DoD Compliance: RFID, UID, And Wide Area Workflow

By Fred Gulick,
Business Development,
Smart Label Solutions, LLC

RFID (radio frequency identification) is a technology that is being applied to the DoD supply chain for a simple reason: no human intervention is needed to identify a product moving through an RFID-enabled gate in the supply chain. The license plate information of the product is encoded in an RFID chip that can then be read when a tag moves through that gate. The RFID technology used for the pallet marking initiative at the DoD is a passive technology that is being adopted not only in the DoD supply chain but in the retail supply chain as well. Both the retail and DoD initiatives share the Electronic Product Code (EPC) Gen 2 standard (designed by EPCglobal, Inc.), which guarantees that each tag is unique.

UID (unique identifier) helps manage an asset throughout its life cycle. It is marked on an item using a data matrix bar code that can be machine-read at anytime. Both UID and RFID marking schemes are being implemented by the DoD and suppliers that are responsible for the marking of items, cases, and pallets.

WAWF (wide area workflow) is a system open to all government suppliers. The system facilitates the advanced shipping notice task and the receiving process and can alert a supplier's quality inspector that a shipment is ready to go. Suppliers are using this technology today for interfacing to the government as they are fulfilling current contracts. When tagging with RFID or UID every part has to have a unique number, maybe two, that must be entered in to WAWF. If your company is shipping a lot of items, cases, or pallets to the DoD, entering this info as you do today may not be feasible.

SOURCE: Smart Label Solutions