A Novel Blockchain-Based Product Ownership Management System (POMS) for Anti-Counterfeits in the Post Supply Chain

A Sector Analysis for RFID Technologies: Fundamental and Technical Analysis for Financial Decision Making Problems

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is named as a possible basis for future anti-counterfeiting by providing enhancements of existing business processes [Choi & Poon (2008)]. Hereby, the use of unique Electronic Product Codes (EPCs) [EPCglobal Inc. (2010)] for identification improves processing times during goods receipt and enables automated product tracking and tracing. The EPC is used to refer to a concrete item instance in a software system. For example, it identifies a concrete bottle of analgesic that was manufactured on May. 01, 2011 at 07:03 a.m. In contrast, currently used barcodes identify a class of pharmaceuticals, e.g. all analgesics of a certain manufacturer. RFID technology shows prevailing advantages in contrast to barcodes, RFID tags can be read without establishing a direct line of sight, multiple tags can be read simultaneously, and they can cope with dirty environments [Stiehler & Wichmann (2005); White et al. (2007)]. In the following, we refer to an RFID-aided supply chain when dealing with an supply chain solution that build on good’s tracking and tracing functionality by integrating RFID technology [Schapranow et al. (2009)]. In context of the pharmaceutical supply chain, the integration of tracking functionality is widely considered, e.g. two-dimensional data matrix or RFID technology, since this specific industry is confronted with increasing counterfeit rates [European Commission Taxation and Customs Union (2009)]. However, advantages of using RFID technology only apply when all participants of the supply chain seamlessly integrate tracking solutions based on it. Fig. 1 models components within an RFID-enabled company to support anti-counterfeiting using the Fundamental Modeling Concepts (FMC) [Knopfel et al. (2005)]. These components can be established to track and trace goods on item level without media breaks. Since the depicted architecture switch is connected with high monetary investments, costs have to be accommodated by all participants of the supply chain [Schapranow, Nagora & Zeier (2010)]. Different levels of technology acceptance to transform towards an RFID-enabled company can result in exclusion of participants from the supply chain. We expect especially Small and Mid-sized Enterprises (SMEs) to be confronted with financial barriers to participate in global RFID-aided supply chains [Muller, Faust, Schwalb, Schapranow, Zeier & Plattner (2009)]. However, a gap-less integration of RFID technology at all supply chain participant sites is the basis for consistent tracking and tracing on item level in real time. 13

The increasing of supply chain costs has motivated the manufacturing companies to find ways to reduce the distribution and the warehouse costs. They considered the supply chain cost reduction as one of the main issues to be considered to survive in their business. However, the development of the new technologies gave the opportunity to the manufacturers to reduce these costs. One of the important techniques that may cut the supply chain costs is by using the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology. Tracking and tracing the individual parts during the supply chain network by using RFID technology is efficient key success of cutting down the supply chain costs. On one hand, RFID technology can offer a wireless write and read to update the data during the different steps of supply chain network. On the other hand, RFID is still a costly solution compared with the barcode. The objective of this research is to analyze and determine the success factors of implementation of the RFID technology in supply chain management (SCM) and to estimate the suitability of using RFID technology for different parts. Three main indexes have been developed to evaluate the feasibility and suitability of using RFID technology in the SCM: cost index, frequency index and write-read index. Then by using the fuzzy logic approach, the priority for each index was analyzed and effect of each index has been simulated.

