rfid journal
TRANSCRIPT
DEDICATED TO RADIO FREQUENCY IDENTIF ICATION AND ITS BUSINESS APPLICATIONS
www.rfidjournal.com March/April 2013
• PERSPECTIVE The Return Of RFID Certification page 9
• VERTICAL FOCUS: ENERGYBenefits Fuel RFID Deployments page 24
• PRODUCT DEVELOPMENTSNew RFID Laundry Tags And Solutions page 32
• INSIDE THE LABS‘Checking Services’ Standard For AutomaticallyVerifying E-Pedigree Data page 38
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C O V E R S T O R Y
16 Eliminating Waste Businesses are adopting RFID to identify and eradicate the inefficiencies thatimpede growth and profits.By John Edwards
V E R T I C A L F O C U S : E N E R G Y
24 Benefits Fuel RFID DeploymentsOil and gas companies are adopting radiofrequency identification technology tobetter manage assets and inventory,improve drilling and maintenance operations, and protect workers in dangerous environments. But industryexperts say they’re missing out on a powerful application. By Jennifer Zaino
P R O D U C T D E V E L O P M E N T S
32 Coming Clean About RFID Laundry SystemsTechnology advancements, lower costsand complete solutions are among thereasons to consider automating thetracking of linens, towels and uniforms. By Bob Violino
contents
features
departments
5 Editor’s noteWaste not.
6 Out in Front When things talk to one another;warning: damaged goods!; savingworkers during oil-rig accidents.
9 Perspective The return of RFID certification;making the RFID market moretransparent.
EDITORIAL
Mark Roberti, [email protected]
Andrea Linne, Executive Editor/[email protected]
Paul Prince, Executive Editor/[email protected]
John Hull, Art Director [email protected]
Rich Handley, Managing [email protected]
Beth Bacheldor, Senior [email protected]
Mary Catherine O’ConnorSenior [email protected]
Claire Swedberg, Senior [email protected]
Edson Perin, Brasil [email protected]
John EdwardsContributing [email protected]
Rhea Wessel Contributing Writer/[email protected]
Jennifer ZainoContributing Writer [email protected]
RFID JOuRnAL EVEnTS
Kimberly A. Ray, VP of [email protected]
Cheryl JohnsonDirector of Events [email protected]
Debbie Hughes Editorial Director of [email protected]
Deborah LambertAdministrative Assistant of [email protected]
SALES
Alan McIntosh, Director of [email protected]
Matt Singer, Director of [email protected]
SuBSCRIPTIOnS
ARTICLE REPRInTS
RFID JOuRnAL LLC
Editorial office:38 Kings Highway, Suite 1Hauppauge, NY 11788
Mark Roberti, Chief Executive [email protected]
Kathleen Knocker, Business Manager [email protected]
Sonja Valenta, Director of [email protected]
Kathy Roach, Marketing [email protected]
Lydia Sum, Administrative [email protected]
Contents © 2013 RFID Journal LLC
Vol. 10, No. 2 March/April 2013
columns
38 Inside the LabsChecking Services for e-pedigrees. By Mark Harrison
41 Software SavvyDocument your software deployment design. By Ken Traub
42 Tuned InDon’t just automate—innovate!By Bill Hardgrave
45 Ashton’s View The crisis of consumption.By Kevin Ashton
COVER ILLUSTRATION: ISTOCKPHOTO
RFID Journal • March/April 20132
tune in onlineMost-Read Stories in March
• Omni-ID Sues Xerafy and RFID TagSource
• International RFID Institute PreparesCertification Program
• Microchip Markets RFID Technology That Transmits via the Human Body
• NDSU Researchers Develop MethodFor Embedding RFID in Paper
• DPR Construction Uses RFID Building-Security Solution
Top 10 Search TermsOn RFIDJournal.com
1 Walmart
2 NFC
3 Cost
4 Airbus
5 Construction
6 Laundry
7 Jewelry
8 Disney
9 History
10 Library
www.rfidjournal.com
The Inside Scoop
What are end users sayingbehind the scenes? Whyshould the RFID communitybe optimistic about the industry? Who’s spreadingmisinformation? Get insightand perspective at the RFID Journal Blog.
Ideas Exchange
RFID Journal maintains an Ask the Experts forum,where you can submit questions about RFIDtechnology and its applications. Your questionswill be answered by RFIDJournal editors or outsideexperts. Recent questions include:
• What types of tags andreaders should we use tomonitor race horses?
• Does the use of RFID affect an organization’s operational efficiency?
• Is it possible to read TIDand EPC tags with a singlecommand?
• Can RFID read 140 piecesper minute with differentSKUs?
“
“RFID Journal’s interactive map shows howwidespread RFID adoption has become. Thedots are color-coded according to industry, in-cluding aerospace, agriculture, apparel, defense,health care, logistics, manufacturing, pharma-ceutical and retail. You can get more informa-tion about a particular deployment by clickingon one of the dots—a pop-up will appear.
To put your company’s RFID deployment on themap, click here and fill out the form. It takesonly a few minutes.
Coming soon to RFIDJournal.com
These live interactive programs offer a con venient way to learn why and howcompanies are employing RFID to improve the way they do business. Presenters will answer your individual
questions. Also, be sure to check out past Virtual Events,including Using NFC to Enhance Products and Improvethe Customer Experience, RFID In Manufacturing, RFIDin the Supply Chain and RFID in Health Care.
• RFID in Retail: Hear how retailers worldwide areusing RFID to track items and improve inventory accuracy, to ensure products are on the shelveswhen customers want to buy them. May 16, 11 am to 1 pm EDT
Find products that can help youdeploy RFID successfully. Here’s
an example: Xerafy’s Titanium Metal Skin is an ex-tremely flexible and small RFID label for tagging bothmetallic and nonmetallic assets—from smartphones topharmaceuticals—thatrequire accurate, secureidentification. It is com-pliant with the EPC Gen2 and ISO 18000-6Cstandards, and de-signed to be a cost-ef-fective way to monitoritems. The TitaniumMetal Skin can be used for asset tracking, product au-thentication, inventory management and other applica-
Worldwide RFID Deployment Map
Choosing the proper radio frequency identification systemfor your application can be a daunting task. Now, for the firsttime, RFID Journal provides a guide to choosing the right system for your needs, and explains the pros and cons ofdifferent RFID solutions for different applications.
How to Choosethe Right RFID Technologyfor Your Application
Save yourself hundreds of hours of research timewith this new guide for just $395, or only $199 witha new membership to RFID Journal
This report can be purchased at the RFID Journal booth at RFID Journal LIVE! 2013
See the complete table of contents atwww.rfidjournal.com/howtochoose
www.rfidjournal.com/howtochoose
CONNECTWITH THE RFID COMMUNITY
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› And so much more!
5RFID Journal • March/April 2013
editor’s note
Simply put, waste is a waste.Companies hate it. Govern-ments struggle to reduce it.Even individuals try to mini-mize it. Yet, the amount ofwaste in the world is staggering.Consider these facts:• 50 percent of all food produced
globally is never consumed• Administrative errors cost U.S.
retailers $4.9 billion annually• Hospitals lose an average of
$5,000 per bed per year• Nearly 30 million pieces of
luggage are mishandled eachyear, costing airlines an esti-mated $2.9 billion
• Roughly 8 percent to 10 per-cent of reusable transportitems are replaced each year.
I could go on, but you get the picture. Wasteis rampant. The reason, according to CarloNizam, Airbus’ head of value chain visibilityand auto-ID, is that companies have “little dataor limited visibility of how their processes areperforming, so they don’t necessarily knowwhere the waste is.” And if you don’t knowwhere the waste is, it is hard to get rid of it.
In this issue’s cover story, “EliminatingWaste,” we look at how companies in differentindustries are using radio frequency identifica-tion to pinpoint and reduce waste of all kinds(see page 16). Airbus, for instance, introducedan RFID-based tool-management application,so workers don’t have to wait to check tools inor out of a tool crib. Memove, a retailer in Brazil,deployed an RFID solution to improve ship-ment verification, which means employees nolonger have to count and recount inventory toensure the proper items are sent from its distribution centers to stores.
The oil and gas industry has begun to tackle
waste, thanks to recent technology advancesthat make it possible to read RFID tags on metaland in harsh environments. In this issue’s Vertical Focus (page 24), we explore how com-panies are using RFID to track equipment andimprove asset-utilization rates. This is particu-larly important in remote regions, where logis-tics is a challenge and missing parts can resultin downtime that can cost millions of dollars.
There is also plenty of waste in commerciallaundry operations, which is why companieshave been RFID-tagging and tracking uniformsand linens for more than 15 years. Here, too, theindustry is benefiting from technology ad-vances, which have led to lower prices and improved performance. As a result, casinos, fitness clubs, hospitals, hotels, theme parks andother organizations have begun using RFID totrack laundry items, to improve asset visibilityand reduce the number of stolen towels (seeProduct Developments on page 32).
In fact, RFID products and services in generalhave evolved rapidly to address waste of allkinds, and many of these solutions will be ondisplay at RFID Journal LIVE! 2013, our annualconference and exhibition, which will be heldin Orlando, Fla., from April 30 to May 2. In addition, attendees will hear firsthand howBloomingdale’s, Celebration Health, SpeedyServices and other organizations are doing awaywith waste. I encourage you to join us there and find out how RFID can help your businesseliminate waste.
