Sanjay Sarma, a professor of mechanical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and former chairman of research and co-founder of the Auto-ID Centre at MIT, during a visit to Infosys, highlighted some of the challenges to EPC/RFID adoption. He said: "Realising business processes improvements through RFID will be the key to success in RFID adoption. I commend Infosys's technology leadership and development of its solution."

"Enterprises across verticals face many challenges in real-time visibility and tracking of physical movement of goods, assets and personnel," says Nandan M Nilekani, president and CEO, Infosys. "Our customers can now look to us to provide the cost reduction, improved customer service and streamlined operations with the launch of our RFID solution and expertise."

Infosys is identifying pilots with clients based on strategy sessions on RFID technology and how best it can be applied to their business processes. Infosys's solution will enable clients to evaluate the technology in their business context, build a business case and develop a roadmap for phased adoption.

RFID, an automatic identification and data capture (AIDC) technology, has generated tremendous interest with the recent announcement of Wal-Mart and the US Department of Defence requiring its vendors to adopt RFID by 2005. While RFID has been around for decades, cost of the technology and lack of standards hampered its widespread adoption.

All of this changed with the efforts of the former Auto-ID Centre at MIT, which was instrumental in the evolution of the electronic product code (EPC) family standards and the formation of EPCGlobal Inc, a cross-industry organisation for the development of industry driven standards for the EPC Network using RFID.

Infosys's solution approach will enable its customers to derive business benefits while requiring optimal capital investments and also ensuring a low total cost of ownership.