Radio frequency identification (RFID) is one of the fastest growing and most beneficial technologies being adopted by businesses today. Adoption of this automatic data-collection (ADC) technology has recently been fueled by the establishment of key standards, retailer and government mandates, improved technology performance and falling implementation costs. RFID offers great value for many industries and applications. However, misperceptions about what RFID is and what it can do pose obstacles that discourage some organizations from taking advantage of the technology.

"RFID" describes a class of technology that exchanges data wirelessly. Data is written to and read from a chip att...