Waste Not
Mark Roberti, Founder and EditorPHOTO
: TOM HURST | RIFID JOURNAL
out in front
RFID Journal • March/April 20136
there’s a lot of talk about the Internet of Things, butresearchers at New York’s Columbia University have a different vision of the future. In their view, objects won’tcommunicate with the Internet but rather with each other.And they are creating low-power active devices that willenable this to happen.The collaborative research project is called Energy-
Harvesting Active Networked Tags. EnHANTs are small, flex-ible devices that gather energy from light, vibration or otherenvironmental sources. The goal is to make these devicesinexpensive, so they can be attached to items, such as books,clothing, toys, furniture and maybe even produce.The key to EnHANTs is to be able to transmit up to 30 feet
(9 meters) without consuming much energy, says BaradwajVigraham, a Columbia doctoral student working on thatchallenge with Peter Kinget, a professor of electrical engi-neering. They have created a wireless transceiver that usesultra-wideband communication methods to send shortpulses or bursts of information. The device can, for example,communicate 2 megabits of data per second by sending 3- to4-nanosecond pulses every half-microsecond. “Because youare communicating in bursts, up to 95 percent of the time
between pulses, the electronics can be shut down to savepower,” Vigraham says. The prototype is a system-on-chip(SoC) design, which means most of its functionality is builtinto the microchip, as opposed to having several compo-nents on a circuit board. Other collaborators are working on energy-harvesting
devices or communication protocols and data-routing algo-rithms that will enable the devices to form mesh networks.So instead of wandering around your house using a hand-held reader to search for your missing black sock, you mightone day be able to message a network of all the objects inyour home that you are looking for that sock, and thoseobjects might be able to communicate with one anotheruntil they locate the sock and message back that they foundit under the bed.Vigraham presented a paper on the device at the IEEE
International Solid-State Circuits Conference meeting inFebruary. “I’m an academic, so I haven’t thought much aboutthe commercial possibilities,” he says. “But there are certainlymany potential applications.” In addition to finding house-hold items, it could be used to track anything, from airlinebaggage to IT equipment in large buildings. —Mark Roberti
S E N S O R S
When Things Talk to One AnotherLower-power, wireless mesh-networking devices will enable objects to communicate without conventional RFID readers.
Baradwaj Vigraham (pictured) and Peter Kingetdeveloped an energy-efficient wireless trans-ceiver for the EnHANTs project.
C O N S U M E R
Warning: Damaged Goods!A new tag designed by Cambridge Consultants could soon alert consumers that a parcel has been dropped in transit.
7RFID Journal • March/April 2013
Saving WorkersDuring Oil-RigAccidentsLives lost duringdestruction of MumbaiHigh North platform in 2005:
22Lives rescued duringdestruction of MumbaiHigh North platform in2005:
362Lives lost duringexplosion aboardPetrobras 36 platformin 2001:
11Lives rescued duringexplosion aboardPetrobras 36 platformin 2001:
164Lives lost duringexplosion aboardDeepwater Horizondrilling rig in 2010:
11Lives rescued duringexplosion aboardDeepwater Horizondrilling rig in 2010:
115—Rich Handley
with so many consumers shop ping online, it’sinevit able that some items will be dropped intransit and broken. Often, the purchaser isunaware until he or she has signed for the pack-age, taken it inside and unwrapped it. TomLawrie-Fussey, business development managerat Cambridge Consultants, a product develop-ment engineering and tech-nology consulting company,says his firm has come upwith a solution. It’s calledDropTag, and it’s designed tolet a consumer know if apackage has been dropped.The idea started with the
development of a Bluetoothdevice that would allow carsto talk to one another. Butwhen Lawrie-Fussey wastrying to determine how todemonstrate the prototypefor customers during an“innovation day,” he real-ized how difficult thatwould be within the con-straints of an office. So hebegan devising other usesfor the technology. “I came up with the idea
of tracking parcels, because many people havehad the experience of receiving damagedgoods, and it was easy to demonstrate,” hesays. “We put the electronics in the box,wrapped it up and showed how our devicecould tell you the box had been dropped.”The DropTag consists of an accelerometer
(similar to that in a smartphone), which cantell if a package has been dropped, a Bluetoothchip that can run algorithms on data from theaccelerometer, a small printed circuit boardand a small battery. Lawrie-Fussey says that in
volumes of 1 million, the bill of materials forthe device would be just $2.50. And theaccelerometer could be swapped for a temper-ature, pressure or humidity sensor. The DropTag currently has no ID. The
device would simply communicate with theconsumer’s Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone
to indicate whether thepackaged item had beendropped. But an ID could beadded, along with propersecurity, so, for instance, alogistics company could useit to identify and track itemsas well as to monitor theircondition. The ID wouldessentially transform theDropTag into a BluetoothRFID tag, similar to a Wi-Fitag.Lawrie-Fussey says the
device could also be developed with Near-FieldCommunication technologyinstead of Bluetooth. “WithNFC phones proliferating, Icould easily see consumersaccessing the data in aDropTag via NFC,” he says.
“We chose Bluetooth because of the longerread range. With Bluetooth, a driver could easily determine whether any of the packagesin the back of the truck had been dropped.”Cambridge Consultants is in discussions
with several logistics companies interested incommercializing the DropTag. It’s also talkingwith firms that offer more expensive parcel-monitoring devices. So it might not be longbefore you know whether that flat-screen TVhas been tossed around in the back of a truckor treated with kid gloves. —M.R.
Tom Lawrie-Fussey demonstrates DropTag.
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9RFID Journal • March/April 2013
A D O P T I O N
The Return of RFID Certification
T H E S T O R Y B E H I N D T H E N E W S
In 2005, the Computing Technology Industry Association(CompTIA) convened a group of subject-matter experts todraft a certification test designed to indicate that those whopassed had a certain level of knowledge about RFID systems.The effort was supported by AIM Global (the association forautomatic identification and mobility), RFID Journal andseveral leading solution providers.
CompTIA RFID+ was launched in 2007, and several training companies began offering courses to provide theknowledge needed to pass the test. RFID Journal offeredtraining, in partnership with RFID4U, at RFID Journal LIVE!events. Several hundred people took a fast-track course during the events and passed the test.
But CompTIA felt the number of people being certifiedwas too small to continue to support RFID+, so at the end of 2011, the organization officially retired the certificationprogram, leaving the industry without any means of guar-anteeing the professionalism of RFID practitioners.
In April 2012, I convened a meeting of subject-matterexperts to discuss the prospect of creating a new body todevelop a certification test to replace CompTIA RFID+. Outof that effort was born the International RFID Institute.Sylvanus Bent, a software professional who runs BentSystems, was elected chairman, and I was elected co-chair-man. The institute was formally launched in March.
Certification training will become more important as the RFID industry matures. Today, there are relatively fewprofessionals who can deploy various types of RFID sys-
tems. As adoption ramps up, the need for more experiencedprofessionals will increase. Some systems integrators arealready struggling to hire RFID professionals.
CompTIA offered a single RFID test. The level of demanddid not warrant investing in development of additionaltests. The goal of the institute, however, is to develop afoundational test that all RFID professionals must pass, aswell as additional certifications. While no decisions haveyet been made about what those certifications will cover,they may include Near-Field Communication technology,active RFID systems and sensor networks.
Many vendors have their own certification programs, andthe institute does not intend to compete with these. Theinstitute’s goal is not to say someone can program aMotorola or an Impinj reader, for example, but rather thecertified professional understands the issues related to setting up a reader and ensuring it works, and understandsthe other concepts involved in successfully deploying anRFID system.
The International RFID Institute is now recruiting subject-matter experts to develop questions for the founda-tional certification test. We plan to hold a meeting in conjunction with RFID Journal LIVE! 2013, which takes placein Orlando, Fla., from April 30 to May 2. The institute needs corporate members that will help fund the test-development efforts and individuals who will help draft thetests. It is up to the industry to get behind the efforts toensure professionalism in its ranks. —Mark Roberti
perspective
The International RFID Institute steps in to fill the hole left by CompTIA when it retired RFID+ certification.
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11RFID Journal • March/April 2013
perspective
PH
OTO
: IS
TOC
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WhIle adoptIon of radio frequency identifica-tion is growing stronger, more companieswould likely be considering the technology ifthey knew there were products that could meettheir requirements or companies that couldquickly develop solutions to meet their needs.End users and systems integrators also wouldlike to feel confident that they are purchasingtechnology from reputable companies.
According to the 2011 RFID MarketingStrategies Report, produced by RFID Journaland Burnell Reports, 84 percent of studyrespondents said brand is important for RFIDpurchasing decisions. Yet, only 35 percent ofend users recognized the top RFID brand. On
average, most companies were recognized byless than 2 percent of end users. This meansthere is very little transparency in the RFIDmarket. Potential buyers of RFID technologycannot easily find the right sellers.
But transparency is something of a chicken-and-egg scenario. Solution providers don’twant to waste money advertising their wares ifno one is interested in buying them, and noone can buy them if they don’t know they exist.
RFID Journal has been working on ways toaddress this problem. RFID Connect, ourevent-planning and social-media site, pro-vides a cost-effective way for vendors to postinformation about their products. Some ven-dors are beginning to take advantage of thisservice, and end users are visiting the site torequest information. A systems integratorrecently inquired about ultrahigh-frequencyRFID bangles, saying if they provide adequateread range he would order 300,000 units for acustomer. Other end users and systems inte-grators have inquired about the cost of ruggedtags, the read range of labels and whetherreaders are compliant with radio emissionsregulations in Europe.
We also aim to inspire more productiveinteraction between attendees at RFID JournalLIVE!, our largest event, and exhibitors of RFIDproducts and services. We introduced a smart-phone application that will let attendees high-light exhibitors on the exhibit hall map by theproducts they offer or the industries theyserve. And we created a free product showcasefor exhibitors so attendees can quickly seesome of the products being offered. The largestructure has 108 panels that will feature product photos and descriptions, along withexhibitor logos and booth numbers.
