RFID and Beyond

1 Business Navigation and AL Real World Awareness RI TE MA M odern aviation is the complete realization of Real World D Awareness. As a passenger, when you board a flight from Frankfurt to New York, your thoughts may roam to which TE movie will be played. But, in the cockpit, the pilot and copilot are in an intense conversation with a computer that is making sure that all the GH sensors that keep track of the plane’s engines, speed, altitude, radar, GPS, and fuel levels are in working order.The pilots are also checking higher- order functions that use these sensors in intelligent ways.The autopilot, RI the ground-proximity warning system, the landing system, the commu- nications system, and the navigation systems are all run through diag- PY nostic routines. As the plane takes off, sensors on the engines are taking dozens of readings that will later be sent via satellite to a central com- CO puter that is monitoring the operation of the engine and looking for patterns that indicate problems or inefficiencies.While you are wonder- ing whether your favorite Chardonnay will be available with dinner, the pilot is managing and monitoring all these automated systems and wait- ing for them to indicate any problems so that the right response can be executed. This modern flight is the essence of the concept of Real World Awareness, which is the topic of this book. Data from sensors provide information about the real world. Automated systems use that data to 3 4 CHAPTER ONE carry out complicated tasks.Advanced data analysis looks for patterns in the future.The pilot is in the center of it all, monitoring, managing, and handling exceptional cases. All this is at the service of the customer, who, although unaware of the means, knows that the flight is safe, well managed, and available for an attractive price.This finely tuned machine did not start out this way, but was the result of decades of evolution. In the early days of aviation, well into the 1930s, flying a plane was an art that required skill and intuition, not to mention a serious dose of bravery.The cockpit was sparse, with a joystick, a couple of levers here and there, and a good view. Speedometers and altimeters were all in the future then, and pilots flew planes by feeling based on experience.This method was called flying by the seat of your pants because the pilot’s “rear end” was literally one of the most important sensors! Pilots wore thin clothing and sat on seats with little padding in order to better sense the vibrations of the plane. Experienced pilots would know what sort of vibrations were okay and which bumps and jiggles indicated a problem. Figure 1.1 shows the cockpit that Charles Lindbergh faced when he crossed the Atlantic in 1927. Figure 1.1. Cockpit from the Spirit of St. Louis ©2002 Orbital Air, Inc. All rights reserved. www.OrbitalAir.com Business Navigation and Real World Awareness 5 As aviation technology progressed, more instruments were added to the cockpit to provide the sort of information that achieves Real World Awareness. At first, air-speed indicators, altimeters, and compasses appeared, followed eventually by radios, radar, and primitive flight- warning computers that sensed dangerous conditions. Figure 1.2 shows the cockpit of a DC-3, which added a significant number of instru- ments. The pilot was joined by a copilot, navigator, radio officer, and flight engineer, who was responsible for maintaining the machinery while flying.As technology advanced, computers changed cockpits dra- matically, sometimes in ways initially resisted by pilots. Advanced navi- gation systems, fly-by-wire systems, and autopilots were all accepted after a struggle, which included fights over the elimination of the radio officer, navigator, and then the flight engineer, which gave aviation the modern two-person cockpit, also known as the “glass cockpit.” Figure 1.2. Cockpit from a DC-3 6 CHAPTER ONE In today’s planes, you find advanced navigation systems that have maps of the geography of the entire planet. Figure 1.3 shows you the glass cockpit of the Airbus 300 series, which was the first in a long line of computerized designs that skeptical pilots derisively called “the elec- tronic pig.”Autopilots have evolved to automate most of the tasks of fly- ing a plane, including landing. Pilots no longer hold the plane on course with their hands, but, rather, manage the information presented to them by the computers, which warn pilots of upcoming threats and prevent them from executing maneuvers that would lead beyond the limits of the safe flight envelope. In the most advanced high-performance aircraft that fly at incredible speeds and have a minute tolerance for error, humans cannot even fly the plane. High-performance computers are required to perform most of the tasks of adjusting flight controls, such as flaps, at speeds of Mach 2 or higher. Figure 1.3. Glass cockpit from an Airbus A300 Business Navigation