Patience, My Dear

Jeff Feltz, director of product management, Mark Andy—There are a few reasons. First, read rates have not met acceptable levels for mass adoption. The quality of inlays has improved significantly, however not to a level to build full confidence in RFID as a reliable solution. Second, RFID inlay costs have not reached the point to make item-level tagging cost effective. Item-level tagging will be the driver of significant growth in RFID. Third, the infrastructure is not yet in place to support a widespread RFID system. Contrast this with bar code reading. Today, there is a significant infrastructure in place to support bar codes, but this took many years to reach the current state seen today. RFID will reach this level of infrastructure at some point, but it will take time.