RFID-enabled Supply Chain Traceability: Existing Methods, Applications and Challenges

Abstract

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology promises to revolutionize various areas in supply chain. Recently, many researchers have investigated on how to improve the ability to track and trace a specific product along the supply chain in terms of both effectiveness and efficiency with the help of this technology. To enable traceability over the entire lifecycle a robust and seamless traceability system has to be constructed. This requires for the following three elements: (1) data model and storage scheme that allows unique identification and scalable database, (2) system framework which enables to share the traceability data between trading partners while maintaining a sovereignty over what is shared and with whom, and (3) a tracing mechanism in order to achieve end-to-end traceability and to provide the history information of products in question. Along with the studies addressing the requirements and design of traceability system architecture, applications in the real environment have also been reported. Due to the strong regulation in EU which states that food business operators shall be able to identify any person who supplied them and any business which takes food from them, RFID-enabled traceability systems are well implemented in the food supply chain. However, there exist other industries adopting RFID to enhance traceability such as pharmaceutical and aviation and even in the continuous process industry like iron ore refining. Despite the promising nature of RFID in tracking, there are several challenges to be addressed. Since an RFID tag does not require line-of-sight, multiple tags can be read simultaneously but also tag collisions may occur. Therefore there is no guarantee that a tag will be continuously detected on consecutive scans. Moreover, the use of RFID tags can be of serious threat to the privacy of information. This may facilitate the espionage of unauthorized personnel. In this chapter, we analyze the main issues of RFID-enabled traceability along the supply chain mentioned above: existing methods, applications and future challenges. Section 2 starts with pointing out the characteristics of RFID data and the requirements for RFIDenabled traceability. Subsequently, we introduce data types, storage schemes and system frameworks proposed in the existing literatures. Then, we discuss tracing methods based on the traceability system architecture. Section 3 presents current applications in real settings of both discrete and continuous production. We also discuss challenges that are preventing companies from adopting RFID for their traceability solutions in section 4. Finally, we conclude our study in section 5.