RFID’s store detailed information which allows manufacturers and retailers to track products at the unit level, as well as identify, locate, monitor and even manage products on the plant floor. Benefits: • Improves inventory management in the supply chain. • Provides real time data throughout supply chain, and increased visibility into supply chain • Provides detailed information on what the product is, where it is going, and how to handle it • Provides the ability to read tags without requiring line-of-sight reading • Enables JIT manufacturing • Increases real-time decision support and automates and speeds processes

RFID tags are available in 3 varieties (passive, active and semi-passive). Passive do not require an internal power source, therefore are only active when a reader is nearby to power them. Active tags have an internal battery that powers them which has a shelf life of up to ten years and have operational ranges of hundreds of meters. Semi-passive (aka semi-active) have their own power source of a battery, however it only powers the microchip and not the broadcasting of a signal.

Find a company that offers SaaS or ASP as well as agile, browser based software. Browser based means that the software is not installed on each user machine. It is hosted from a single server, either on site, or hosted by a third party vendor. This is called Thin Client Technology. Thin Client is very beneficial due to the fact that you can access the system from anywhere you can connect to the internet! This also enables the system to run on just about everything. As well as being able to run on a variety of PC’s, you can access the information you need from your PDA’s and Smartphones.