"The Wal-Mart and BP sales example demonstrates the value of RFID as a tool for effective management and auditing performance," said Dan Taylor, an analyst at Mobile Enterprise Alliance in Wakefield, Mass. "RFID helps close the feedback loop" that business supply chains need.

Taylor pointed to a range of RFID examples that indicate that the technology is taking off, with implementations moving into the area of safety in addition to inventory-tracking. "RFID is coming along," he said. "Some of the examples are pretty amazing."

BP has several other uses for RFID, including a plan to put the tags on equipment inside its data centers, Smith said. BP is working with IBM on software to help track routers, servers and switches equipped with the tags.

At Ford Motor Co. in Dearborn, Mich., the use of RFID technology to track parts inventory and vehicles is in place or in the planning stages at four U.S. manufacturing plants. Research started on the technology as far back as 2000, Ted Thuis, business process specialist for the automaker, told MWW attendees.

One RFID application, called Fast Gate, is used at Ford's Chicago assembly plant and will be implemented at the company's assembly plant in Oakville, Ontario, to track incoming supply trucks using an active RFID tag attached to the delivery vehicles, Thuis said. At Ford's Valencia assembly plant in Venezuela, vehicle parts inventory is tracked with passive RFID tags temporarily attached to the parts and reused. And at Ford's truck plant in Wayne, Mich., RFID tags are hung from the rearview mirrors of new vehicles to track their movement through portions of the supply chain.