Of course, RFID Journal can’t solve the vis-ibility problem on its own. RFID vendors musttake the initiative to market their productsand increase brand awareness. Transparencyin the marketplace will fuel growth byenabling more companies to deploy systems.And that, in turn, will encourage still morecompanies to adopt RFID. —M.R.
A D O P T I O N
Making the RFIDMarket MoreTransparentEnd users and systems integratorsneed more visibility into what productsare available and who makes them.
84%of study
respondents
said brand is
important for
RFID purchasing
decisions.
Yet, only
35%of end users
recognized the
top RFID brand.
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RFID Journal LIVE! is the place where end users come to hear how other companies are benefiting from RFID today.
THIS YEAR’S EVENT FEATURES:
› More than 50 end-user case studies
› More than 200 RFID solutions providers
› 8 Conference tracks
› 9 Preconference seminars
› 4 Post-conference workshops
› 2 Fast-track training courses
› Co-located event: IEEE RFID 2013
FEATURED KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
ROGER V. BLAZEK VP, Shortage Control, Omni Channel
APR. 305:00 PM
BLOOMINGDALE’S JOURNEY FROM RFIDCONCEPT TO ROLLOUT
BALAJI SURESH Materials Manager, UTC Climate, Controls & Security
MAY 18:30 AM
HOW CARRIER MADE EXCELLENTMANUFACTURING EVEN BETTER WITH RFID
ROBERT URWILER CIO, Vail Resorts
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BLAINE TOOKEY Senior Technology Consultant, ChiefTechnology Office, IT&S, BP
MAY 110:00 AM
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INDUSTRY TRACKS› Defense/Aviation› Health Care/Pharmaceutical› Manufacturing› Retail/Apparel
HOW-TO TRACKS› RFID Deployment Strategies› Supply Chain/Logistics› Technology and Infrastructure› Visibility/Traceability
PRECONFERENCE SEMINARS› RFID Journal University› RFID in Harsh Environments› IT Asset Tracking Workshop› NFC Workshop› Item-Level Retail and Apparel Workshop› RFID for Warehouse and Inventory Management Workshop› Embedded RFID Workshop› Managing Medical Devices With RFID› Security and Access Control
POST-CONFERENCE SEMINARS› Strategic RFID Workshop› RFID and the Internet of Things: Delivering Data,
Connectivity and Communication› Advanced RFID Concepts› Benchmarking UHF RFID Readers and Tags
DEMOSRETAIL APPAREL AND SUPPLIER DEMOS
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Thomas J. Pizzuot Kevan MacKenzie Mark Willer Stacey Shulman TJ Mannarino
William P. Coop Chuck Blucher Sumant Vashisth Paul Pennington
Carlo K. Nizam
Rick Lewis Dr. Ravi Margasahayam Fernando Ferreira Matos Doug Harvel Claude Lorda
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Todd Boyle Martin Brunworth Felipe Ivan Campos Betsy J. Cohen
Todd Frantz
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Academia RFIDActive IdentityAeroScoutAGIDAIM AIM RussiaAiRISTAAJANTECHAlien Technologyams AGApplied Wireless ID (AWID)Argonne National LabAsk The ExpertsATID CO., LTD.Avery Dennison Retail Brandingand Information Solutions
Balluff, Inc.BayNexus, Inc.Beijing Fenghuo Pro-teck Co.,LtdB-Id, LLCbielomatik jagenberg IncBiolog IDBristol ID TechnologiesCAEN RFIDCDO TechnologiesCheckpoint SystemsCipherLabCISC Semiconductor GmbHColorbit USA, LLCConvergence Systems LimitedCYBRA CorporationData2 CorporationDatamax-O’NeilDelo Industrial AdhesivesEkahauEmbisphereePixEvanhoe & AssociatesFEIG ElectronicsFrench National RFID Centre (CNRFID)
Fujitsu Frontech North AmericaGAO RFID GIGA-TMS GlobeRanger CorporationGuard RFID SolutionsGYRFIDHanmi ITHARTING, Inc. of North AmericaHID GlobalHong Kong RFIDIdentixIDRO Co., Ltd.iDTRONIC GmbHIERImpinj, Inc.InfinID Technologies, Inc.InfoChip Ingenico/Healthcare
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microsensys GmbHMid-South Marking SystemsMobile MarkMojixMotorola MTI Wireless EdgeMurata ElectronicsNafith Technologies NavizonNethomNexessNexjen SystemsNorth Dakota State UniversityNovaCentrixNXP Semiconductors OATSystems, a division of Checkpoint
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RFID Journal • March/April 201316
eliminatingwaste
RFID Journal • March/April 2013 17
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carlo nizam is head of the value chain visibility and auto-IDprogram for Airbus, one of the world’s largest aircraft manu-facturers. He is also a waste-buster. And like many of hiscounterparts in retail, health care and other industries,Nizam has discovered that radio frequency identification is apowerful waste-fighting tool.
“To tackle waste, you need to be able to measure it; you needto know where it is,” Nizam says. “But that’s easier said thandone because, in reality, people have, more often than not, little data or limited visibility of how their processes are per-forming, so they don’t necessarily know where the waste is.”
RFID provides the insight essential for spotting hiddenpockets of waste lurking inside supply chains, productionlines, inventories and other key areas. The technology alsohelps companies squeeze out waste by automating existingprocesses, so they run faster and more eJciently.
“If you want to really tackle waste, you really have to takea big-picture approach, because one of the things people needto realize is that waste doesn’t diIerentiate between companyboundaries,” Nizam says. “It Lows across boundaries, andacross processes.” Airbus, which began using RFID in 2005,has taken an enterprisewide approach to RFID, using thetechnology in its supply chain, manufacturing, assembly andin-service operations.
For manufacturers, waste in any form hampers agility, cutsinto proKts and reduces a company’s ability to improve ormaintain its market position. RFID is helping manufacturerstrim several types of waste, says Michael Liard, RFID directorat VDC Research. “Most importantly, RFID technology allowsa manufacturer to reallocate resources or make sure thatprocesses are optimized,” he says.
Retailers often operate on microscopically thin margins,so detecting and eradicating waste is essential to surviving inultracompetitive markets. Cutting waste is primarily a matterof achieving and maintaining inventory visibility, says JustinPatton, director of the University of Arkansas’ RFID ResearchCenter. “You might want to speciKcally reduce theft, or youmight want to speciKcally reduce spoilage on a particularloading dock,” he says. “But always think of your plan interms of how the technology is going to help make your in-ventory more accurate and how that more accurate numberwill aIect everything else, such as ordering and forecasting.”
Facing near-runaway costs and increasingly stringent regulatory compliance mandates, health-care organizationshave made Knding ways to cut waste a top priority. For manyyears, hospitals have deKned waste primarily in terms of lostphysical assets, such as misplaced, misused or stolen equip-ment and supplies, says Mark Norris, president and CEO ofEkahau, an RFID solutions provider for the health-care industry. “Today,” he says, “that deKnition has expanded toinclude time spent on unnecessary manual or duplicateprocesses and procedures, time spent looking for lost itemsand time away from patient care.”
Here, then, is how RFID is eliminating waste at Airbus,Lemmi Fashion, Eastern Maine Medical Center and otherbusinesses.
MANUFACTURERS BOOST PRODUCTIVITY
RFID allows both automated and manual production linesand maintenance facilities to operate at peak efficiency lev-els, by ensuring that materials and components always arrive
by john edwards
cover story
Businesses are adopting RFID to identify and eradicate the inefficiencies
that impede growth and profits.
RFID Journal • March/April 201318
at the right place at the exact moment they areneeded. RFID also helps manufacturers maxi-mize workforce productivity by shifting employees away from routine, repetitive pro-duction tasks that could be handled less expensively and more efficiently by RFID-enabled automated systems. “RFID definitelybrings a higher level of automation previouslynot seen in a manufacturing environment,”Liard says.
In addition, manufacturers use RFID tokeep supply chains humming at optimal lev-els by feeding an array of highly accurate datainto the enterprise resource planning and datawarehouse systems that drive supply opti-mization systems. With RFID’s help, forecast-ing, master production scheduling anddistribution requirements planning systemsall are able to produce higher-quality reports—based on accurate inventory and/or materialshipping data—that can help managers betterdetect time- and money-burning bottlenecks.
One way RFID helps Airbus reduce waste is
by giving workers faster access to essentialtools. At a U.K. plant that manufactures wingassemblies for A400M military transports, an RFID-based tool-management application replaced a manual system, eliminating mostof the time workers once wasted standing inline simply to check out tools from a tool-storage area and return them at the end of thework shift. The RFID system can potentiallyadd up to 25 percent more productive time to aworker’s eight-hour shift, Nizam notes. Thesystem also automatically records the numberof times each precision tool has been used, enabling management to accurately identifytools that are ready for recalibration or maintenance.
Airbus is also cutting wasted time at itsToulouse, France, assembly line, where RFID-tagged and tracked “logistics media units”—containers of various shapes and sizes—will beused to deliver components as needed toworkers on the new A350 jetliner’s final assembly line. “We track when they leave thewarehouse, track where they are on the finalassembly line and then confirm delivery whenthey’re delivered to the right place,” Nizamsays. The system will help ensure that produc-tion is never held up simply because a vitalcomponent hasn’t yet arrived.
In addition, RFID helps Airbus work fasterand more efficiently by automating aircraft inspection and configuration-managementprocesses. Airliners are delivered with seatsand life vests installed in exact accordance withcustomer requirements. Just a couple of yearsago, the final cabin inspection was a largelymanual process, requiring clipboard-totingworkers to walk along aisles, bend down tocheck serial numbers and write down the information—ideally, without any mistakes,Nizam says. “It used to take a person 14 hoursto do that on what we call a long-range aircraft,which are our A330 and A340 families,” he says.
