The RFID imperative

This excellent article in CIO magazine on RFIDs ('radio frequency identification') is worth checking out. From the perspective of large-scale retailers (think Wal-Mart), RFIDs signal a revolution in supply-chain management (the business problem of knowing where your stuff is and getting it where it is supposed to go).

The technology - accurately tracking goods by pallet or case, or even individual package - offers great improvements in efficiency and loss prevention. Naturally, this creates an entirely new management problem, how to handle all that data. The amount of information generated is likely to be several orders of magnitude larger than what retailers and shippers currently have to deal with. This will be a watershed event in information architecture. Smart Mobs

RFID is one of those things that many people don't know about, but the people who do know about it (mainly those concerned with inventory tracking) are very excited about it.