Despite companies such as Wal-Mart introducing cross-company supply chain RFID, most enterprises are keeping the track-and-trace tech within the family, according to one RFID vendor.

In a standardised RFID monitored supply chain, tags let retailers and distributors track all of the products coming from various suppliers through a single, large database.

However, companies are mostly installing self-contained "closed loop" RFID deployments, according to Scot Stelter, director of product marketing at Alien Technology, one of the old-guard companies in RFID.

Some pharmaceutical companies, for instance, are putting tags into their products to guard against counterfeiting, while hospitals use tags to make it easier for orderlies and nurses to find equipment. People tagging, notably in the health sector is also taking off, with one in ten RFID projects now focusing on individuals. Meanwhile in retail, stores using RFID mostly specialise in selling their own brands and use the technology for checking inventory.

Investment in closed loop RFID is easier to justify for businesses than open because both the party who applies the tag and the party who reads information from it are the same, while using an open system can introduce technical complexity.

However, Wal-Mart-style mandates to suppliers are not dead. The retailer is going to start charging fees to companies that ship non-tagged pallets of products to its Sam's Club stores, but it has yet to significantly crack down on those not complying at the company's main Wal-Mart chain.

"The mandates accelerated the investment phase and tag development, but some of the early assumptions were off," Stelter said. "The mandates were more of a US issue. Europe was looking at more closed loop applications."

RFID tags, he added, tend to work best from an operation standpoint when users have high-value products, a lot of different models, and a high inventory turnover rate.