profitable opportunities, with price often being the decisive barrier. Of the current applications, the majority of RFID shipments are attributed to the well-established, traditional security/access control and transportation applications where RFID has proven success (see Exhibit 2). By 2005, supply chain management applications are expected to join these applications in holding the lion’s share of RFID market revenues, especially as the market for smart labels grows.
“Over the next five years, point of sale (POS), rental item tracking, and baggage handling applications are anticipated to exhibit the fastest annual growth. Given the growth forecasts of these application segments, it is not surprising that current and potential RFID end users seem most interested in these applications’ possibilities. However, potential end users are evaluating RFID for use in virtually every application segment to improve efficiency, especially in supply chain management. Widely used and established applications such as security/access control and asset management are still being evaluated and will continue to grow, but perhaps not at the rate of the emerging applications.
Comments :
Post a Comment