Challenges for building RFID tracking systems across the whole supply chain

Even though numerous articles and real life cases have highlighted the benefits of radio frequency identification (RFID) tracking for supply chain management for almost a decade, companies are rather slow to implement the technology. This paper concentrates on researching the reasons for the slow adoption of RFID tracking in the supply chain management using literature review and multiple case studies as the research methodology. The literature review of the articles classifies different challenges for RFID tracking implementation and elicits the academic explanations for the slow acceptance of the technology. The conclusion of the literature review is that most of the published articles have been concentrating on presenting technological obstacles to RFID tracking implementation, while the problems nowadays are increasingly organizational or inter-organizational. Also companies usually settle for using RFID tracking to improve their operational processes instead of exploiting the full potential in the technology and the increased visibility for improving managerial processes of the company, or upgrading the efficiency of the whole supply chain. In addition to the literature review, five RFID tracking case surveys are presented to provide experience and insights into managerial decisions concerning supply chain-wide RFID tracking solutions. Followed by the literature review and case studies, this paper presents a framework, which suggests three levels, where different potential challenges to supply chain-wide RFID tracking system implementations should be handled: the supply chain, inside a company or inside a certain function.