Emerging Technologies:RFID
General managers and IT Managers must assess the potential effectiveness of emerging technologies and new applications of existing technologies such as Radio Frequency ID, blogging, social networks, navigation systems, and wireless technologies.
The group will focus on RFID from a managerial perspective.
Radio Frequency ID:
According to wikipedia:
“Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is an automatic identification method, relying on storing and remotely retrieving data using devices called RFID tags or transponders. An RFID tag is an object that can be attached to or incorporated into a product, animal, or person for the purpose of identification using radio waves.”
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rfid viewed 8/17/2009.
Your group might structure the presentation as follows:
I. Overview of RFID:
Your group’s job would be to explain to general managers the business value of RFID. Specifically, the group should address:
· Show the RFID technology (such as tags, writers, and readers); Short video clips can be very helpful here.
· Describe the different types of tags, their read range, how much data they can store, and uses
· Explain the major RFID standards—what information can be coded on the tags? (http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/1335)
· Size of market, dollars spent on RFID
· Brief history of RFID (no more than 2 slides)
· Promised business benefits of RFID
· Future of RFID: micro tags, digestible tags, etc.
· Limitations or controversies (such as tagging hospital patients) of RFID
· Suitable contexts in which general managers should consider adopting RFID
II. Applications of RFID in business:
Much of the presentation could focus on innovative applications of RFID in businesses such as retailers (Wal-mart), public services (libraries & subways), livestock, the automotive industry, etc. Your cases should focus on reasons for adoption, expected versus actual benefits of adoption, how the technology changed business processes, and lessons learned from adoption. At least one of these applications should be based on original interviews. All sorts of organizations use RFID and it should be easy to find people who understand the RFID application and the business impact of the RFID application.
If focusing on an emerging technology in a company, provide the Company Background by including:
· Size of company in terms of sales and profits
· Major products the company sells
· General characteristics of their customers
The RFID project might include:
· Project scope, time and budget estimate
· Actual project delivery date and budget
· Degree of success and failure of the project
· Lessons learned by the company
III. Lessons Learned
The group might end the presentation on best practices for effective RFID systems, then map how your cases fit into best practices. This is essentially a cross-case comparison that integrates your primary (case studies) and secondary (journal articles & books) research.
If you have other creative ideas, please feel free to discuss them with me.
Sample academic articles:
The Communications of the AIS had a Special issue on RFID research in 2008: http://aisel.aisnet.org/cais/vol23/iss1/11/
MIS Quarterly Executive also has good academic articles on RFID, including this one by top researcher Bill Hardgrave:
Hardgrave, B., Langford, S., Waller, M., and Miller, R. (2008), “Measuring the Impact of RFID on Out of Stocks at Wal-Mart,” MIS Quarterly Executive, Vol. 7, 4, pp. 181-192.