Affiliations: Department of Engineering and Architecture, University of Parma, Parma, Italy
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author: Giovanni Romagnoli, Department of Engineering and Architecture, University of Parma, Parma, Italy. E-mail: [email protected].
Abstract: Fashion and apparel retail have been driving the adoption of RFID for the last 10 years. This paper strives to present an overview of the current adoption of RFID technology in this sector and to improve the understanding of the evolution of use cases (UCs) over time by proposing a framework for the UC lifecycle. This tool allows us to classify UCs with six different labels (core, intermittent, trendy, vintage, innovative or ghost) according to three dimensions. We analysed and classified more than 220 scientific papers, magazine articles, white papers, web news stories and press releases as well as confidential information from system integrators dealing with UHF RFID projects in fashion and apparel retail in recent decades. We are not aware of any other study covering this issue, and the results we obtain represent an updated and thorough overview of UHF RFID adoption in the fashion industry. We believe that, by keeping the framework updated, we could create a barometer of RFID adoption in fashion and apparel retail while obtaining further insights on UC evolution over time.