As markets become more global and competition intensifies, firms are beginning to realize that competition is not exclusively a firm versus firm domain, but a supply chain against supply chain phenomenon (***a, 2008). Under these circumstances, an increasing strategic importance to any organization independent of size or of sector is to deliver information, goods and services in full, on time and error-free to customers. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology represents one of a number of possible solutions to enhance supply chain. RFID technology permits the unique identification of each container, pallet, case and item to be manufactured, shipped and sold, thus allowing an increased visibility throughout the supply chain. Also, an RFID anti-counterfeiting mechanism could be implemented. This chapter focuses on how RFID technology can be used to solve problems faced by supply chain, such as track and traceability, anti-counterfeiting. It proposes a track-andtrace anti-counterfeiting system using RFID technology. The submitted system (hereinafter referred to as ATPROD system) is aimed at relatively high-end consumer products, and it helps protect genuine products by maintaining the product pedigree and the supply chain integrity. Our system integrates mobile systems to extend corporate data outwards to mobile devices for viewing and querying. Also, users can use any mobile device endowed with an RFID reader for data collection. In this way, manual entry data has been eliminated. Moreover, users can read the tags wherever the items are placed, which enables a more flexible storage environment and an efficiency increase of supply chains and anticounterfeiting. We developed an RFID embedded system based on an eBox with an RFID reader attached. This system, named MICC (Interfacing, Command and Control Module), enables many applications to run at the same time as concurrent processes. Each entry or/ and exit gate of the warehouse in a supply chain could be managed by a MICC module. If there are multiple gates the installed MICC modules (from warehouse or company) could be linked together into a network. From a functional perspective, the MICC module must meet the following requirements: to read/ write data on RFID tags attached to items passing through a gate, to manage a large number of RFID tags passing through a gate at the same time, to provide data transmission via the network to a central server, to process local data and to provide the possibility of

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology has been considered the “next revolution in supply chain management” (Srivastava, 2004, p. 60). Current research and development related to RFID focuses on the manufacturing and retail sectors with the aim of improving supply chain efficiency. After the manufacturing and retail sectors, health care is considered to be the next sector for RFID (Ericson, 2004). RFID technology’s potential to improve asset management in the health sector is considerable, especially with respect to asset management optimization. In fact, health expenses have increased substantially in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries in recent years. In Canada, the public health budget amounted to $91.4 billion (CAD) for the year 2005–2006 compared to $79.9 billion in 2003–2004 (CIHI, 2005). Moreover, the health care industry has been the focus of intense public policy attention. In order to curb this upward trend, the public heath sector in Canada is subject to strict budget constraints. Among the different alternatives for reducing expenditures, the improvement of asset management within the different health institutions appears to be worthwhile. RFID technology seems to be a viable alternative to help hospitals effectively manage and locate medical equipment and other assets, track files, capture charges, detect and deter counterfeit products, and maintain and manage materials. In other words, health care organizations would benefit particularly from RFID applications. The main objective of this study is to investigate the potential for RFID technology within one specific supply chain in the health care sector. Based on a field study conducted in a large nonprofit hospital, this article tests some scenarios for integrating RFID technology in the context of two warehousing activities.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology has been considered the “next revolution in supply chain management” (Srivastava, 2004, p. 60). Current research and development related to RFID focuses on the manufacturing and retail sectors with the aim of improving supply chain efficiency. After the manufacturing and retail sectors, health care is considered to be the next sector for RFID (Ericson, 2004). RFID technology’s potential to improve asset management in the health sector is considerable, especially with respect to asset management optimization. In fact, health expenses have increased substantially in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries in recent years. In Canada, the public health budget amounted to $91.4 billion (CAD) for the year 2005–2006 compared to $79.9 billion in 2003–2004 (CIHI, 2005). Moreover, the health care industry has been the focus of intense public policy attention. In order to curb this upward trend, the public heath sector in Canada is subject to strict budget constraints. Among the different alternatives for reducing expenditures, the improvement of asset management within the different health institutions appears to be worthwhile. RFID technology seems to be a viable alternative to help hospitals effectively manage and locate medical equipment and other assets, track files, capture charges, detect and deter counterfeit products, and maintain and manage materials. In other words, health care organizations would benefit particularly from RFID applications. The main objective of this study is to investigate the potential for RFID technology within one specific supply chain in the health care sector.B ased on a field study conducted in a large nonprofit hospital, this article tests some scenarios for integrating RFID technology in the context of two warehousing activities. We will first introduce the context of the health care sector and the current applications of RFID technology in that sector. The next section presents the methodological approach that was used in the study. The research findings and their implications are then discussed. Finally, some closing remarks are made.

