A literature review on the impact of RFID technologies on supply chain management

RFID technologies may improve the potential benefits of supply chain management through reduction of inventory losses, increase of the efficiency and speed of processes and improvement of information accuracy. Various RFID systems can be obtained by combining different tags, readers, frequencies and levels of tagging, etc. The cost and potential profit of each system change in a wide range. In this paper, a state-of-the-art on RFID technology deployments in supply chains is given to analyze the impact on the supply chain performance. Potential benefits, particularly against inventory inaccuracy problems, the bullwhip effect and replenishment policies, are briefly surveyed. Various works addressing analytic modeling, simulations, case studies and experiments as well as ROI analyses are reviewed. Finally, conclusions and future research perspectives are presented. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.