Now that Airbus has added RFID tags to theseats and life vests, just one person carrying alightweight handheld reader can complete thecabin inspection for an entire airliner in approximately 26 minutes. The system auto-matically confirms the presence of each
RFID all but eliminated thewaste associated withrefulfilling incorrect shipments.—götz pfeifferling, lemmi fashion
The RFID system can potentiallyadd up to 25 percent moreproductive time to a worker’seight-hour shift.—carlo nizam, airbus
RFID Journal • March/April 2013 19
required item, verifies its location and thenlooks up critical data associated with the part,such as its “birth record” and expiration date.“This information can then be used to deter-mine the aircraft configuration and also in-service later on, to prioritize maintenanceplanning for items due for inspection, over-haul or replacement,” Nizam says.
Unlike Airbus, Lemmi Fashion, in Fritzlar,Germany, doesn’t operate a series of massivemanufacturing plants. The children’s clothingdesigner prefers to outsource production toAsian contract manufacturers. Yet, Lemmi still uses RFID to cut waste, relying on the technology to automatically check incomingshipments for correct quantities and styles.
Götz Pfeifferling, Lemmi’s CIO, says thatprior to adopting RFID, the firm often found sig-nificant discrepancies between the number andtypes of garments that manufacturers claimedthey had shipped and the items that actually arrived at the company’s distribution center,“especially when it came to the sizes and colors,” he says. “On a SKU basis, our data wasvery, very rough in relation to the shipments.”
By requiring its manufacturers to tag theirshipments, Lemmi was able to eliminate a tedious manual verification operation, reduc-ing wasted time and allowing employees tofocus on more productive tasks. “We also im-plemented packing tables and readers at ourmanufacturers, so when they packed the goods
MORE WASTE-BUSTING APPLICATIONS
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BLOOMINGDALE’S has been RFID-tagging items to improve inventory accuracy, reducing overstocks and understocks. Roger V. Blazek, the company’s VP of shortage control for omnichannel, will deliver a keynote address on the retailer’s RFID journey from concept to rollout.
AMERICAN APPAREL has RFID-enabled roughly 100 stores. Stacey Shulman, thecompany’s CTO, will speak about how the clothing manufacturer and retailer uses RFID to improveinventory accuracy and reduce shrinkage.
TAP PORTUGAL, the country’s national airline, uses RFID to track engine-overhaul com-ponents and tools. Fernando Matos, head of information technologies at TAP Maintenance andEngineering, will discuss how the solution improves visibility into its parts and tools, and eliminatesthe need to conduct time-wasting manual inventory searches.
SPEEDY SERVICES developed an RFID-enabled onsite mobile equipment pod that pro-vides workers with continuous access to tools, to help crews meet schedules. Glyn Matthews,Speedy’s senior project manager, will explain how the solution eliminates waste for the tool-rentalcompany and its customers.
CELEBRATION HEALTH, a Florida Hospital facility, deployed a real-time location sys-tem to reduce the many miles nurses typically walk during a shift. Todd Frantz, associate CTF, willdetail how the solution improves efficiencies at its new patient tower.
RFID Journal’s annual conference and exhibitionwill feature more than 50 end-user case studies, including many that focus on eliminating waste.Here are some highlights.
To see the full agenda, visit RFID JOURNAL LIVE! 2013.
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we would actually get a detailed inventory oneach carton,” Pfeifferling says. The approachgave Lemmi a four-week heads-up on incom-ing shipments, allowing the firm to head offany problems and better coordinate deliveriesto its retail customers.
At Lemmi’s warehouse, the tagged ship-ments eliminated a major source of wastedtime. “Previously, we mostly had to do manualcounting, then type the totals into a com-puter,” Pfeifferling says. “This process wasslow, and it was very easy to make mistakes.”Accuracy rates under the manual system neversurpassed 85 percent, and may have actuallybeen worse, he notes.
The RFID system provides virtually perfectaccuracy. “It streamlined our receivingprocess, making it much quicker to add itemsto our warehouse,” Pfeifferling says. The tech-nology also assured that Lemmi retailerswould always receive the exact garments theyhad ordered, all but eliminating the waste as-sociated with refulfilling incorrect shipments.
RETAILERS STAY COMPETITIVE
Comprehensive RFID-driven inventory visi-bility and management capabilities help retailers maximize sales. “If a retailer losessales due to an out-of-stock situation, thatmust be considered waste,” says Joerg Nieder-huefner, director of business development forIntelligent Loss Prevention, a company thatsells RFID-enabled merchandising systems.“False data can also create overstocking,which also must be defined as waste.”
Apparel retailers worldwide are employingRFID to slash waste attributable to inventorymiscounts, stock shrinkage and other factors.Swiss fashion retailer Charles Vögele was anearly adopter, deploying an RFID system in2008 to track items from manufacture to itsstores. The solution quickly justified its costby generating a 70 percent or more time-sav-ings when calculating store and warehouse inventories, as well as a 7 percent increase inthe accuracy of picked orders in factories. Ithas resulted in increased sales, due to fewerout-of-stock items, and more accurate plan-ning information.
In 2011, Valdac Group, a São Paulo-basedfashion retailer that operates more than 100stores throughout Brazil, turned to RFID totrim waste. For its Memove chain, the firm cre-ated an RFID solution designed to save time atthe distribution center and inside each store.It improves shipment verification, becauseemployees know exactly what products, in-cluding which sizes and colors, are inside eachof the boxes they receive. The solution alsohelps stock replenishments keep pace withsales, which increases revenue and preventscustomer disappointment.
Jewelry retailers are also adopting RFID toimprove inventory management. In 2009,Cleor, a French retail jewelry chain, began deploying RFID because its sales staff wasspending more time on inventory than onsales and customer service. Today, the solutionhas been deployed at 50 retail locations. “Thesolution’s greatest value has been in improvedaccuracy,” says COO Aurélien Sénéchal. “It hasreduced errors in shipping and receiving.” An
RFID Journal • March/April 201320
“With technology enabling theprocess, you’re talking aboutmoving from a first-in, first-outprocess to a first-expired, first-out system.”—justin patton, rfid research center
“If a retailer loses sales due to an out-of-stock situation, thatmust be considered waste.”—joerg niederhuefner,
intelligent loss prevention
RFID Journal • March/April 2013 21
inventory check that used to take several daysnow takes only a few hours, he says.
The RFID system that Borsheims, a Berk-shire Hathaway-owned jewelry retailer inOmaha, Neb., deployed in 2012 has alreadypaid for itself, says CFO Erin Limas. Taggingand tracking high-value jewelry reduces theamount of time required for inventory counts,eliminates shrinkage and provides better con-trol over store inventory.
Supermarkets and other grocery-orientedmerchants face a unique challenge among re-tailers: products with shelf lives that are meas-ured in terms of days or weeks rather thanmonths or years. Food retailers have an oppor-tunity to use cold-chain monitoring and othertypes of RFID systems to ensure food qualityand prevent spoilage. “Produce and meat arewhat generally draw people to stores and arewhat makes a good grocery store or a bad grocery store,” Patton says. “If you ask mostgrocers what their problems are with wasteand loss, they’ll generally identify spoilage,damage in the back room and then theft.”
Inventory insight and seamless control arekey to addressing all of these challenges, Patton says. “With technology enabling theprocess, you’re talking about moving from afirst-in, first-out process to a first-expired,first-out system,” he notes. “Instead of justmaking decisions based on when the truckcame and dropped this off, you’re now makingdecisions based on which of these shipmentshas the most time left before it spoils.”
For food merchants, waste reduction canalso be turned into a powerful tool for build-ing market share. “If you’re using RFID or someother type of supply-chain technology to ensure that you’re getting better quality, or toremove the bad-quality items, you’re poten-tially differentiating yourself from others inthe space,” Patton says.
HOSPITALS MEET HEALTH-CARECHALLENGES
Time is an asset all health-care organizationsstrive to use more efficiently. “More time al-lows hospitals to elevate the patient experi-
ence, shift resources to innovative care-givingmodels and more effectively allocate staff timeto impactful activities,” Ekahau’s Norris says.While hospitals, clinics, emergency-care cen-ters and long-term care facilities continue toconsider real-time location system (RTLS)technology a way to help managers spot andeliminate the waste that occurs when assets gomissing, new time-oriented applications arealso appearing. “RTLS technology helps auto-mate health-care delivery, and this leads toquicker feedback on procedures, admissions,discharges, room availability and asset inven-tory,” he says.
Slashing wasted time equals saving money,says Brenda Clements, manager of nursingservices at Eastern Maine Medical Center’sCancer Care department in Brewer, Maine.
“Shuffling patients via paper is very ineffi-cient, and there’s a good chance of losing thatpiece of paper and creating long patient delays,” she notes. The facility began using anRTLS for patient and employee tracking in2009, and Clements says process improve-ments followed quickly. “We are able to expe-dite patient flow, lean processes, and improvepatient and staff satisfaction,” she says. “Now,we’re able to see where all our patients andcoworkers are at any given moment.”
An RTLS can generate reports that helpmanagers maintain close oversight over any-thing—or anyone—tagged within the hospitalenvironment. “We can see where bottlenecksoccur,” Clements says. “If I have complaintsthat patients have been kept waiting for a longperiod of time, I can track the patient flow—
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“RTLStechnologyhelps automate health-caredelivery, and this leads toquicker feedback on procedures,admissions, discharges, roomavailability and asset inventory.”—mark norris, ekahau
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RFID Journal • March/April 201322
where they waited, how much time they spentthere—and see if I can flush out process issuesthat created the patient delays.” The systemhas already saved the hospital time equivalentto that of three full-time employees as well as“miles of walking” for staff members,Clements notes. “Step minimization equals increased efficiency, dollar savings and moretime spent with patients,” she says.
