MAY 16,2007-The Pathfinder group, a industry consortium backed by Fonterra, Progressive Enterprises and The Warehouse, had planned to kick-start the adoption of RFID technology this year by running a trial that would have seen manufacturers, transport companies and retailers ship tagged goods to one another.

Gary Hartley, the New Zealand development manager of international barcode and RFID standards body GS1, says the trial has been deferred indefinitely.

Pathfinder Group chairman Alan Mayo says the industry group has decided further feasibility studies are first needed to better understand the business case for RFID in different industries. "We feel what the market needs at the moment is understanding of RFID and the opportunities in specific applications in specific industries. RFID is so dependent on companies' business processes and their maturity."

The Warehouse announced in 2005 that it was teaming up with IBM to investigate the opportunities created by RFID. It planned a trial this year that was expected to involve tagging individual items of clothing in several stores. However, it is understood that that project has also been put on the backburner by The Warehouse, which is currently subject to acquisition activity.

The main selling point of RFID for retailers is that tagged goods can be automatically interrogated by wireless scanners at the checkouts and on shelves and in storerooms, making it easier to track the flow of goods through the supply chain and to ensure shelves are restocked without ordering excess inventory.

However, there are fears that RFID tags could be scanned secretly once consumers have taken goods home from shops, raising the possibility the technology could be used to snoop on the contents of people's handbags, for example.

Overseas, RFID champion Wal-Mart has scaled back its goals for the technology. Only 600 of the retailers' 20,000 suppliers are tagging their shipments to Wal-Mart with RFID chips, four years after it issued an edict announcing that RFID tags would be mandatory. Information Week reports that the consensus among businesses in the US is that the technology will find a place.

SOURCE: www.stuff.co.nz