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— September 6, 2006 |
RFID
New Balance Tests RFID Applicability On Real Business Process
New Balance, a privately held running shoe and sports apparel company headquartered in Boston, will launch a second RFID pilot focusing on integrating tag data with existing business systems. This follows a small, successful technology trial last year. This pilot will focus on a real business process that NB wants to improve: its method of distributing product samples to its sales force. Currently, to present an upcoming season's line, sales reps are sent samples of each color, in each style. The 3PL that compiles and ships these sample collections must first process receipt of approximately 15,000 individual pieces. From those, it pulls each style in each color and sorts them into sample collections. This is a manual, time-consuming process that involves opening each case, counting the contents and comparing them with a corresponding packing slip. In one out of 10 cases, the contents indicated by packing slip don't match the actual contents of the box.
New Balance worked with systems integrator Markem Corp. to construct an RFID interrogation station at the third-party distribution center in California. Avery Dennison provided smart labels embedded with Avery's AD220 EPC Gen 2 inlays, which were sent to the 16 manufacturers that make New Balance apparel. One label was placed on the plastic bag in which each garment was shipped (each case contains a varying number of bagged garments). When cases containing the tagged garments arrived at the California DC, the team pushed the case through the RFID interrogation station's two separate sets of antennas, linked to two ThingMagic Mercury 4 EPC Gen 2 interrogators. The interrogators fed the tag data to a computer and printer, which generated a list of the EPCs and the SKUs they represented.
If the printout and packing slip matched, the case was sent to the pickers assembling the sample collections. If a discrepancy was found between a printout and a packing slip, however, the case was opened and its contents counted. Out of the 350 cases received, between 10 percent and 12 percent had to be counted. Of those, 1.5 percent of the discrepancies were due to nonfunctional, or "dead," tags on the garments. One percent was due to missing smart labels, while the rest of the mismatched cases were packed with either too few or too many tagged garments. The team experienced no instances in which a functioning tag was missed as the cases were interrogated.
The pilot showed that RFID could be used to quicken the receiving of samples since workers would not have to hand-inspect each case—just those for which the printout and packing slip did not match. The pilot also served as an audit of the distribution center and its receiving accuracy, by showing definitively how many cases were wrongly packed overseas. New Balance can leverage this data to urge its suppliers overseas to improve packing accuracy.
This fall, New Balance plans to take the pilot to another level. The manual receiving process at the California distribution center has been replaced with an automated warehouse-management system (WMS) provided by supply-chain solutions company Manhattan Associates. The goal of the second pilot will be to determine whether RFID tag data can be integrated into the WMS software to automate the receipt of samples fully. In the pilot, the manual comparisons of the printout and the packing slip will be handled automatically by middleware linked to the WMS.
http://www.rfidjournal.com
Weyerhaeuser Buys Colorado RFID Company
Weyerhaeuser, one of the world's largest forest product and packaging companies, has purchased OrganicID, a Colorado-based RFID developer. OrganicID specializes in developing low-cost, printable RFID circuits using organic materials. Its approach involves printable electronic inks with conductive, insulating, or semiconductor qualities. When printed in a patterned layer formation, the ink can form electronic circuits. The company estimates that its method will significantly decrease the price of RFID tags. In a statement, Weyerhaeuser said that the technology "is important to the packaging industry as more consumer products manufacturers and retailers move toward RFID to identify, count and manage inventory."
http://www.foodproductiondaily-usa.com
Market Grows for High Frequency Chips
The market for high frequency (HF) RFID chips grew more in 2005 than any other RFID segment, according to ABI Research, Oyster Bay, N.Y. From the first quarter of last year to the first quarter of this year, shipments of ISO 14443 chips doubled (ISO 14443 is the standard for HF RFID smart cards). ABI pegs the total number of HF chips shipped in 2005 at over 565 million.
This robust growth is due primarily to the increasing adoption of RFID-tagged personal identification documents and electronic passports, ABI says, a trend that makes the future for HF chips even brighter. In addition to the widely-publicized US e-passport initiative, which kicked off this month, some 27 other countries will soon begin issuing e-passports. Beyond the initial spike in demand from these programs, there will be ongoing demand as e-passports need to be replaced and reissued. Non-passport personal identification documents tagged with RFID also are driving demand. The most famous such initiative is the Chinese government's intention to provide the entire Chinese citizenry with chipped ID cards over the next few years.
Lastly, ABI cites the increasing use of RFID-based contactless technology for payments and transit ticketing. The US saw a swell of activity in both arenas last year as major credit card companies issued sleek new contactless versions of their cards and cities like New York initiated contactless subway ticketing. Europe and Asia, which are ahead of the US in their adoption of contactless, are now seeing an increasing rate and scale of deployment.
http://www.rfidupdate.com
Logistics Applications for RFID Also On Rise in China
While the largest RFID use in China is being driven by government ID initiatives, applications related to logistics and supply chain operations also are growing. China International Marine Containers (Group) Ltd. (CIMC) recently completed a major installation of a low-cost, passive RFID yard management system at its manufacturing facility in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province. The SequorLocate solution from Laudis Systems tracks and locates containers and trailers for all yard and port operations. CIMC is the largest marine container manufacturer in the world, and owns over 50 percent market share.