The RTLS also helps the hospital cut wastein other ways. “Maintaining multiple waitingareas where patients can sit can be a waste,”Clements adds. “Requiring extra resources tofacilitate patient flow is a waste; patient delaysthat subsequently delay providers is a waste.”
Indeed, hospitals worldwide are deployingRTLS solutions to better manage patient care.England’s Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals
NHS Trust, for example, deployed an RTLS solution to improve patient flow, as well asmanage assets and ensure hand-hygiene com-pliance. India’s Fortis Escorts Heart Institute isusing RFID to reduce wait times for theroughly 300 outpatients that visit the medicalfacility daily for testing. And at Malaysia’s Pan-tai Hospital Ipoh, which has a rapidly growinglocal population and a chronic skilled laborshortage, RFID automates routine tasks sonurses have more time to focus on patients.
In the United States, health-care facilitywaste and inefficiency can also negatively im-pact Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements.The federal government’s Centers for Medicare& Medicaid Services agency is now basing re-imbursements partially on patient satisfaction,Clements says. “If we can be lean, and we can be
efficient, and we can get our patients throughservices in a timely fashion, minimizing theirwait time, they’re going to be happier,” she says.
NO OPPORTUNITY WASTED
Manufacturers like Lemmi have succeeded incutting waste by focusing on the processes thatgenerate the most waste, Liard says. “Businessesreally need to evaluate what their processes are,what costs are tied to these processes and howan automatic identification technology such asRFID can help alleviate some of these painpoints,” he explains. “It starts with a review ofone’s processes, and then moves to assets andthen to people—they’re all intertwined withina manufacturing environment.”
Retailers, regardless of the market theyserve, can build a waste-busting RFID systemto achieve visibility and control, Niederhuefnersays. “Make sure you have a good understand-ing of all the positive impacts RFID can have onyour business model, but prioritize which segments of your business would benefit most from RFID deployment,” he says. “Definewhich level is most important and start there.”
RTLS is becoming the go-to solution forhealth-care business intelligence, “providinginsight and analysis on what works and whatdoesn’t, giving hospitals the information theyneed to make smart decisions in areas ofstaffing, resource planning, patient workflowand process improvement,” Norris says. RichRTLS-generated data helps health-care organi-zations better understand how to reduce costsand drive more revenue. “Underutilization oftime and resources remains one of the health-care industry’s biggest challenges,” he says,“and RTLS can help the health-care industry ad-dress this challenge with location awareness.”
Airbus’ Nizam offers one last thought oneliminating waste. “There’s an old saying: Thebolt is only tightened on the last turn, andeverything else is just movement,” he says.“There are many things we’re doing to try tominimize all that movement inside the com-pany. The use of RFID is helping us focus andmake sure we’re only doing the things thatneed to be done.”
“Requiring extra resources to facilitate patient flow is awaste; patient delays thatsubsequently delay providers isa waste.”—brenda clements,eastern maine medical center
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Based on a new survey of RFID end users, this guide reveals:
› The state of adoption by industry and region
› Who the RFID buyer is
› How companies make RFID investment decisions
› The applications end users are pursuing
Chasm 34% 34% 16%
Innovators Early Adopters Early Majority Late Majority Laggards
POTENTIAL MARKET SIZE TODAYAlmost 85 percent of companies won’t invest
until RFID crosses the chasm
vertical focus: energy
RFID Journal • March/April 201324
Fuel RFID Deployments
25RFID Journal • March/April 2013
Fracking—short For hydraulic fracturing, which uses water pressure to create frac-tures in rock through which to extract natural gas and oil—has become a hot-button issue,as technology advances make recovering previously unreachable natural gas reserves economically feasible. Proponents argue for its role in boosting energy independencewhile opponents cite water contamination and other environmental concerns.
That’s a debate for other venues. But what can’t be disputed is the value RFID can bringto fracking operations. In 2011, for example, GreenHunter Water, a Grapevine, Texas,provider of water-management solutions and services to oil and gas companies, began
Oil and gas companies are adopting radiofrequency identification technology to bettermanage assets and inventory, improve drillingand maintenance operations, and protectworkers in dangerous environments. Butindustry experts say they’re missing out ona powerful application. by jennifer zaino
RFID Journal • March/April 201326
installing its RFID-based wellhead-manage-ment system at six oil-drill sites in West Virginia. The solution lets the company trackwastewater pumped out of temporary storagetanks and provide data showing it was de-posited in authorized waste wells.
For the past year or so, Cameron, a providerof flow equipment products, systems and serv-ices to worldwide oil, gas and process indus-tries, has been RFID-tagging valves and rentalequipment for U.S. and Canadian hydraulicfracturing companies, to improve asset track-ing and inventory management. Cameron linksthe unique serial number on each passive ul-trahigh-frequency EPC Gen 2 tag to informationabout the part stored in its database. More than10,000 pieces of equipment have been tagged,says Daniel Baxter, a senior technology and development research engineer at the firm.
Cameron moved fast to RFID-enable its 22facilities that rent fracking equipment, be-
cause parts are not always returned to the location from which they were shipped. It wasimportant to have all facilities go live as soonas possible, Baxter says, so everyone con-tributes to and can benefit from more accuratedata. The RFID solution provides visibility intowhat equipment has been shipped to and re-turned from customers, and identifies itemsthat are being repaired.
“Cameron sees great value and potential inRFID technology,” Baxter says. The companycan speed up billing and bring greater effi-ciency to other business processes, includingturning around customer order cycle time, hesays, adding that knowing the status of equip-ment is key to providing better service.
Improving asset tracking and inventorymanagement is a major driver of RFID in theenergy sector. A Louisiana service companybecame interested in RFID when it discoveredthat the pipes it had rented from another
Cameron, a provider of flowequipment products, systems and services toworldwide oil, gas andprocess industries, has beenRFID-tagging valves andrental equipment for U.S.and Canadian hydraulic fracturing companies, to improve asset tracking andinventory management.
vertical focus: energy
27RFID Journal • March/April 2013
source to complete a customer’s requirementswere actually its own property. Only physicalmarkings on the pipes gave away the truth,says Patrick King, founder of RFID rugged tagprovider and consulting company Technolo-gies ROI (TROI), and a standards and technol-ogy advisor to the Oil and Gas RFID SolutionsGroup (OGR), a consortium of experts workingto promote RFID adoption in the energy sector.“When the boat out of Houma, Louisiana, goesout to an offshore wellhead and picks up partsfor service, resurfacing or retooling, all theparts go on to that one boat barge,” King says.“It comes in and someone does sorting, andthe process is not very good. If 10 parts look thesame, they end up in one pile, even if they’reowned by three different companies. So youmight or might not get your parts back.”
Managing assets in remote regions is par-ticularly challenging. “It’s very costly to sendvessels to offshore oil rigs, so they need tomake sure they’re taking everything that needsto leave—that’s a very laborious process to tryto do manually,” says Moses Chang, sales man-ager at RFID tag manufacturer Xerafy, which isworking with one of the largest oil and gas lo-gistics companies in the world on an effort totag every production supply before it goes onboard the vessels that service offshore opera-tions in the Gulf of Mexico and other regions.Companies, for example, hoist slings andother pieces of equipment for lifting heavygear into large containers, but counting themby hand is difficult, if not impossible, Changsays. “If you leave out one component, like onesling, or even one little tool, that can be a hugeamount of downtime,” he says. Downtime foroffshore rig operations can run into the millions of dollars, and heading it off or recovering from it by sending out a helicopterwith forgotten supplies can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Oil and gas companies are also using RFIDto improve drilling and maintenance opera-tions, thanks to technology advances thatmake it possible to read tags on metal and inharsh environments (see BP Refines Mainte-nance Operations). In addition, they are im-
plementing RFID-based real-time safety solu-tions to monitor employees in dangerousworkplace environments. But most RFID de-ployments in the energy sector are closed-loopapplications. The holy grail is to have RFIDused across the supply chain—from the man-ufacturing site, where it can be attached toequipment being produced, to the wellhead,where it can be used in operations, King says.
Technology That’s Up to the Job
To monitor valves and other equipment usedin fracking, Cameron needed metal-friendlytags that could survive stress and harsh envi-ronments, so they would be readable when theassets were returned to its facilities. “There areall sorts of harsh chemicals that tags are ex-posed to, so the tags and attachment mecha-nisms have to hold up” on multiple fronts,Baxter says. “UHF tag technology has advancedso far recently and become so much more ro-bust with companies like Xerafy, Omni-ID andConfidex. The tags have become so much morereliable in harsh environments, and offer im-proved performance when reading them onmetal. It’s become a good option for us. Thetechnology has gotten to the point whereCameron is confident using these tags, whichhave a high survival rate.”
The advancements in UHF technology alsocan facilitate oil and gas drilling operationsand other processes that take place in the field,says Konrad Konarski, co-founder of the OGR.Workers can read RFID-tagged pipes to ensurethe right pipes are going into a hole in the rightsequence, for example, or that a pipe has beeninspected following its use in multiple drillingcycles. Identifying drill pipes had its start withlow-frequency RFID technology, he says. Itprovides adequate reliability but is hamperedby a short read range that isn’t best suited towork in complex drill rig environments.
