Abstract—The role of RFID in supply chain management is increasing at a faster rate. This technology has great potential in increasing the SCM surplus and enable firms to gain and sustain a competitive advantage. This paper will present how adopting RFID technology will impact the supply chain management macro processes, which are; supplier relationship management (SRM), internal supply chain management (ISCM) and customer relationship management (CRM). Several activities in each process with regard to RFID adoption will be discussed. Index Terms—RFID, customer relationship management (CRM), internal supply chain management (ISCM) supplier relationship management (SRM). I. INTRODUCTION Supply chain management is the flow of services or goods from the suppliers, through the manufacturers, distributers, and to the end users. Researchers have defined supply chain management as a successful integration and coordination of activities that are associated with goods being moved from the stage of raw materials to the end user stage, in order to have a sustainable competitive advantage. This covers activities such as sourcing and procurement, systems management, order processing, production scheduling, transportation, inventory management, customer service and warehousing [1]. Nowadays, there are number of technologies that could make the process of supply chain management easier and more efficient such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), Point of Sales (POS), Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Data Mining (DM). In this paper we will focus on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), which is one of the technologies that has lived to the promise and has been growing with new applications. RFID is a wireless technology which works on transmitted radio signals to track, tag, trace and recognize movements of items in real time. These items include cases, containers, products and even humans. RFID technology has three major components. First is the transponder, also referred as RFID tag that is fixed on the items which also identifies them. The second component is a reader, which is used as a communication channel. The third one is an application that collects data, which includes an antenna and Manuscript received August 3, 2014; revised October 6, 2014. The authors are with the College of Business Administration, Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University, Al-Khobar 31952, Saudi Arabia (e-mail: sarifusalam@pmu.edu.sa, r.almaymouni@gmail.com, layla-92@windowslive.com, layla-92@windowslive.com, aya.dardas@gmail.com). a software solution [2]. This research is an attempt to explain how adopting RFID technology can aid in Supply Chain Management macro processes eventually leading to overall coordination. Each supply chain macro process will be discussed along with relevant activities and the role of RFID technology and its impact. II. RFID TECHNOLOGY A. What Is RFID RFID is considered an automatic identification technology that identifies items and collects data on these items. It needs no intervention from people for entering data unlike other automatic technologies such as smart cards and bar codes. RFID is a wireless technology that transmits information without any physical connection or need of line of sight, which is needed by some optical technologies like bar codes. An RFID tag or a transponder contains a microchip, which is used to store data that identifies the item it is attached to and antenna in order to transmit the data through radio waves. The reader or an interrogator sends radio signals and prompts the tag to broadcast the data stored in the chip. The reader then starts converting the radio waves that are returned from the tags to digital data and sends them to a computer system [3]. B. Types of RFID Tags There are three types of tags, passive, active and semi-passive or semi-active. The passive tags are in a sleep state till the reader awakens them. The reader’s field in the passive tags is used as a charger to power the tags. Since the passive tags need a strong signal they are usually used for applications that have short ranges and need a powered reader that has antenna that could read the information. The passive tags are not heavy; they are light and have a long life span [4]. (a) Passive (b) Active Fig. 1. Samples of passive and active RFIDs. The second type, which is the active tag, has an internal battery that powers the tag and could last for several years. Arifusalam Shaikh, Reem K. Al-Maymouni, Layla H. Al-Hamed, and Aya Dardas The Role of RFID in Supply Chain Management Macro Processes International Journal of Innovation, Management and Technology, Vol. 5, No. 5, October 2014 388 DOI: 10.7763/IJIMT.2014.V5.546