RFID Benefits, Costs, and Possibilities: The Economical Analysis of RFID Deployment in a Cruise Corporation Global Service Supply Chain

This paper explores the potential contribution of RFID and other technologies to the efficiency of a cruise corporation’s service supply chain as well as provide an analysis of processes that are required in that supply chain. The main findings of the research are that RFID cannot achieve direct gains significant enough on a pallet-level-tagging deployment to justify the expenditure for this context. However a case-level-tagging deployment could be feasible under certain conditions. The study shows that contrary to current beliefs in the literature, density of flow of goods and not the scale of operations, determines whether a good return on investment is achievable.  This study also finds that without partnering with major suppliers in introducing the technology across the supply chain, the savings to a single-tier member of this supply chain cannot justify the added costs.