While the OGR promotes passive UHF EPCGen 2 technology as a standard for asset man-agement, low-frequency RFID continues toplay a role. Last summer, for example, globaloil and gas firm Statoil began deploying an LF
“It’s very costlyto send vesselsto offshore oilrigs, so theyneed to makesure they’retaking every-thing thatneeds toleave—that’s avery laboriousprocess to try todo manually.”
—moses chang, xerafy
RFID Journal • March/April 2013
RFID solution from Trac ID Systems at offshoreoil wells to monitor the lifespan of drill pipes.Each time a pipe is lowered into and thenraised out of the well, its tag ID number, alongwith the time and date, are automaticallyrecorded. Tracking the pipes with fixed andhandheld readers provides more accurate datathan recording the information manually, andit also minimizes the time the rig crew mustspend on the main deck, where they are exposed to various hazards.
Safety Takes a Front Seat
When it comes to the RFID projects being im-plemented around the world, personnel safetyis right up there with asset-management solu-tions, says OGR co-founder Sam Falsafi. All fiveof the major oil companies—BP, Cono-coPhillips, Chevron, Exxon and Shell—havemajor projects using RFID for personnel safety,he says. Some have been in place a few years,and at least one is tracking more than 4,000people on a remote offshore platform.
Other energy firms are also deploying per-sonnel safety solutions. Mexican oil-industrymaintenance and transportation companyCotemar uses an RFID solution from AeroScoutto automatically monitor employees, and theservices they use, on four offshore platforms
that serve as their living quarters while theywork on oil rigs in the Gulf. This helps thecompany locate employees in the event of anemergency, and to provide food and laundrysupplies more efficiently.
Agip Kazakhstan North Caspian OperatingCo., a subsidiary of Italian oil and gas giant Eni,is deploying an RFID personnel safety solutionin conjunction with the construction of a newcomplex and drilling site in the North CaspianSea, off the coast of Kazakhstan. The oil field isexpected to produce extremely toxic and flam-mable gas. Agip plans to monitor up to 1,000staff members, so in an emergency it can deter-mine which employees have reported to theirassigned mustering stations as well as the loca-tions of those who have not, and it can issuealerts in the right areas if a rescue is in order.
RFID-based personnel safety solutions provide real-time visibility into worker locations, to help prevent accidents and enablecompanies to respond should an incidentoccur. They can help keep accidents at bay by, for example, triggering alarms whennonauthorized contractors enter restrictedwork zones or notifying managers if noncerti-fied operators near heavy machinery. “Therehave been incidents already where RFID tech-nology has helped prevent accidents,” Falsafisays, though the companies are careful about
28
Workers can read RFID-tagged pipes to ensure theright pipes are going into ahole in the right sequence,or that a pipe has been inspected following its usein multiple drilling cycles.
vertical focus: energy
RFID Journal • March/April 2013 29
publicizing such events.In an emergency, “the company can provide
a better message publicly—explaining when theevent took place, how many people were evacu-ated, that there are still people here in a certainsector, and so on,” Falsafi says. “That’s a much,much more powerful statement than just saying we know something took place, and wedon’t know where people are in the building orthe facility, but we are trying to get them out.”
Most personnel safety solutions consist ofa combination of real-time location systemsbased on ultra-wideband, ZigBee or Wi-Fi active RFID and GPS capabilities. “The unpre-dictable movement of persons and the com-plex petrochemical environments require,most of the time, a solution based on activeRFID infrastructure,” Falsafi says. Typically, heexplains, workers are equipped with RFID-enabled ID badges; some also have panic but-tons or embedded auxiliary sensors that coulddetect a fall to the ground or off a harness.
RFID technology allows us to effectivelytrack people in an environment where GPSalone can’t track people, Konarski says. WhileGPS on its own is sometimes suited to the task,“in a facility like a refinery, there is so muchmetal obstruction, and when you do have a GPSsignal, it can be very diluted,” he says. “GPS gen-erally doesn’t really let you track well in 3-D, soif a person is up on a stairwell, it’s not easy totrack him using a simple GPS receiver.” Thatisn’t helpful for localizing emergency responseteams to where individuals are in trouble.
In addition to monitoring workers in dan-gerous environments, RFID can automatesafety inspections. Omni-ID, for example, isworking with a customer that sends ships backand forth to offshore rigs, says Andre Coté, thefirm’s SVP of business development. A strictinspection program on each ship requires notonly ensuring the presence of fire extinguish-ers but also stress-testing on-ship componentsand parts of the ship itself, such as a doorwayto ensure its hinges and locks work properly.With durable passive UHF tags attached to theappropriate locations and components on theship, personnel need only ping the tag with a
handheld reader to access complete instruc-tions for what testing to do at each location.“And once they complete the tests, there’s a fullelectronic record to show compliance withsafety regulations for that ship,” Coté says. Theproject is going live now across seven or eightships, with some 10,000 tags per ship.
Connecting the Energy Dots
In the near future, more U.S. oil and gas companies may turn to RFID to comply withfederal regulations. “The U.S. government iscoming up with some very defined and strin-gent regulations for all the oil companies andproducers in the U.S.,” says Layne Tucker,founder of the EchoRFID solution for pipelineintegrity management. “It’s changing the way[the government is] going to regulate them,and how the oil companies have to keep trackof their assets, and any changes they make inthose assets over a 25- to 35-year life cycle,whether in an aboveground facility or a belowground pipeline.”
The EchoRFID solution should be in use inthe next few months, though the company isnot disclosing customers now. Manufacturersor the oil companies constructing thepipelines can tag the equipment with Omni-ID’s passive UHF Ultra on-metal tag. The tagwas selected for its durability and read dis-tance (more than 100 feet), Coté says. A clouddatabase will store information about eachtagged piece every time its unique serial num-ber is read—when the piece is transported to aconstruction site and when it’s deployed aspart of a pipeline project, including beingburied deep within the ground. “When thepipe needs to be dug up in the future, the tagcan be read and identified even before expos-ing the pipe,” he says. As pieces of a pipelinedeteriorate, new tagged parts can be put intheir place; any database lookups would showthe old tags are out of service and the new tagsthat have replaced them.
Pictures, voice and video also could be at-tached to the unique tag’s information, andGPS technology would record where the asset
“All five of themajor oil companies—BP,ConocoPhillips,Chevron, Exxonand Shell—havemajor projectsusing RFID forpersonnel safety.
—sam falsafi, oil and gas
rfid solutions group
vertical focus: energy
RFID Journal • March/April 201330
has been placed. “You would be able to recallany changes for the full life cycle of that assetto those who need it out in the field,” Tuckersays. “You can’t see the buried asset anymore,but we would be able to find any component atag was on and reaffirm through GPS that thatis the correct tag, you are at the spot you thinkyou were, and this tag holds this informationthat was taken during construction, whetherthat was last week or five years ago,” he says.“An engineer through his computer, withouttraveling to the field, can actually confirm thetype of valve that’s there, or people in the fieldcan shoot the tag to see when and where theequipment was last serviced.”
New federal guidelines could encouragemore energy suppliers to RFID-tag equipment.For now, most RFID deployments in the energyindustry tend to be of a closed-loop or other-wise isolated nature. That’s something manyparties would like to see change. There is stilllittle agreement on data, material and referen-tial standards to promote interoperability andusefulness, both within and across corporateborders, TROI’s King says. “Unlike the auto industry, where at least there is an attempt bycompetitors to come together and drive com-mon standards, the energy community doesnot really do that,” he observes. “It is far morecompetitive.”
“Tag specifications need to address the en-vironmental and functional requirements ofthe entire life cycle of the product [the tag] isattached to,” Konarski says. “But when effortsaren’t thought of in an end-to-end way fromthe start, that’s unlikely to happen.
“If you build a closed-loop system, you areisolating other partners from using RFID and itdoesn’t become as pervasive as it should,”Konarski says. Consider, he suggests, the ex-ample of a large oil company whose warehousegroup sponsors an RFID project to solve prob-lems such as shrinkage or to receive inventoryfaster. The company selects RFID tags and tech-nology to address its particular requirements.The tags may accompany parts out to the field,but the odds are they won’t support require-ments that would make them useful there.
“Even if someone else in the supply chaindoes decide to use RFID technology, if the orig-inal project did not take into account the typesof information this trading partner would liketo see in the tag memory, or the physical envi-ronment of the piece of equipment while inthe hands of this partner, the tag may not workor simply will not provide [the secondary user]with any value,” Konarski says. “Planningacross different organizational units or differ-ent companies is key to leveraging the truevalue of RFID.”
The EchoRFID solution forpipeline integrity manage-ment is designed to help oilcompanies keep track oftheir assets, and anychanges they make in thoseassets over a 25- to 35-yearlife cycle, whether in anaboveground facility or a belowground pipeline.
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CommerCial laundry companies have beenRFID-tagging and tracking uniforms and linens formore than 15 years to identify customers’ items,which must be sorted, cleaned, packaged andloaded on the correct truck for delivery. More recently, casinos, fitness clubs, hospitals, hotels,theme parks and other organizations have begunusing RFID to track laundry items, to improve assetvisibility and reduce the number of stolen towels.
“Laundry tracking manually is very labor-inten-sive, because keeping detailed records requires thatdifferent types of laundry items must be separated,counted, recorded on paper and then later enteredinto a computer,” says Jeff Welles, VP of RFID laundry solution provider InvoTech Systems. “RFIDautomatically identifies, counts and records theitems without even separating or sorting.”
While laundry-tracking systems have been in usefor a long time, recent advancements in the tech-
nology have led to price drops and increased per-formance, says Michael Liard, RFID director at VDCResearch. Low-frequency and high-frequency solu-tions dominated the market in the early days, hesays. Passive ultrahigh-frequency solutions able towithstand washing conditions have entered themarket as lower-cost alternatives. In general, headds, these systems cost approximately 20 percentless than the older offerings.
