Range of suppliers/range of responses

There is now a wide range of suppliers serving the library RFID market, and so any request for proposal (RFP) is likely to elicit a sizeable response. It will soon become clear that while some systems may be similar, there are big differences between others. The gradual establishment of standards is starting to reduce some of these differences by specifying approaches which will maximize interoperability and the most efficient ways of working, but they will nevertheless be put into practice in different ways by individual suppliers, while still conforming to the standard.

There is no single, perfect library RFID system that will meet everybody's needs, simply because everybody's needs are slightly (or sometimes, very) different. As a result, this range of responses should be seen as a good thing, and the sign of a healthy market. The challenge is to ensure that the most appropriate system is matched to the library concerned. It is also important to be able to demonstrate that this has been done.

Why systematic evaluation is important

Once the decision has been taken to adopt RFID, after determining the requirements and issuing an RFP from suppliers through the appropriate channels, a process will then be needed to ensure that the responses received from suppliers are evaluated in a systematic and fair way.

It perhaps should go without saying that this is an essential part of ensuring that the system chosen is the one which most closely meets the requirements that have been specified, but it is sometimes forgotten that, in addition, suppliers need to be confident that their responses are being considered against objective criteria that are applied consistently, rather than subjectively and randomly. Suppliers invest as much – if not much more – time in the process of responding to RFPs as their potential customers do, and expect that their efforts will be judged fairly.