Why the requirement?  RFID addresses a critical challenge that all supply chains experience: lack of visibility.  The Department of Defense expects to:

• Provide near-real time in-transit visibility for all classes of supplies and material
• Provide "in the box" content level detail for all classes of supplies and material
• Provide quality, non-intrusive identification and data collection that enables enhanced inventory management
• Provide enhanced item level visibility

The DoD has been very explicit about the time table for implementation of a compliant RFID solution.  The DoD has developed a Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation (DFAR) clause that contractually requires suppliers to affix passive RFID tags to material in the case, pallet, and item packaging for unique identification items. Initial start dates were to be January 2005 with effective supplier start dates aligning with contract renewals. As the DEFAR clause was delayed it is now  anticipated that new contracts will start to take effect beginning September 2005. From this point on various categories of product will fall within the mandate. It is the DoD objective that ALL suppliers will comply with the RFID Mandate by 2007. 

The DoD will require RFID tags to be placed on all individual cases, all cases packaged within palletized unit loads and all palletized unit loads. Tags must be compliant with the Electronic Product Code (EPC) specifications.

This is critical for suppliers as the overwhelming majority of RFID solutions on the marketplace do not have the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) capabilities to meet this critical component.  For SEEBURGER, this is business as usual since we have been in the B2B/EDI integration world for nearly 20 years

The Advanced Shipping Notice/Receiving Report transaction set is used to list the contents of a shipment of goods as well as additional information relating to the shipment.  The ASN transaction set enables the sender to relate the RFID tag ID at multiple levels of detail to the contents and configuration of the shipment.  As part of the mandate, suppliers must provide standard ASN (856) transactions in accordance with the Federal Implementation Convention (IC) via approved electronic methods (EDI, Web-Based, or user defined formats) over the Wide Area Workflow (WAWF).

For more information on the full DoD requirement: Click Here