This study explores the implementation and impact of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology at TI Cycles of India Ltd, one of India’s leading bicycle manufacturers and a key division of the Murugappa Group. As manufacturing companies increasingly adopt automation and digital tools to streamline operations, RFID has emerged as a critical technology for enhancing efficiency, accuracy, and traceability in supply chain and inventory management systems. The research aims to evaluate how RFID technology has been integrated into the operational processes of TI Cycles, particularly in areas such as inventory tracking, production monitoring, and warehouse management. It also examines the benefits gained through this technological adoption—such as reduced manual errors, real-time data access, and improved overall productivity—along with the challenges faced during implementation. Primary data for the study was gathered through interviews with operational staff and management, along with secondary data from company records and industry reports. The findings reveal that RFID technology has significantly contributed to operational efficiency at TI Cycles, supporting faster decision-making and enabling a more responsive and agile supply chain.This study not only provides insight into the practical application of RFID in a traditional manufacturing setup but also serves as a reference for similar organizations considering digital transformation through emerging technologies. Keywords: RFID Technology, TI Cycles of India, Supply Chain Management, Inventory Tracking, Manufacturing Automation, Radio Frequency Identification, Operational Efficiency, Real-Time Data, Non-Motorized Transport, Digital Transformation.

With the increase in global trade and the intensification of market competition, the importance of supply chain management is becoming more and more obvious. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology emerged as the times required, bringing a new solution to supply chain management. This article will discuss the application analysis of RFID in supply chain management. The article mainly analyzes the environmental benefits of RFID technology; RFID application analysis based on the clothing industry and the application of RFID technology in inventory management of companies. The results of the study pointed out that although there are still some difficulties in the application of RFID technology, RFID technology has indeed effectively improved the efficiency of the supply chain. Moreover, the development trend of RFID is getting better and better, and the RFID technology has gradually lowered the application threshold standard as more people invest in research. RFID ultimately brings more benefits to enterprises and society. Therefore, this paper proposes to increase investment in the application of RFID technology in the supply chain. This article aims to provide decision-making guidance and reference significance for enterprises using RFID technology.

Modern identification procedures such as radio frequency identification (RFID) are able to provide transparency in applications including supply chain, logistics and equipment management. The benefits of visibility and fast identification provided by RFID technology especially in supply chain management (SCM) reduce the risk of counterfeiting (Gao et al., 2004). There are two mainly ways in which RFID technology supports a visible and fast identification processes: 1) RFID allows for new, automated and secure ways to efficiently authenticate physical items; and 2) As many companies invest in networked RFID technology for varying supply chain applications, the item-level data can be gathered in any case (Lehtonen et al., 2006). Despite these benefits, RFID technology is still not widely implemented. The main reasons are, firstly, the difficult are, firstly, the difficult technical aspects of implementation resulting in high setup costs, secondly, growing security and privacy concerns. Our focus in this paper is to discuss the second reason for the low take-up of RFID technology, that is, security and privacy concerns. We argue that without applying maximum security and privacy, trustworthiness between supply chain partners will be minimal. As a result, the effectiveness and collaboration of traditional supply chain environment with RFID technology cannot be achieved. Given that humans cannot read the RFID tags on items and the tags themselves maintain no history of past readings, the challenge of security and privacy in this technology is related to the nature of RFID tags and their functionality (Juels, 2005). A retailer inventory that is labeled with unprotected tags may be monitored and read by unauthorised readers. The inventory data holds significant financial value for commercial organisations and their competitors. Once data has been accessed by unauthorised users, it can be cloned on empty tags, giving rise to the counterfeiting issue. Counterfeiting in the form of cloned or fraudulent RFID tags is the consequence of a lack of security measures and trustworthiness among the supply chain partners when RFID technology is used to automate their business transactions. Privacy violations stem from the fact that when goods are tagged, the manufacturers, retailers and consumers will be able to track the goods beyond point-of-sale (POS) because they have associated data. Even if the tags only contain product codes rather than unique serial numbers, a consumer’s taste in brands “constellation” can betray their identity.

