Thinfilm has been working on low-cost sensor tags containing rewritable memory that can be placed on anything from a bunch of bananas to a bottle of perishable pills and that can collect a bevy of information, including the environmental conditions the fruit and drugs have passed through to how long it took them toget from thefactoryto a distribution outlet.
So you look at where do the raw materials come from, what's the energy used to make them, how much pollution was generated, how did they get from thefactorytothe distribution center tothe store.
The speed of the new system is limited by how fast suppliers can get parts tothefactory and by some of the early projections Toyota makes for options and colors.