Use of Radio-Frequency Identification in Wal-Mart Supply Chain Technology

Currently, Wal-Mart chain of supermarkets has been utilizing Radio-frequency Identification (RFID), a wireless technology that uses electromagnetic fields to communicate with different departments. The technology transfers data by identifying and tracking tags attached to the principal objects. In the logistics sector, automatic identification technology has become an important consideration since it brings numerous merits which expand into other departments. The software supports specialized components that allow communication between two or several application and the connection between different components. Primarily, the technology reads a bar code from a specialized scanner and ensures particular orientation needs to be brought sufficiently close to the scanner so that a person can scan each item with a laser beam. Furthermore, the technology is merited since it tags hundreds of characters to ensure that the bar codes are storing only 12-15 digits.

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Significantly, the technology is being applied to improve supply chain operations since it has the power to read from bar codes, store information on a database, and sell products at the point of sale. In the case of Wal-Mart, the technology has been the impetus to the development of the supply chain since it ensures that authenticity is being optimized at each level of product sale. Such an authenticity ensures that the company has an ability to release stock as soon as it enters the store. Wal-Mart has been able to increase the movement of perishable products hence reducing the total amount of time required to handle such products. Maschietti (2011, p. 16) believe that, different perishable products require different temperature control and thus ensuring that regulations to govern these checks in the global food market have different temperature levels.

Decisively, the supply chain management (SCM) ensures that the data warehouse maintains a proper decision making process. The goal is to ensure that products are well dispensed before their respective expiry dates. Botero and Chaouchi (2011, p. 77) argue that RFID current data is necessary in a supply chain partners. From various functional areas within in order to support decision making regarding sourcing, planning, production, and product delivery. In the case of Wal-Mart, supply chains are dynamics in nature, thus it is advisable to learn from any archived history of temporal data that often contains critical information that is less than optimal data required to build the company.

Conclusively, the technology will have an impact in the future since it ensures that products are well dispensed to customers before they reach respective expiry dates reaches. In the future, the technology will take a decisive turn in that; companies will be building in house software. The strategy will arise from the need to customize the product amicably. Besides, RFID will seize to be a point of sale software only and become all rounded software useful in fighting terrorism, gaming technology and other applications. Barcodes, in particular, will be applied to mitigate problems in people, pets, products and even the nature of vehicles. The technology will also incorporate other prospective technologies, such as license plate readers. Thus, it is logical to say that the technology will be heavily used in security centres. For that reason, future research should be applied on how to develop the technology from the current state to a better future state. Proactively, this means that the technology should conform to the current International Standard Organization (ISO) expectations (Park, 2011, p. 14).

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