The Department of Defense could avoid millions of dollars
in unnecessary RFID — radio frequency identification tag
— purchases by better managing their use, the Government
Accountability Office has said.
It said DoD started using “active” RFID tags attached to
equipment in the early 1990s to help with the in-transit
visibility of shipments, and though the $100 tags are
reusable, DoD policy only encourages components to return
them for reuse, rather than requiring them to do so.
From May 2002 through May 2005, DoD active tag use data
for 614,681 tags show that 84 percent of the tags –
514,455 – had been used only one or two times, and just
16 percent of the tags – 100,226 – were reported as being
reused more than twice, according to GAO-06-366R.
It said the department has not developed procedures to
routinely monitor or account for reuse of all active tags,
and that officials from the Army and Defense Logistics
Agency – the largest purchasers of active tags are unaware
of the status or location of the majority of previously
used tags.
However, DoD continues to spend millions on new active
tags without having procedures to determine if new tags
are needed or whether the demand could be met through reuse
of existing tags, GAO said.
It estimated that since December 1997, about 1,101,816
reusable tags, valued at more than $110 million, have been
used only one or two times and are in an unknown status
even as the department continues to purchase more.