A Cost-based Model for Risk Management in RFID-Enabled Supply Chain Applications

Abstract

Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) is a dedicated short range communication (DSRC) technology that enables a physically linked world where every object is identified, catalogued, and tracked through the use of a RFID tag, comprised of an IC (Integrated Circuit) chip and antenna that sends information to the RFID reader in response to a wireless probe. In contrast to barcodes, RFID does not require line of sight or contact between readers (also known as interrogators) and tagged objects. The main advantages of RFID systems are price efficiency and accuracy of stock management. In addition to emerging applications in retail and distribution, RFID has gradually been adopted and deployed in other service industries, including aircraft maintenance; baggage handling; laboratory procedures; security; and healthcare. Although RFID technology has obvious advantages, including increased visibility and fast identification, there are still some problems, including limitation of RFID tag’s hardware storage and memory; threat of counterfeiting; and other security and privacy issues (Juels, 2006). This study focuses on the counterfeiting problem of RFID technology in supply chain management (SCM). This problem appears as RFID tag cloning and fraud attacks (Gao et.al, 2004) that lead to financial losses and loss of trust and confidence. The RFID tag cloning and fraud attacks can hinder the adoption and acceptance of RFID technology (Choi et.al, 2008; Lehtonen, 2007). Therefore trust management plays an important role as an instrument of decision making whether a system is worthwhile to be used with a minimal risk (Kutvonen, 2005). The tradeoff of trust is considered against risk handling, security and privacy management. The significance of trust in the new emerging ubiquitous technology in a context of RFID is critical. Supply chain involves open network connectivities, physical products transportation, and transaction management, where trust counts in the selection of partners; the selection of software and hardware infrastructure; as well as the adoption of communication systems (Derakshan et.al, 2007). Public acceptance of RFID implications systems is still an open question due to its current limitations and vulnerabilities, (Lehtonen, 2007). In our previous work (Mahinderjit-Singh & Li, 2009; Mahinderjit-Singh & Li 2010), we proposed a novel seven layers trust framework for RFID-enabled supply chain management (SCM). Our seven-layer trust framework provides an approach to establish trustworthiness of large scale tracking systems and