RFID and Data Capture Technologies in Global Service Supply Chains: Meeting the Information Management Challenge

Data capture technologies such as RFID promise customer centric global service supply chains, but simultaneously threaten data overload. We argue that novel approaches to information management are required to successfully manage the data from sensor-based data capture technologies and to integrate them into successful inter-organizational service supply networks. We question the degree to which ICTs such as RFID as currently deployed support the customer orientation needed for successful service operations across supply chains, and identify difficulties inherent in current technology use along supply chains and in business systems. We argue for customer orientation at all stages of the supply chain, and identify the benefits of customer information that is available to all supply chain partners in real time, synchronized and updated in responsive and customer centric ways. We outline two general technical approaches, one that involves effective technical middleware along with intraand inter-organizational coordination capabilities and another, considerably more revolutionary and ambitious in scope, that revolves around the idea of a centralized data clearinghouse.