Sam's Club and RFID

Paper Summary:

The paper examines John Burnell's article, "Sam's Club Letter Outlines Changes to RFID Requirements" and explores the radio-frequency identification (RFID) initiatives of Sam's Club and Wal-Mart. The paper explains why Sam's Club is looking for supplier adoption of RFID technique, what benefits it looks to realize and what disadvantages it hopes to minimize. The paper shows how Sam's Club is trying to apply the lessons learned by Wal-Mart, its parent company, in its ill-fated experience implementing RFID.

From the Paper:

"Sam's Club, which is the membership warehouse retail arm of Wal-Mart, sent a letter to all of its suppliers last month "rolling back" its ambitious plans to achieve Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) tagging of all pallets, cases and sellable units by 2010. The announcement is reminiscent of its parent company, the world's largest retailer, attempting a similar initiative. In November 2003, Wal-Mart asked its top 100 suppliers to be ready to mark deliveries (boxes and pallets) with RFID tags by January 2005, which it unfortunately failed to achieve except with a few suppliers. (Wailgum 2008) The article, "Sam's Club Letter Outlines Changes to RFID Requirements," which appeared in the January 26, 2009 issue of RFID Update, discusses Sam's Club initiative in light of its latest announcement."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Burnell, John. (January 26, 2009) Sam's Club letter outlines changes to RFID requirements. RFID Update. Retrieved on January 31, 2009 from http://www.rfidupdate.com/articles/index.php?id=1734
• D'Agostino, Debra. (November 11, 2006). RFID: The book on item-level tagging. CIO Insight. Retrieved on February 1, 2009 from http://www.cioinsight.com/c/a/Technology/RFID-The-Book-on-Itemlevel-Tagging/.
• Duvall, Mel. (October 3, 2007). Cover Story: Wal-Mart's faltering RFID initiative. Baseline. Retrieved on February 1, 2009 from http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/Projects-Supply-Chain/Cover-Story-WalMarts-Faltering-RFID-Initiative/.
• Gao RFID. (March 18, 2008). Gen 2 harsh environment RFID tage released. Retrieved from Articlesbase.com on http://www.articlesbase.com/press-releases-articles/gen-2-harsh-environment-rfid-tag-released-by-gao-rfid-363339.html
• Gilmore, Dan. (April 17, 2008). Wal-Mart and RFID: Seems obvious now. Supply Chain Digest. Retrieved on January 31, 2009 from http://www.scdigest.com/assets/FirstThoughts/08-04-17.php?cid=1624&ctype=content.

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