In May 2006, William Koretsky made medical history when he became the first emergency patient to be identified from an implanted radiofrequency identification (RFID) chip. Koretsky, a 44‐year‐old sergeant with the Bergen County Police Department (NJ, USA), had crashed his car into a tree during a high‐speed chase. When he was taken to hospital, an emergency‐room scan revealed an RFID chip in his arm, which had been implanted in 2004 for identification purposes at the suggestion of his police chief. Doctors retrieved the ID number, identified Koretsky using an online database, reviewed his health history and learned that he had type 1 diabetes. While treating his other injuries, physicians quickly began monitoring Koretsky's blood sugar level. The RFID chip, which was manufactured by VeriChip (Delray Beach, FL, USA), might have saved his life. “I was unable to communicate, but the chip talked for me,” Koretsky said. “I couldn't lose the chip, like I could a MedicAlert® bracelet. The VeriChip™ was a home run.” Valeria Kaplan ![][1] RFID chips are increasingly exploited in healthcare, but not always under such dramatic circumstances. They are being used, for example, to address the emerging threats of diversion, theft and counterfeit of medications—from commonly used drugs, such as statins, to narcotics that are resold on the street. However, while politicians and government agencies consider their use in healthcare settings, privacy and consumer advocates worry about the safety and the possible abuse of RFID technology. As prices for RFID chips and readers have fallen, the technology has been taken up commercially, especially by retail giants such as Wal‐Mart in the USA, Tesco and Marks & Spencer in the UK, and Metro in Germany, which use them to track their inventory from suppliers, through their warehouses and into stores. The US Department of Defense is also a big … [1]: /embed/graphic-1.gif

Nowadays, the authenticity of the RFID tags cannot be assured in the supply chain since these can be easily duplicated in the public space. We propose a novel Product Ownership Management System (POMS) of products for anti-counterfeits that can be used in the post supply chain by using the QR code. With the projected POMS, a consumer can reject the buying of counterfeits by scanning a QR code, if the seller does not have their proprietorship. This paper gives an application of the system that will help to overcome the problems related with the presently functioning supply chain management system and runs the mechanism to show the ownership of the products.

Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) technology successfully integrates radio transmitter and receiver, small size memory space and control circuitry to remotely store and retrieve data via wireless RF transceiver. As low-cost RFID tag can be massively manufactured by semiconductor industry, new applications associated with RFID technology have emerged rapidly such as inventory tracking, book storage and management, and airport baggage handling. Generally an RFID system is composed of many RFID tags (or tagged objects), at least one RFID reader, and one backend application system with database. An RFID tag gains its operation energy from query signals that are radio waves transmitted by RFID reader. Once a tag responds the query with its stored information to RFID reader, usually a unique identity number or string, the RFID system can recognize the tag carrier and perform required business logic operation. As RFID technique is widely used in supply chain management, the corresponding RFID application systems are expected to process and manage large amount of tagged objects at a predefined period of time regularly. Therefore, for large-scaled RFID applications, tag reading throughput is very critical since it will affect the total data processing time. To measure tag reading throughput of a RFID system, two performance criteria are usually adopted: tag reading delay and reader energy consumption [5]. As RFID reader and tag always communicate over a shared wireless channel, it is very easy to have signal collisions during a normal tag identification process when multiple tags exist in reader’s interrogation area. Signal collision results in query or data retransmission and eventually increases communication overhead and time delay of tag identification. Hence, an efficient tag collision arbitration mechanism is very important and critical for RFID systems to achieve effective performance. Existing RFID tag identification schemes can be classified into aloha-based solutions [3, 10, 12-13, 16, 21, 23-24] and tree-based solutions [1, 2, 4, 6-9, 14-15, 17-20, 22]. In aloha-based schemes, a reader estimates the number of tags in its interrogation area and broadcasts the total number of timeslots to each tag. Then each RFID tag randomly selects its own timeslot to transmit its ID without knowing which timeslots have been selected by other tags. By distributing tag responses to distinct timeslots instead of getting all tag responses at the same time, aloha-based schemes effectively reduce the probability of signal collision. However, aloha-based schemes have tag starvation problem in which certain tags may not

