Radio Frequency (Un)Identification : Results from a Proof-of-Concept Trial of the Use of RFID Technology to Measure Microenterprise Turnover in Sri Lanka

de Mel, Suresh ; Herath, Dammika ; McKenzie, David ; Pathak, Yuvraj

World Bank Group, Washington, DC

关键词: ALTERNATIVE APPROACH;    ANTENNA;    ANTENNAE;    ANTENNAS;    APPLES;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7064
RP-ID  :  WPS7064

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Accurate measurement of stock levels,turnover, and profitability in microenterprises indeveloping countries is difficult because the majority ofthese firms do not keep detailed records. This paper teststhe use of radio frequency identification tags as a means ofobjectively measuring stock levels and stock flow in smallretail firms in Sri Lanka. In principle, the tags offer thepotential to track stock movements accurately. The papercompares the stock counts obtained from RFID reads tophysical stock counts and to survey responses. There arethree main findings. First, current RFID-technology is moredifficult to use, and more time-consuming to employ, thanhad been envisaged. Second, the technology works reasonablywell for paper products, but very poorly for most productssold by microenterprises: on average only about one-quarterof the products tagged could be read and there wasconsiderable day-to-day variation in read-efficiency. Third,a comparison of survey responses and physical stock-takesshows much higher accuracy for survey measures. As a result,the study concludes that this technology is currentlyunsuitable for improving stock measurement inmicroenterprises, except perhaps for a few products.