Road to RFID paved with bar codes

Radio frequency identification (RFID) adoption has lagged in the pharmaceutical industry for a number of reasons, including the cost of implementing systems, ongoing changes in global standards and the still-unacceptable to many failure rate of RFID tags. Supporting those not rushing to embrace RFID is George Wright IV, vice president of Product Identification Processing Systems, Inc. (PIPS). In this white paper, Wright explains his position and why he believes bar codes are the short-term answer, as long as manufacturers strive to understand Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines at all levels of packaging.

Wright says RFID chips still fail at a significant rate and when that happens, a backup system is needed, a means of capturing the information that cannot be read from the RFID data carrier. He suggests 2D bar codes are the backup system.

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