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a technology which shares a similar concept with bar code. With RFID, the electromagnetic or electrostatic coupling in the RF portion of the electromagnetic spectrum is used to transmit signals. Supply chain management is aimed to keep going long-term performance of individual companies and the overall supply chain by maximizing customer satisfaction with minimum costs. One of the major issues in the supply chain management is product loss or shrinkage. In order to overcome this problem, this system which uses Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology will be able to RFID track and identify where losses are occurring and enable effective traceability. RFID bring a new dimension to supply chain management by providing a more efficient way of being able to identify and track items at the various stages throughout the supply chain. This system has been developed and tested to prove that RFID technology can be used to improve traceability in supply chain at low cost. Due to its simplicity in interface program and database management system using Visual Basic and MS Excel or MS Access the system can be more affordable and implemented even by small and medium scale industries.

Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology has gained increasing popularity in businesses to improve operational efficiency and maximise costs saving. However, there is a gap in the literature exploring the enhanced use of RFID to substantially add values to the supply chain operations, especially beyond what the RFID vendors could offer. This paper presents a multi-agent system, incorporating RFID technology, aimed at fulfilling the gap. The system is developed to model supply chain activities (in particular, logistics operations) and is comprised of autonomous and intelligent agents representing the key entities in the supply chain. With the advanced characteristics of RFID incorporated, the agent system examines ways logistics operations (i.e. distribution network) particular) can be efficiently reconfigured and optimised in response to dynamic changes in the market, production and at any stage in the supply chain.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology has recently attracted dramatic attentions from the research and industrial communities. A typical RFID system consists of RFID readers, RFID tags, and the middleware software to support proper working of the system. An RFID tag with its unique ID is a small microchip capable of harvesting energy from reader interrogation, lightweight computation, wireless communication, which transmits data in response to RFID reader queries. RFID tags are usually attached to real objects for explicitly labelling the objects and an RFID reader can thus identify and itemize these objects by verifying the attached RFID tags. Due to the simple structure, small size, and low manufacturing cost of RFID tags, it provides us an economic and competitive method for massive object management. RFID technology is currently becoming ubiquitously available for a variety of applications, including inventory management, transportation and logistics, object identification and tracking. Having been widely adopted across many applications, RFID technology is fast growing as a major element of Internet of Things (IoT) for building future pervasive computing environment. However, opposed to the stringent needs for system efficiency and availability, due to the RFID resource constraints, the working efficiency of some key operations in RFID systems is still severely restricted, concerning RFID identification, estimation, searching, etc. For example, currently an RFID reader has to sequentially interrogate the individual tags and identify these tags one after another. When there are massive tags in the area (e.g., during baggage classification), the operational efficiency could be excessively low. Due to the severe wireless collisions and channel contention backoffs, the operational efficiency could get even lower.This dissertation presents novel techniques and approaches to fundamentally improve the operational efficiency of the most basic and key operations in RFID systems. Such key operations are widely adopted across many RFID systems in practice, and most applications may benefit from the efficiency improvement.1) We design PET and ZOE protocols to estimate the number of RFID tags in the coverage of RFID readers without identifying the tags. Such approximation protocols trade accuracy for execution time and substantially improve operation efficiency with guaranteed estimation accuracy. PET improves state-of-the-art estimation efficiency from O(log n) to O(loglog n) while ZOE further improves the efficiency to O(1). 2) We further design CATS, the first tag search protocol, to enable efficient tag search in large-scale RFID systems. CATS encodes the tag set using compact approximators to reduce communication overhead, and efficiently aggregates tag responses and extracts useful information without explicit channel arbitration. 3) We develop P-MTI, the first physical layer missing tag identification scheme, to efficiently monitor RFID tags and quickly identify the missing tags. P-MTI leverages the sparsity of missing tag events and recovers physical layer collisions through compressive sensing. To investigate the feasibility of our proposed designs and fundamentally improve our understanding of RFID systems, we build the open source platform, named Open RFID Lab, which allows the full access and control over the RFID systems. The platform unveils several fundamental problems which motivates future researches. For future work, we develop data transfer protocol to efficiently read bulk data using commodity RFID readers from RFID based sensors. Our design allows resource-constrained RFID sensors to meet the stringent response deadlines of commodity communication protocol only with software extensions.