RFID and item-level information visibility

Radio frequency identification (RFID) is emerging as the hottest information tracing technology in supply chain management with its inherent ability to reveal item-level product information. Although the beneficial aspects for retailers have been studied in greater detail, RFID tags can be beneficially utilized in a manufacturing context. Unlike a majority of case study-based literature in this area, this paper takes a different perspective by modeling item-level information visibility in general. Specifically, this is accomplished through reduced randomness, as a function of the scale of the information system, the distribution of the sample space, the control variables and the production functions. In order to discover the optimal procedure that utilizes item-level information, we extend the basic model to cover multiple periods. Appropriate example scenarios are simulated accordingly to verify the results and to show evidence supporting the generality and robustness of the model. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.