Laudis says the installed RFID yard management system can locate any container in seconds anywhere in the storage yard or plant. Even stacked containers can be easily and instantly located for shipping, significantly reducing retrieval costs.
http://www.laudissystems.com
Omron Introduces New Item Tag, Continues Gen2 Innovation
Japanese electronics firm Omron has announced a new EPC Gen 2 UHF RFID inlay dubbed the Ninja, designed for item-level tagging of pharmaceutical products. The Ninja's four-foot read range makes it suited for use in tracking individual items. (Tags made for case- and pallet-tracking generally have a range of 15 to 25 feet.) When a large number of tagged items, such as a tightly-packed case of pharmaceutical bottles, are read at close proximity, the shorter read range can limit the number of unintentional tags—those placed on items outside the case—that the interrogator collects.
Users of RFID technology in the pharmaceutical industry have been divided over using ultra-high-frequency tags for item-level tracking, and those that transmit in the high-frequency (HF) range. The Ninja inlay, which is 1.1 inches square (28 mm square), is designed to fit under most labels found on pharmaceutical bottles. Another advantage Gen 2 UHF tags have over HF standards is a higher data rate. Bill Arnold, chief strategist for Omron, says early tests show that more than 300 Ninja tags can be read per second.
In another Gen 2 advance, Omron last month introduced the UHF Loop inlay for case and pallet tracking. At 2.76 x 2.68 inches (70.0mm x 68.0mm), the Omron Loop inlay is designed for use on items contain RF-unfriendly materials such as liquids and metals and has a read range of 10 to 15 feet.
Arnold says the Loop, the Ninja and the Wave—the first in Omron's line of UHF Gen 2 inlays—are optimized to be read from the low end of the UHF band (around 860 MHz, which is used in Europe), through the middle of the band (around 915 Mhz, used in the United States) and up into the higher ends of the band (around Japan's 960 MHz). Many Gen 2 tags from other vendors are optimized to work best in only one or two of these regions.
"Gen 2 is supposed to be a global standard, but if the tag can't travel, how good is the global standard?" asks Arnold. He adds that the UHF Gen 2 inlays, which it sells to label converts who embed them in adhesive smart labels, were developed to be used in all parts of the world.
All three of Omron's Gen 2 inlays also use an etched aluminum antenna. Aluminum costs less than copper, which is a more conductive material and is more widely used in passive tag antennas. Aluminum is environmentally friendlier than copper. Arnold says all three inlays are available now in production quantities, though the company has not yet released pricing information.
http://www.rfidjournal.com
Gen 2 Tags Used to Track Pallets
Six months after being established by former members of the wooden pallet-pool industry, Intelligent Global Pooling Systems (IGPS) will roll out its first plastic pallets in September, all of which will be RFID-enabled. The Orlando, Fla., startup will then rent the pool of pallets to it customers.
Pallet pools allow manufacturers, distributors and retailers to use pallets on a rental basis, and then return them to the pool provider for inspection and reuse. Typically made of wood, most pallets lack RFID tags and are therefore traced with manual counts; some are occasionally lost in the process. The passive UHF EPC Gen 2 RFID tags will be embedded in IGPS' pallets during manufacturing. This will ensure the pallets can be traced through the supply chain from product factories to distribution centers and on to retail stores. It will also protect pallets from being lost, according to IGPS CEO Bob Moore. Plastic pallets cost about $50 apiece, Moore points out—2.5 times the price of wooden pallets.
The tags also can be connected to a temperature or shock sensor bolted to the pallet, allowing distributors to know if product was damaged in transit. In addition, Moore says, RFID tracking enables manufacturers such as pharmaceutical companies to accomplish recalls of a product while still in transit. Xterprise is providing the RFID tags.
IGPS also announced the selection of Ryder System, Miami, as its supply chain logistics partner. Under its contract with IGPS, Ryder will provide distribution and RFID tracking for as many as 60,000,000 pallets annually in North America. Ryder also will develop and manage a Web-enabled transportation and procurement solution and will provide on-site management, procurement of transportation, routing instructions, compliance management and freight bill audit and payment.
http://www.rfidjournal.com
Free Report on RFID Costs
A new report entitled “The True Cost of RFID” from High Jump Software, a 3M company, provides an overview of RFID technology and applications as well as a check list for companies to consider when determining if and how they should begin an RFID implementation. “Above all, it is critical to remember that a strategy of co-existence with RFID and bar codes is the best way to ensure your ability to meet a variety of customer requirements while protecting your company's bottom line,” says the report. Free copies are available at High Jump's web site.
http://www.highjumpsoftware.com
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