The adoption of RFID in supply chain management provides complex issues to be overcome in order to function accordingly. These include people, objects, and atmospheric disturbances. Signal interference impacts essential components such as read range and rate of a functioning system.

This research examined radio frequency (RF) noise in three separate buildings. The objective was to determine whether or not RF noise could affect the functionality between a reader and transponder. If RF noise is found at a specific frequency range, (i.e., UHF 902 to 928 MHz in the USA) and combined with certain physical environmental conditions, then this noise can become an interfering factor with an RFID UHF system.

This study identified the importance of these components by; one, measuring ambient background noise; and two, introducing additional noise to the test location and whether they varied slightly or dramatically, based on findings from three different locations.

The research found different locations having diverse physical make-ups had different effects from both ambient and identified RF noise. Furthermore, the environment with each location played a key role in the amount of interactions resulting in desired communication paths and non-desired paths due to the presence of external RF noise.