Networking
Practical Networking in the Modern Business Environment
Networking architecture is vital in the organisation of any business firm in today's globalised world. RFID, Cloud Computing, Intranet Network Architecture and Digital Rights Management (DRM) are major fields of endeavour that require the resources of companies. Increasingly, all aspects of an organisation are linked via the Internet and various other technologies in ways of connectivity that we did not even imagine before.
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) has been a vital part of the Wal-Mart Corporation's growth. At the beginning of the 1990s, Wal-Mart trailed K-Mart which at that time could negotiate lower wholesale prices due to its huge size. Part of Sam Walton's strategy for catching up was to set up a point-of-sale system. Such a system is a computerized network that identifies each item that is sold, locates the price in a computerized database. After this, the system creates an accurate customer sales receipt and stores item-by-item sales information for use in analysis of sales and reordering inventory. The strategic use of this helps Wal-Mart avoid overstocking issues by learning what merchandise items are slow sellers. This has made Wal-Mart's inventory and distribution system a world leader. For example, in 5-year period, Wal-Mart invested somewhere above $600 million IT "Wal-mart: attaining competitive," 1999) .
Wal-Mart use telecommunications to directly link from its stores to its warehouses. Wal-Mart began implementing an RFID chip-based pallet and case-level tracking system in 2005. They are require their suppliers to supplying products with RFID tags on pallets and cases. Due to the enormity of Wal-Mart's supply network, the Wal-Mart implementation is having has made RFID and a mainstream technology. It has resulted in lower cost RFID tags, ever more readily available RFID equipment, a wider acceptance of RFID standards and widespread resolutions of operational and integration issues. (Want, 2006, 26). The best advantage for all of this is of course real-time tracking of everything in the supply chain. This helps Wal-Mart track the exact number of products that they hold (Michael & McCathie, 2005, 3).
The world of hi-tech is not always smooth. The most significant IT worry for Wal-Mart's suppliers is related to the electronic price tag (EPC) system. Their biggest concern is obviously related to cost and resource requirements to implement the technologies. Problems with the price have caused some suppliers to balk. Due to this issue, bar codes will probably be around for some time to come.
However, on the pro-side, EPC networks allows products to be monitored in the store, alerting monitoring systems with specific sales details in real-time and when products go missing. This allows Wal-Mart to take anti-theft measures to prevent future occurrences. Obviously, RFID and EPC can provide theft prevention in the retail outlets themselves as well as in distribution centers (ibid).
However, the cost factor has caused Wal-Mart to have to introduce RFIDs and EPCs in stop and start again fashion in the last eight years for some product lines. For instance, in July of 2010, Wal-Mart was working with its suppliers of men's jeans and basic items (undershirts, socks and underwear) to be able to track these items using RFID tags based on a second-generation ultra-high frequency UHF RFID standard technology. This effort is part of the next generation of Wal-Mart's EPC RFID program. This will concentrate on products that have multiple stock-keeping units (SKUs). These products are a challenge to manage from the inventory perspective (Roberti, 2010) .
To help defray the high cost of the RFID technology, Wal-Mart is using its size and market share to help suppliers by leveraging the best price on EPC RFID tags. By doing this, Wal-Mart will be In this way, Wal-Mart will be aiding a supplier that only needs a small volume of tags. They will then pay less than they would pay if they purchased the tags on their own. The retail giant is not giving money to their suppliers to subsidize the cost of the tags. Rather, they are sharing in a cost-of-goods model that includes EPC RFID labels as an integral component item in the total cost of goods. In this way, costs can be better predicted and supply sources adjusted as necessary to keep down prices (ibid).
This assignment consists of four different TASKS. Answer all of them.
Design of an Enterprise RFID System
The cost and cumbersome nature of active RFID tag systems makes their integration into retail products difficult....
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