How RAIN Alliance Quality Guidelines Could Facilitate RAIN RFID Adoption

One of the questions I’m asked most, especially in industry meetings and informal conversation is:

“What’s the relationship between the RAIN Alliance Manufacturing Quality Guidelines and the ARC Program?”

As the Chair of the RAIN Alliance Manufacturing Quality Workgroup (WG), and through my work with manufacturers navigating both, I understand why this can feel unclear. These efforts are sometimes seen as separate, or occasionally as overlapping in intent.

**Before going further, I’d like to clarify that the perspectives shared here are my own, based on my experience in manufacturing quality. They are not intended to represent formal positions of the ARC Program. Rather, I’m sharing these thoughts to invite an open, constructive conversation across the ecosystem.**

Back to the topic, in practice, these two efforts are complementary. RAIN Alliance provides guidance on how quality can be built, while ARC offers an independent framework to evaluate performance consistency in real-world conditions.

In my opinion, the broader and more important perspective, especially as RAIN RFID continues to scale globally, is about alignment, trust, and building confidence in quality well before any formal evaluation or certification.

Why This Matters Now

RAIN RFID has crossed an important threshold. In 2025 alone, global tag chip shipments reached 42.7 billion units. At this scale, quality isn’t a competitive differentiator, it’s a responsibility.

Every tag represents a promise:

• To work consistently
• To perform in real‑world environments
• To deliver value across diverse sectors including supply chains, food, healthcare systems, retailers, and consumers

That promise starts in manufacturing and that’s where RAIN Alliance guidelines could help.

The RAIN Alliance Manufacturing Quality Guideline and Manufacturing Quality Guideline Use Case Scenarios were created by the Manufacturing Quality Workgroup to answer a very practical question:

What does robust, scalable manufacturing quality look like before formal evaluation?

These guidelines are not audits. They’re not certifications. They are practical, experience-based guidance, built from real-world deployments across multiple industries. They help manufacturers:

• Design for consistency, not just compliance
• Build quality into processes, not inspect it later
• Ensure products are fit for purpose in the intended environment

From my perspective as the WG Chair, this is the most important part: The guidelines allow manufacturers to catch issues early, when they’re easiest and least expensive to fix. For organizations considering external validation, aligning with these guidelines helps strengthen internal readiness, process discipline, and cross-functional alignment ahead of any formal evaluation (internal or external). This is where I want to be very clear. RAIN Alliance Manufacturing Quality Guidelines provide directions on how to design, build, and control quality within manufacturing processes. ARC provides an external evaluation of performance against their own criteria.

When organizations align their internal practices with RAIN Alliance guidance, they should find that participation in programs like ARC becomes:

• More predictable
• More efficient
• More structured

Instead of reacting to test results, teams arrive to an audit prepared and confident that their processes match best practice.

Beyond Retail Mandates

While ARC certification is often associated with retail programs or regional requirements, the value of alignment with RAIN Alliance guidelines extends far beyond mandates. For broader global industries such as food, healthcare, tires, industrial tracking, emerging IoT applications, the combination of RAIN Alliance guidelines and ARC validation provides a neutral, global benchmark for quality.

It creates a shared expectation across the ecosystem:

• Manufacturers
• Inlay suppliers
• Integrators
• End users

And that shared expectation is what enables scale.

Why I Care About This Alignment

As the Chair of the RAIN Alliance Manufacturing Quality Workgroup and Global Director of RFID Quality at SML Group, I don’t see the guidelines as paperwork or theory. I see them as a way to help manufacturers succeed faster, with less friction, and with greater confidence. This is what allows RAIN RFID to move from billions of tags to billions of reliable, valuable, and connected experiences. As RAIN RFID continues to scale, there is an opportunity—not to redefine existing frameworks—but to strengthen how they connect in practice.

From my perspective, one of the most impactful next steps for the industry is to encourage closer dialogue between manufacturing guidance and performance evaluation frameworks. Not as a formal integration, but as an ongoing exchange of insight and experience.

There are several areas where this collaboration could add value across the ecosystem:

• Sharing common interpretation of expectations earlier in the process
• Reducing unnecessary iteration by aligning on practical readiness signals
• Creating more visibility into how manufacturing decisions influence downstream performance
• Supporting manufacturers in navigating both guidance and evaluation more efficiently

This is not about changing existing programs—it is about creating stronger bridges between them. As someone closely involved in manufacturing quality discussions, I see a meaningful opportunity to further connect these perspectives in a way that benefits the entire ecosystem.

Final Thought

If there is one takeaway, it is this:

Quality in RAIN RFID is strongest when built collaboratively across the ecosystem.

The RAIN Alliance Manufacturing Quality Guidelines and the ARC Program each play important roles in that effort—one focused on building consistency into processes, the other on evaluating performance in a structured and trusted way.

Looking ahead, the opportunity is not just to use both effectively, but to continue strengthening the dialogue between them. I would encourage continued collaboration across manufacturers, solution providers, and programs like RAIN Alliance and ARC to share experiences, align expectations, and collectively improve how we define and deliver quality at scale.

Because ultimately, the goal is shared: to ensure that every tag we produce performs reliably, consistently, and with confidence—anywhere in the world.

I would welcome perspectives from others in the ARC and RAIN Alliance communities as we continue this conversation.

About the RAIN Alliance Manufacturing Quality Workgroup

The RAIN Alliance Manufacturing Quality Workgroup is a specialized group focused on ensuring the reliability and consistency of RAIN RFID technology as adoption accelerates worldwide. Its primary responsibility is developing and maintaining the RAIN Alliance Manufacturing Quality Guidelines, providing manufacturers with practical, use‑case‑based frameworks for producing high‑quality components. By aligning RAIN technology with the principles of being “Built for Privacy, Designed for Trust,” the workgroup plays a critical role in driving sustainable adoption and long‑term industry confidence.

About the Author

Dr. Bahar Aliakbarian is the Global Director of RFID Quality & Innovation at SML Group Ltd. and currently serves as Chair of the RAIN Alliance Manufacturing Quality Workgroup. In her current role, she leads global initiatives focused on manufacturing quality, performance consistency, and scalable RFID adoption. Previously, Bahar held senior leadership roles in RFID innovation and quality, where she worked closely with suppliers, industry labs, and ecosystem partners to translate standards into deployable, real‑world solutions. She remains deeply engaged in aligning RAIN Alliance quality guidelines with industry certification programs such as ARC and ISO, helping manufacturers build reliable, trusted, and future‑ready RAIN RFID technology.