Rolling back the standards

You've got to hand it to retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (www.walmart.com) - the company is relentless in the way it redefines the limits of supply chain management. The retailer's ability to provide goods at consistently low prices - while making a nice profit -is very much thanks to its proficiency

Some are now loudly questioning Wal-Mart's latest strategy, though, indicating that the retailer pushed the envelope way too far this time.

No, I'm not talking about the retailer's somewhat draconian edicts that its top 100 suppliers start tagging pallets and cases with radio frequency identification (RFID) chips by January 2005. Nor am I referring to Wal-Mart's dictate that its partners start using the electronic data interchange EDI INT AS2 standard over the Internet within 18 months. Those technology initiatives, after all, are consistent with Wal-Mart's push to have visibility into - some would say, to have control over -every link within its supply chain.