Barcode VS Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)

In today's technology, more and more companies are using RFID technology for their products packaging.


RFID Reader / Info. needed for Put Away

RFID Tag / Scanning the Product (Hand-held Scanner)










Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a data collection technology similar to barcodes, but instead of scanning a barcode it uses radio frequency communication to collect data from RFID tags.

Both RFID and barcoding can

• reduce receiving operations time





• reduce data collection labour





• improves data collection accuracy

• integrates data collected with other areas

However, i feel that companies might want to consider implementing RFID instead of barcoding if a choice has to be made between these 2 because RFID does not need line of sight there fore it has a longer reading distance as compare to barcodes which require line of sight and therefore the barcode has to be near the scanner in order to read.

In addition, RFID can read many products one time at less than a second but barcodes can only read one each time and a few seconds taken to read one barcode which would be more time consuming as compared.

However, barcodes also has an advantage which will be the lower cost of implentation as compare to RFID.

This link has a table that has the comparison between the 2 technologies.
http://www.inlogic.com/rfid/rfid_vs_barcode.aspx