UHF RFID tags designed to withstand commer-
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cleanCOMING
About RFID Laundry Systems
product developments
33RFID Journal • March/April 2013
cial laundry processes first became available in2010, Welles says. “These tags each contain aunique ID number and are attached to eachuniform or linen item to identify specific inventory items,” he explains. “The UHF RFIDlaundry tags allow inventory items to beprocessed from a much farther distance thanthe RFID laundry tags that were previouslyavailable.” The greater reading distance allowsfor entire laundry carts of uniforms or linensto be processed and the content recorded instantly, he adds.
Some companies hire a systems integratorto develop a laundry-tracking system; the in-
tegrator then purchases laundry tags from anRFID provider. Other firms design their ownRFID laundry solutions. Disney, for instance,purchased passive UHF tags from Fujitsu Frontech North America and readers fromThingMagic, and created RFID software thatintegrates with its existing Garment Utiliza-tion System.
During the past few years, providers have de-veloped complete laundry solutions, which in-clude readers, tags and software—an option thatmakes sense, Liard says. In 2011, for example,Fallsview Casino Resort, in Niagara Falls,Canada, adopted InvoTech’s GIMS Uniform Sys-tem. Still, employees needed to sew the tagsinto tens of thousands of employee uniforms.
Analysts and solution providers expect con-tinued growth in the RFID laundry market.“There is an explosion in usages for washableRFID tags,” says Dan Dalton, director of newproducts development at Fujitsu FrontechNorth America. “From hospitals and health care
to hotels and entertainment venues, the demand for tracking clothing and linens is increasing in many markets for a variety of reasons.” Hospitals need to track linens and materials not only entering and exiting facili-ties, but in many cases from floor to floor androom to room, Dalton says. Hotels need to ensure linens are available for guests. And withthe rising cost of cotton, loss of items can havea significant impact on a hotel’s bottom line.
“Laundry tags can also be used to track clean-ing equipment, such as textile mops and broomheads, which are laundered and sterilized,” says Richard Aufreiter, director of product man-
agement, identification technologies, at HIDGlobal. “Textiles of all types, including napkinsand tablecloths, are tracked for accountability,efficiency and traceability purposes.”
While the RFID laundry sector is growing,Liard says, companies in the industry face theongoing challenge of communicating the business benefits of RFID for laundry-relatedapplications. “Education is still a challenge,and with the new UHF solutions as part of theequation, customers now have more of achoice,” he says. “They need to understandthings like total cost ownership and ROI.”
RFID LAUNDRY TAGSCompanies that want to build their own laun-dry-tracking systems or invest in additionaltags to expand monitoring capabilities haveseveral options; the table on page 35 providesinformation on some leading RFID laundry tagproviders. All the RFID laundry tags arerugged—that is, they can withstand hundreds
Technology advancements, lower costsand complete solutions are among thereasons to consider auto mating thetracking of linens, towels and uniforms.
(Top left) HID Global’s Slim FlexLaundry Tag; (above) WilliamFrick & Company’s RFID WireLaundy Tag.
product developments
RFID Journal • March/April 201334
of industrial washings at high temperatureswith bleach and other chemicals, as well as repeated ironings. Solution providers say thelaundry tags usually outlive the uniforms andother linens they track.
Industrial laundry typically is not dried pri-marily with air but with a water-extractionpress. “Although using an extraction press ex-pedites the drying process, it places additionalstress on the laundry and the tag’s antenna,”HID Global’s Aufreiter says. “Therefore, HIDtags are tested up to 70 bar pressure (½-ton persquare inch) and 500 twist tests of 180 degreesfor the flexible antenna to survive repeatedlyin modern water-extraction presses.”
The tags differ when it comes to size, formfactor and read range. Fujitsu’s WT-A521 andWT-A522 tags, for example, measure 55 mil-limeters by 10 millimeters (2 inches by 0.4inch), so they can be inserted easily into theseam of a sheet or towel, Dalton says. “Becauseof the ultrasoft exterior, the tag can be insertedinto clothing seams, linings or pockets and isvirtually unnoticeable to the wearer,” he says.Also, because of its nonmetallic design, the tagcan be used in hospitals with MRI rooms wherelarge magnetic fields are present, he adds.
Some tags offer security features, such as
the ability to protect customer data on tags.“We can lock down as much or as little data asthe client needs,” says Brent Howell, businessdevelopment manager at William Frick & Co.,which provides the RFID Wire Laundry Tag andSilicone RFID Laundry Tag.
The EPC and user memory can be locked or password-protected to prevent someone from changing data on tags, Howell says. “Additionally, each chip comes with its ownunique serial number that cannot be changed,”he says. “If a user combines chip ID along with[the user’s] own unique EPC code, this allowsfor additional security.”
RFID LAUNDRY SOLUTIONSInvoTech Systems, RFID Laundry Consultantand Towel Tracker are among the RFIDproviders that offer complete laundry solu-tions, including tags, readers and software (seevendor table on page 37). With a turnkey sys-tem, the hardware and software componentswork together, and the solution typically in-cludes installation and training, and, in somecases, software updates and support services.
InvoTech offers GIMS systems to managelinens, uniforms, laundry (linens and uni-forms) and multiproperty (for clients with
Solutionproviders say the laundry tags usuallyoutlive theuniforms andother linens they track.
Fujitsu’s WT-A521 and WT-A522tags are washable and non-metallic, so they can can beused in hospitals with MRIrooms where large magneticfields are present.
35RFID Journal • March/April 2013
more than one site). The company says it hasnearly 500 customers in 20 countries world-wide, including casinos, hospitals, hotels,laundries, medical centers, stadiums andtheme parks. All the UHF systems automati-cally track and record laundry activity, andmanage inventory, repairs and billing. A “restricted item control” feature can be de-ployed at employee exits to catch individualstrying to leave the property with uniforms,Welles says, or it can be used at pools or waterparks to prevent guests from stealing towels.
The implementation time for a laundry sys-tem can take as little as one day or as long as amonth, he says, depending on what the cus-tomer is looking to do. “Cost varies tremen-dously depending on the size of the operation,”Welles says. InvoTech provides custom pricingproposals and a return-on-investment analy-sis, he adds.
RFID Laundry Consultant’s Simple Sort was
developed with help from RFID company Data-mars. The HF system is designed for industriallaundry and cleaning companies, specializedlaundry facilities, such as those that handleclean-room uniforms, and hotels, says ScottMeyer, the firm’s owner and product engineer.The system features a “cube” that automati-cally sorts floor mats and uniforms, reducing
Simple Sort ships sewing machines to customers to help in the tagging process.
SOME LEADING PROVIDERS OF RFID LAUNDRY TAGSCOMPANY TAGS FREQUENCY INDUSTRY
SERVEDFEATURES
Fujitsu Frontech NorthAmericawww.fujitsu.com/us
WT-A521 and WT-A522 Tags
Ultrahigh-frequency Laundry serviceproviders
WT-A521 is a special-order tag with apermanently locked EPC ID number forsecurity; WT-A522 is a standard global tagwith a password-locked EPC code
GAO RFIDwww.gaorfid.com
Gen 2 Laundry Tag Ultrahigh-frequency Industrial laundriesand hotels
Meets the extreme demands of rotaryironing; can be fixed to any fabric using aheat-sealing machine
IdTronicidtronic-group.com/en
Laundry Tag HF High-frequency Commerciallaundries
Guaranteed minimum lifetime of 200washing cycles; available in 15 mmdiameter; thickness is always 2.4 mm sotags can be integrated easily into clothes
HID Globalwww.hidglobal.com
Logi Tag, LogiButton Tag, SlimFlexLaundry Tag
High-frequency,ultrahigh-frequency
Commerciallaundries, hospitals,hotels and uniformcompanies
Tags can be used to track mops and othercleaning equipment that must belaundered and sterilized; also can tracksurgical sponges and other medicalreusable assets to verify cleaning andsterilization processess
William Frick & Co.www.fricknet.com
RFID Wire LaundryTag and SiliconeRFID Laundry Tag
Ultrahigh-frequency Hospitality andgarment industries,hospitals andnursing homes
The EPC and user memory can bepassword protected or locked forsecurity; tags can be customized to meetend users’ needs
product developments
RFID Journal • March/April 201336
errors and labor. It also alerts the operator toany special requests, such as repairs needed orthe fact that a replacement item has been sentto the customer.
The cost of Simple Sort starts at $25,000, in-cluding software, one reader station, installa-tion, training and some tags, Meyer says.Customers pay more for additional tags, on-site training and programming modifications.“Each system is customized for each cus-tomer,” he says.
Towel Tracker’s solution is designed for fit-ness clubs and hotels, which lose millions ofdollars in stolen towels every year, accordingto CEO Steven Molewyk. An introductory ver-sion includes a towel-dispensing unit, a towel-return unit, RFID-tagged towels, two rollingcarts for dispensing clean towels, and tworolling laundry bins for dirty towels. TowelTracker costs approximately $30,000. “Ourclients have seen ROIs between 10 weeks andfive months,” Molewyk says. “This is due tolower towel theft, reduced laundry expenses,and the ability to charge patrons the
purchase price for stolen towels.”When a guest swipes his or her fitness-club
membership card or hotel key card through acard reader, a cabinet door opens automati-cally, allowing the user to remove as manytowels as needed. Then, the system performsa tag scan and determines the exact number oftowels taken. “Towel Tracker’s computer sys-tem automatically assigns those towels to youraccount,” Molewyk says, “It’s like checking outbooks from a library.”
