Defense Won't Budge On January RFID Deadline

The Department of Defense is holding fast to its January mandate that suppliers send cases and pallets of goods to the agency tagged with radio-frequency identification technology. Defense Department officials met this week in Washington, D.C., with 700 suppliers to discuss plans for implementing RFID.

The department will present a draft of an RFID supplier contract for public review in May or June and expects to finalize the mandate requirements by August or September for its 43,000 suppliers. "RFID technology is a critical tool in ensuring the effectiveness of support to the field," says Alan Estevez, assistant undersecretary of defense for supply-chain integration. "The way we fight wars is changing, and the way we support our forces needs to change as well."

The military hopes RFID will reduce costs and improve the buying and tracking of products. The tags will capture information about critical assets.

The meeting this week also cleared up confusion around the kinds of identifying numbers the RFID tags would use: Electronic Product Codes (EPCs) or the department's own identification codes. The Defense Department says it will accept both.

The Defense Department's timetable could present problems for some smaller suppliers just now eyeing the technology. The cost of testing and implementing RFID can run in the millions of dollars. Estevez says suppliers that cannot meet the deadline will be reviewed individually, and in some cases, certain requirements can be waived. "But we are not looking for any slips in time frames," he says. "Suppliers understand there are up-front costs, but if you implement the technology properly, those costs will come back in return on investments."

Defense officials have been in touch with counterparts at the General Services Administration, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Federal Department of Agriculture to ensure that there's a common RFID infrastructure across the government. "The idea is that any mandates on suppliers are coordinated, so we are not requiring different technology," Estevez says. In the next few months, the various agencies plan to hold a joint RFID meeting.