Radio Frequency (Un)Identification : Results from a Proof-of-Concept Trial of the Use of RFID Technology to Measure Microenterprise Turnover in Sri Lanka
Accurate measurement of stock levels, turnover, and profitability in microenterprises in developing countries is difficult due to the fact that the majority of these firms do not keep detailed records. We test the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags as a means of objectively measuring...
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Elsevier
2016
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10986/23666 |
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okr-10986-236662021-04-23T14:04:16Z Radio Frequency (Un)Identification : Results from a Proof-of-Concept Trial of the Use of RFID Technology to Measure Microenterprise Turnover in Sri Lanka de Mel, Suresh Herath, Dammika McKenzie, David Pathak, Yuvraj microenterprises survey methods profit and sales measurement RFID Accurate measurement of stock levels, turnover, and profitability in microenterprises in developing countries is difficult due to the fact that the majority of these firms do not keep detailed records. We test the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags as a means of objectively measuring stock levels and stock flow in small retail firms in Sri Lanka. In principle this offers the potential to track stock movements accurately. We compare the stock counts obtained from RFID reads to physical stock counts and to survey responses. We have three main findings. First, current RFID-technology is more difficult to use, and more time-consuming to employ, than we envisaged. Second, the technology works reasonably well for paper products, but very poorly for most products sold by microenterprises: on average we were able to read only about one-quarter of the products tagged, and there was considerable day-to-day variation in read-efficiency. This results from technical issues arising from read efficiency being comprised by liquids, metal, and product stacking. Third, a comparison of survey responses and physical stock-takes shows much higher accuracy for survey measures than RFID. As a result, we conclude that this technology is currently unsuitable for improving stock measurement in microenterprises, except perhaps for a few products. 2016-01-15T22:03:26Z 2016-01-15T22:03:26Z 2015-11-15 Journal Article Development Engineering 2352-7285 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/23666 en_US CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Elsevier Publications & Research :: Journal Article Publications & Research Sri Lanka |
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Digital Repository |
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Foreign Institution |
| institution |
Digital Repositories |
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World Bank Open Knowledge Repository |
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World Bank |
| language |
en_US |
| topic |
microenterprises survey methods profit and sales measurement RFID |
| spellingShingle |
microenterprises survey methods profit and sales measurement RFID de Mel, Suresh Herath, Dammika McKenzie, David Pathak, Yuvraj Radio Frequency (Un)Identification : Results from a Proof-of-Concept Trial of the Use of RFID Technology to Measure Microenterprise Turnover in Sri Lanka |
| geographic_facet |
Sri Lanka |
| description |
Accurate measurement of stock levels, turnover, and profitability in microenterprises in developing countries is difficult due to the fact that the majority of these firms do not keep detailed records. We test the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags as a means of objectively measuring stock levels and stock flow in small retail firms in Sri Lanka. In principle this offers the potential to track stock movements accurately. We compare the stock counts obtained from RFID reads to physical stock counts and to survey responses. We have three main findings. First, current RFID-technology is more difficult to use, and more time-consuming to employ, than we envisaged. Second, the technology works reasonably well for paper products, but very poorly for most products sold by microenterprises: on average we were able to read only about one-quarter of the products tagged, and there was considerable day-to-day variation in read-efficiency. This results from technical issues arising from read efficiency being comprised by liquids, metal, and product stacking. Third, a comparison of survey responses and physical stock-takes shows much higher accuracy for survey measures than RFID. As a result, we conclude that this technology is currently unsuitable for improving stock measurement in microenterprises, except perhaps for a few products. |
| format |
Journal Article |
| author |
de Mel, Suresh Herath, Dammika McKenzie, David Pathak, Yuvraj |
| author_facet |
de Mel, Suresh Herath, Dammika McKenzie, David Pathak, Yuvraj |
| author_sort |
de Mel, Suresh |
| title |
Radio Frequency (Un)Identification : Results from a Proof-of-Concept Trial of the Use of RFID Technology to Measure Microenterprise Turnover in Sri Lanka |
| title_short |
Radio Frequency (Un)Identification : Results from a Proof-of-Concept Trial of the Use of RFID Technology to Measure Microenterprise Turnover in Sri Lanka |
| title_full |
Radio Frequency (Un)Identification : Results from a Proof-of-Concept Trial of the Use of RFID Technology to Measure Microenterprise Turnover in Sri Lanka |
| title_fullStr |
Radio Frequency (Un)Identification : Results from a Proof-of-Concept Trial of the Use of RFID Technology to Measure Microenterprise Turnover in Sri Lanka |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Radio Frequency (Un)Identification : Results from a Proof-of-Concept Trial of the Use of RFID Technology to Measure Microenterprise Turnover in Sri Lanka |
| title_sort |
radio frequency (un)identification : results from a proof-of-concept trial of the use of rfid technology to measure microenterprise turnover in sri lanka |
| publisher |
Elsevier |
| publishDate |
2016 |
| url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/23666 |
| _version_ |
1764454479356231680 |