US military invests in 'active' RFID

Come 2005, radio frequency identification will no longer be an option for the US military. It will be the law.

For the Pentagon, RFID systems are part of a major logistics revamp. And the deadline for suppliers to attach RFID tags to many of the goods they ship to the American armed forces is indeed looming.

The military has spent about $100m in implementing the technology over the last decade. The buildup is aimed at reducing the loss or misplacement of supplies that added to the costs of the 1991 Gulf War. Another goal is to stop critical shortages of ammunition, fuel and water that plagued American troops during and after the invasion of Iraq a year ago.

Supply problems did not cause any battlefield deaths in either conflict, according to Alan Estevez, assistant deputy undersecretary of defence for supply chain integration at the Pentagon. Still, he believes that RFID technology will help maintain the smooth flow of supplies to the front lines and has the potential to help save lives in future conflicts.

In early April, Estevez will be part of a Pentagon delegation meeting with suppliers to discuss the impending deadline. He talked recently with CNET News.com about the Department of Defense's history in deploying RFID systems and the future of the technology in the military.

Q: Why is the military is so interested in RFID technology?
A: If you look at the way we fight today and the way we fought the war in Iraq, a rapidly moving force needs dynamic battlefields. So it's really important for us to know what we have, where it is and what is being used, so that we can replenish the force and accurately manage our inventory.

The flip side of that -- and really, our paramount concern is supporting our forces in the field -- is that we owe it to the American taxpayer to be as effective as we can in the use of the resources that are given to us, and RFID is a tool that will enable us to better manage our inventory, while simultaneously better supporting our force.

I read that the Desert Storm conflict resulted in an "iron mountain" of unused supplies. How much did that cost us, in terms of wasted supplies?
Oh, I cannot answer that. That was, you know, 12 years ago.

In terms of last year's war in Iraq, it's been widely reported that there were, again, some supply and logistics problems. Could RFID help resolve such problems in the future?
RFID is one of the tools that will help resolve those issues. There are other issues at play, including transportation constraints.

But how would RFID help, exactly?
We were using active RFID tags in Operation Iraqi Freedom, but part of the problem that we have there is that it is ad hoc. So folks are trained to use it, but we had not worked it into our doctrine, and we had not worked it into our systems. So you are kind of slapping it together, which is the reason behind the policy from Michael Wynne (acting deputy undersecretary of defence for acquisition, technology and logistics), who is really the driving force behind this. The memo he sent out in October and reiterated in our 20 February update was that we would implement the use of active RFID across the board now.