Peer-to-peer inventory management of returnable transport items: A design science approach

The packaged gas industry suffers from the loss of gas cylinders due to ineffective inventory management and lack of suitably robust identification technologies. This paper takes a design science approach to this problem and contributes a prototype inventory management system, based on peer-to-peer RFID technology, developed to improve this situation. Evaluative work is shown which suggests that the system is able to operate effectively within a controlled environment. The benefits of the system are discussed, in addition to the hurdles which are still to be faced in the adoption of the technology.

► This work presents a novel RFID inventory management system intended for the packaged gas industry.
► The main contribution of the work lies in the novel peer-to-peer method utilised to achieve operation within an environment where traditionally RFID would not operate.
► System performance is evaluated within a controlled environment and found to be reasonably robust with adequate battery life.
► The work concludes that further testing of the system is required in a true industrial setting.
► Future work in this field must consider further the issues of item-centric tracking in the context account based ERP-systems, in addition to ensuring the managerial interaction with RFID systems is appropriate in order to maximise potential.