RFID Moves Forward By Stepping Back in the Supply Chain

2012 could well be a banner year for item-level Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tagging in the apparel industry. Companies eager to improve inventory tracking and visibility as well as potentially drive increased sales and reduce labor costs are embracing the idea of item-level RFID at a fast pace. Indeed, global sales of item-level RFID systems to apparel companies are expected to approach $125 million by the end of 2014, according to ABI Research.

Today's item-level RFID tags are a technology enabled by the Electronic Product Code (EPC)—a GS1 standard that provides robust identifying information about specific products.