Wal-Mart drives Goodyear to RFID tagging

Wal-Mart has announced that its top 100 suppliers must comply with a requirement to Radio Frequency Identification each case and pallet delivered to its stores by 2005. 25 other suppliers including Goodyear have volunteered to join the project. RFID chips give each tagged item a computer readable signal that identifies it precisely.

It is a process that has been in use in the defence sector to identify friendly aircraft since the 1940’s. As the only tyre company actively participating in a large retail- customer-driven RFID program, Goodyear is leading the way to overcome the challenges involved in using this technology with consumer tires. Attaching the tag to the tyre is a complex task and their method of transportation and storage raise other problems which Goodyear will need to address.