Data is read from or written to RFID tags by either handheld or mounted interrogators placed at key points within the manufacturing process and in the supply chain. With the information from these tags becoming so valuable, assessing the availability of the critical applications that run on this data requires the entire IT infrastructure to be treated as an ecosystem. Some components are more sensitive to downtime than others but you will need the server, network, and RFID readers to all be working properly.



When considering the overall IT infrastructure, look for possible single points of failure in the system and plan to eliminate these as much as possible. This could be based on having fault-tolerant hardware in place to protect against a component failure, or putting a standard procedure into place to work around the problem. Close attention should be paid to the server infrastructure as a failure of the application or database servers will halt the entire system and therefore becomes a key part of the design of any implementation of RFID.

Industry legislation around the physical processes within industries such as pharmaceutical manufacturing also requires having continuous availability of data on manufacturing and delivery at all times, so data loss can result in an entire batch of product having to be reworked or scrapped. For organisations that don’t have the added incentive of legislation, there is still plenty to be concerned about when it comes to unreadable or erroneous tag data in your operations.


RFID-based supply and manufacturing solutions are being adopted to provide needed information and make dramatic improvements in product quality, timeliness, and security. Taking into consideration the impact these solutions will have on your IT infrastructure will help avoid adding unnecessary risk to your operations. Any project looking at the benefits of RFID within this should have the availability of the IT infrastructure as a key requirement before starting work.