A shortage of trained personnel continues to hamper companies' use of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, according to a survey by the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA).
The survey, dubbed The State of RFID, was conducted between February and March and involved responses from 64 companies, which included technology resellers, value-added resellers, and systems integrators. This is the third such annual survey by CompTIA.
Although RFID is becoming the technology of choice for tracking goods through a supply chain, two-thirds, or about 69 per cent, of the companies surveyed said there was an insufficient pool of talent for recruiting purposes. That figure is down slightly from the two prior years; the number was 75 per cent in 2006 and 80 per cent in 2005.
One key finding was that 68 per cent of the respondents which believed there was a lack of trained personnel also believed the staffing shortage would slow adoption of RFID.
"The skills shortage is not the most significant factor in the relatively slow adoption of RFID, but it is a contributing factor," vice-president of e-business and software solutions atCompTIA, David Sommer, said.
Growth of RFID use was not expanding at the fast rate that some observers predicted, but it still continued at a modest pace, he said.
Among other findings, the survey said the top three RFID challenges that companies faced were gaining clients for RFID offerings (46 per cent), training and educating staff (44 per cent), and overcoming initial RFID implementation challenges (43 per cent).