Protecting the Supply Chain with RFID Technologies

Huntsville (Ala.)

The National Strategy for Global Supply Chain Security published in 2012 by the White House,1 identifies two primary goals for strengthening global supply chains: to promote the efficient and secure movement of goods, and to foster a resilient supply chain. In this paper we show how the Internet of Things (IoT) can be used to realize these goals by employing Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technologies. The IoT enables computing machines to identify and track mobile objects as well as communicate with other tracking machines for real-time situational awareness without requiring human interaction. It endows intelligence to the supply chain, with smart goods moving along the supply chain guided by controllers so as to optimize flows. This paper focuses on security issues and describes procedures that can be used to protect the supply chain and promote resilience. Security addresses privacy, integrity and availability. For privacy, the supply chain goods are made untraceable to those not directly involved. For integrity, shrinkage (theft, loss, etc.) is detected and identified in near real-time. For availability, delayed or irregular flows are reported in real-time. Resilience addresses disruption risks, and is achieved by employing real-time automatic controls, risk management, and risk mitigation based on redundancy and diversity