and Real World Awareness 7 A transformation in business is now under way that runs parallel to the evolution of aviation technology. Despite the application of advanced technology and business systems, too many business executives still fly their organizations by the seats of their pants. It is not because the business systems do not work, but rather because, until quite recently, even the most modern systems were still based on assumptions, not on real-time data about where goods are located, what state they are in, and other data that could provide an accurate map of reality. The information in these systems is only as accurate as the last inventory check or data entry into the system. Real-time essentially meant “as soon as someone let the computer know!”Without real real-time data, businesses face uncertainty. Business-oriented Real World Awareness techniques, such as Radio Frequency IDentification, are dramatically reducing the cost of automatically and instantly acquiring accurate information about almost every aspect of a business. The gap between the state of the virtual world in business systems and that of the real world, which is being managed, can be reduced dramatically.When this happens, immense value can be created by increasing efficiency, expand- ing automation, or opening the door to new lines of business. Like a pilot in a modern plane, with Real World Awareness, executives have a new job. Automated systems can sense the exact state of the real world and respond appropriately. When exceptional conditions arise, both pilots and executives have a wealth of information to help determine a response. We can still hear the echo of the starting gun in the race to apply Real World Awareness.There is much more to learn than is now known about how to apply this powerful technique.What this book aims to do is to take a snapshot of where we are now and explain a coherent way of thinking about the important issues because the stakes in this race are incredibly high. Companies must figure it out for themselves.The win- ners will be those who learn how to adapt their way of doing business to the new possibilities that Real World Awareness brings. R E A L WO R L D AWA R E N E S S I N AV I AT I O N Flying by the seat of the pants is really not that bad of an idea, if you have no other choice. Pilots took off and landed, navigated by compasses 8 CHAPTER ONE or points on land, and got from here to there just fine. Good pilots could tell what was going on as their planes rumbled along, and many impres- sive feats of aviation were achieved. But, although flying by the seat of the pants was an admirable skill, it was far from a well-defined, scientific process and did not lend itself to logical analysis, incremental and standardized improvement, or the development of safety guidelines and best practices. It was a matter of people doing the best they could with the available technology and experience.When more modern technology progressively arrived, avia- tion changed drastically. The message for a Real World Aware business: Flying by the seat of your pants is acceptable only when you have no other option. INSTRUMENTS AND AUTOMATION The arrival of instruments to determine a plane’s speed and altitude, its primitive weather measurements, and the performance of the engine changed flying from an intuitive skill to a process that was far more accurately defined and predictable. The speed at which a plane should be traveling at take-off and landing could be clearly specified. The proper readings of oil pressure, coolant temperature, and other parame- ters and indicators of stress on the engine could be easily documented. It didn’t take long for the work of flying a plane to be expanded from one brave individual to a team designed to minimize risk. As larger planes developed with multiple engines, a copilot joined the pilot to provide safety through redundancy.A flight engineer joined the crew to closely monitor the increasing amount of machinery and electronics on the plane. A navigator was also introduced to perform all the calculations that were required, because more primitive forms of navigation no longer worked for long flights during the day or night or at high altitudes. Radio officers were introduced to operate communi- cations equipment on-board since early long-range communications were transmitted through Morse Code.

Contents PART I: Real World Awareness in Business. 1. Business Navigation and Real World Awareness. 2. How Real World Awareness Will Change Your Business. 3. The Technologies of Real World Awareness. 4. Business Process Design and Optimization. 5. Implementing Real World Awareness. 6. People, Privacy, Politics. PART II: Experts in Real World Awareness. 7. Mastering the Legal Challenges. 8. The Impact of RFID on Supply Chain Efficiency. 9. Exploding Edges and Potential for Disruption. 10. The X Internet Unleashes Real World Awareness Services Revolution. Index.