In the wake of the hype fueled largely by the promise of widespread RFID adoption for

compliance-driven supply chain management initiatives, manufacturers have started

looking for ways to realize returns either from previous investments in the technology or

from fresh deployments. Indeed, a recent AMR Research survey of discrete

manufacturing companies found that as many as 80% of those surveyed plan to increase

their spending on RFID technology in 2008. According to AMR, some of the areas

expected to ramp up in the coming year include logistics-oriented applications such as

warehouse and yard management, and closed-loop applications such as work in process

(WIP) or container tracking.

Reva Systems Chairman Ashley Stephenson reports that a steady decline in hardware