Is updating your digital signage with a mobile device really such a good idea? That's the question raised by the recent announcement that Swedish retail giant ICA will begin using mobile apps next month for making changes to its in-store signs.

For businesses that manufacture aerospace, pharmaceutical or other high-value items, even a single component built into a product can be worth tens of thousands of dollars. Losing track of a basket filled with parts can thus be extremely costly, due not only to each component's cost but the potential loss of production time if assembly is delayed. The solution may be RFID technology, according to Marlin Steel Wire Products, a producer of custom wire baskets and other metal products.

Tufts Medical Center, a 415-bed teaching hospital in Boston, has saved $1.5m on stents, angioplasty balloons and other implantable devices, based on information provided by a radio frequency identification inventory-management system deployed within its catheterization, electrophysiology and interventional radiology laboratories.

Employees at tomato and cucumber producer Eurofresh Farms have increased their productivity by between 200 and 250 percent thanks to an RFID-based solution that helps the company track the exact amount of work performed by each staff member, and then compensate that individual accordingly.

The traditional uses of RFID for the identification of animals, people and within the automotive sector are continuing to grow and are projected to increase by $2.8bn from 2012 to 2017. However, ABI Research's new RFID Market Tracker found that modernizing RFID applications will grow twice as fast with annual revenues derived from these jumping by $4.5bn in the same timeframe.

The advancement of technology, combined with demand from customers, has continued to fuel interest in radio frequency identification tagging systems. Yet for all the attention paid to RFID, data from APQC's Open Standards Benchmarking in logistics shows a majority of organizations have not adopted an RFID tagging strategy.

Sissy's Log Cabin, a jewelry retailer in Arkansas, has been employing an RFID-based solution for the past five years at its stores in Pine Bluff and Little Rock, in order to more accurately and quickly inventory the trays of watches, gems and fine jewelry that it displays and sells. Now, having opened a new store this year in Jonesboro, the company is preparing to expand the system, within the next 12 months, to include that location as well.

Checkpoint Systems Inc., a global supplier of electronic article surveillance solutions, merchandise visibility and apparel labeling solutions for the retail industry and its supply chain, has been chosen by Tesco to implement a global EAS program to improve on-shelf availability of products.

Zebra Technologies has put its own real-time location system (RTLS) technology to work at two of its warehouses - one in Vernon Hills, Ill., and a second in Heerenveen, the Netherlands. The solution saves time employees previously spent locating the proper place for loads of picked goods (approximately three minutes per load), says Gary Meekma, Zebra's senior manager of warehouse operations, while also reducing the amount of space required to stage each load by about 40 percent.