Used towels are placed in the Towel Tracker’sreturn unit, which scans the RFID tags and automatically removes those towels from theguest’s account. Managers can pull up a real-time list showing guests’ names, the number ofunreturned towels, and the date and time thetowels were checked out. The system can be set to automatically generate polite e-mail re-minders asking patrons to return the missingtowels or face potential replacement fees.
People use significantly fewer towels whenthey’re responsible for returning them,Molewyk says, which means fewer towels towash. Laundering costs about eight cents pertowel, he says, and the savings can add upquickly.
CLEANING UPMany companies see the initial inventory tag-ging as a challenge. If a company is orderingnew uniforms and linens, InvoTech sends thelaundry tags to suppliers to be sewn in duringthe manufacturing process. For existing uni-forms and linens, the company provides thelaundry tags pre-inserted in fabric pouches,which can be sewn into the uniforms andlinens, he says. Another option is tags that canbe heat-sealed to uniforms and linens; thecompany offers a heat-seal machine.
Simple Sort’s Meyer says he has shipped ma-chines to customers to help in the taggingprocess. “Most every company ends up buyingits own, because of the need to tag existingstockroom inventory,” he says. “A typical com-pany will have a stockroom that is 15 percent ofthe active inventory. So if it converts 100,000active garments, it will need between 10,000 to
Towel Tracker’s solution is designed for fitness clubs and hotels, which lose millions of dollars in stolentowels every year.
Many companiessee the initialinventorytagging as achallenge.
20,000 tags for the stockroom. It is more cost-effective to add the tags only when they are putinto service…. This same machine can be usedfor sewing on name and company emblems.”
Domestic linen mills “have a huge opportu-nity to provide value by tagging towels at themill and shipping them directly to customers’sites,” Towel Tracker’s Molewyk says. “I believeonly domestic mills can excel at this lean supply model. Unfortunately, nobody, to myknowledge, has adopted this model yet.”
The laundry tracking market “is focusingmuch of its attention on UHF RFID technologyand the adoption rate is extremely fast,” Wellessays. “However, UHF RFID laundry tags haveonly been available a few years, so only a verysmall percentage of qualified businesses haveimplemented systems to date.”
Adoption rates will continue to vary de-pending on the application, Dalton says. “Sev-eral years ago, washable UHF RFID adoption
was limited to higher-priced uniforms andcostumes,” he says. “Recently, however, Fujitsuhas seen an increase in adoption rates in thehospitality and health-care segments. We expect this rapid adoption rate to continueinto the future, as the cost of linens and clothing continues to rise and the cost of tagscontinues to fall.”
37RFID Journal • March/April 2013
InvoTech’s GIMS systems automatically track and recordlaundry activity, and manageinventory, repairs and billing.
SOME LEADING PROVIDERS OF RFID LAUNDRY SOLUTIONSCOMPANY SOLUTION HARDWARE SOFTWARE INDUSTRY
SERVEDFEATURES
InvoTech Systemswww.invotech.com
GIMS laundry,linen, uniformandmultipropertysystems
Impinj readers,Motorola Solu -tions antennasand handheldreaders, FujitsuFrontechpassive EPCGen 2 RFID tags
GIMS softwareand GIMSmobileinventorysoftware
Casinos,hospitals,hotels,stadiums andtheme parks
Extensive reporting capabilities;password protection to secureinformation; portable reader identifiesitems without hand sorting
RFID Laundry Consultantwww.laundrytechnology.com
Simple Sort Datamars RFIDreaders andantennas, HFLaundryChipRFID tags
RFID LaundryConsultantsoftware
Industriallaundrycompanies
Software tracks when and how oftenitems are laundered; the “cube” featurestreamlines sorting, reducing labor anderrors
Towel Trackerwww.toweltracker.com
Towel Tracker Impinj readers,Fuijtsu WT-A522 UHF RFIDtags
Towel Trackersoftware
Fitness clubsand hotels
Solution includes a towel-dispensingunit, towel-return unit, RFID-taggedtowels, two rolling carts for dispensingclean towels and two rolling laundrybins for dirty towels; automaticallyassigns towels to a user’s account andcan be set to generate e-mail remindersasking patrons to return missing towelsby a certain time and date
inside the labs
When counterfeit drugsinfiltrate a pharmaceuticalsupply chain, they can endanger the safety of patients and damage thereputations of legitimatemanufacturers. For severalyears now, identifying pal-lets, cases and individual
packages of medicine with unique ElectronicProduct Code numbers (via RFID or 2-D barcodes) and tracking them from manufacturethrough distribution and on to retail pharma-cies has been promoted as a way to make thesupply chain safer and more secure.
Several pilots have demonstrated that thehardware, software and network standards,such as EPC Information Services (EPCIS) forsharing serialized event data securely in near-real time, can verify chain of custody. TheEPCIS standard provides a way to capture andshare physical event data—each time an EPCtag is read as it moves through the supplychain, for example. Information regardingchanges of containment, such as when itemsare packed into cases and bound to pallets, canalso be recorded as EPCIS event data.
But one hurdle has remained. Given thelarge volumes of pharmaceutical packages incirculation, this solution would put a hugeburden on companies that must check theirshipments. In my previous column, A New Ap-proach to Pharmaceutical E-Pedigrees, I intro-duced the concept of “Checking Services,” away to handle serialized data verification byautomating the process or outsourcing it to anaccredited checking operator.
Since October 2012, the Cambridge Auto-IDLab has been actively working on the design ofChecking Services within a new GS1 technicalwork group. We view Checking Services as anew component within the GS1 EPC network
architecture. The goal is to standardize the in-terfaces, to ensure interoperability and de-velop robust accreditation requirements. Thatwill let companies have a choice of providersand give them the confidence that the checkswill be performed consistently and correctly.
We are just beginning to tackle the technicalpart of the standardizing work, and we expectmore solution providers will become involvedin the near future. Participation is importantbecause technology providers will likely offerthe service; just as there are multi-ple providers of EPCIS repositories,there will be many providers ofChecking Services. Their prototypesmust be well aligned with the direc-tion of the standard and ready tomeet expected legislation deadlinesfor electronic pedigrees.
Checking Services will be able toautomatically gather EPCIS eventdata, then perform a number of pro-cedures on the data to identify anygaps or inconsistencies. Companieswill be able to receive summary reports of the results before they receive the physical goods, enablingthem to decide which to accept andwhich to quarantine for further investigation,without slowing the receiving process.
This work is initially intended to supportthe U.S. pharmaceutical sector, which willlikely need to comply with e-pedigree legisla-tion in 2015. But Checking Services will pro-vide a flexible framework to allow multiplechecks to be selected and configured, includ-ing those which might be defined in the futurein response to traceability legislation in othersectors or regions.
Mark Harrison is director of the Cambridge Auto-ID Lab.
Checking ServicesA new GS1 standard will make it cost-efficient for retail pharmacies and distributors to verify e-pedigree data.
By Mark Harrison
RFID Journal • March/April 201338
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ILLU
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software savvy
Your rFID project hasbeen green-lighted. Youknow where you’re goingto deploy the technologyand what benefits youhope to achieve. The nextstep is for your systemsintegrator or in-housedevelopment team to cre-
ate a solid design document. It’s as essential toyour project as a blueprint is to a new homeconstruction. Often these documents focus onthe hardware. But to ensure your company willgain from the RFID data your new system col-lects, the design document must also addressthe following software issues.
Decide what data will be programmedinto the tags. Some tags carry just a uniqueidentifier, while others include a section foruser memory that can be programmed withpasswords or store data about tag reads forasset tracking, maintenance records or otheruses. The identifier could be a random codeprogrammed by the tag manufacturer or astandard, such as an airline industry baggagecode, library item identifier or ElectronicProduct Code. If it’s an EPC, will you use aSerialized Global Trade Item Number (SGTIN),Global Individual Asset Identifier (GIAI) oranother variation? If you are encoding thetags yourself, the design should include asoftware component that assigns unique IDsand tracks available numbers in a database.
Keep track of all software componentswith a block diagram. The block diagramshould include all components at the busi-ness level, such as enterprise resource plan-ning, warehouse management and inventorysystems, as well as reporting dashboards. Alsoinclude any components deployed in the
field, such as middleware and softwareembedded in mobile and fixed readers.
Define each interface between the blockdiagram components. This will ensure youare collecting all the data needed to supportyour business goals. Make sure these inter-faces can support changes as your businessevolves. Can data elements be added withoutdisrupting operations? Each interface shouldbe extensible via a documented mechanism.
Also be sure the data flowing in each part ofthe block diagram is appropriate for that layer.Close to the readers, the data may be low-leveland designed to exploit a particular tag hard-ware feature or reader command. Closer tothe enterprise applications, the informationshould become more independent of thedata-capture technology. A good test is to askif a change in data-capture technology wouldimply a big change to the information at theenterprise level. If so, it’s a sign that the soft-ware design is not layered properly.
Consider standards. They can make yourdesign more resilient to changes in require-ments and allow you to choose hardware andsoftware from different vendors. Relevantstandards include the Low Level ReaderProtocol (LLRP) to talk to your readers,Application Level Events (ALE) to bridge readers to data-capture business logic, andEPC Information Services (EPCIS) to bringevents to the enterprise in a technology-inde-pendent way.
Ken Traub is the founder of Ken Traub Consulting,a Mass.-based firm providing services to softwareproduct companies and enterprises that rely onadvanced software technology to run theirbusinesses. Send your software questions [email protected].
Document Your SoftwareDeployment DesignEvery RFID project needs a blueprint that details software components, interfaces and other issues.
By Ken Traub
RFID Journal • March/April 201342
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In my column, Move to0HIO, I discussed a com-mon mistake retailersmake: substituting RFIDfor bar-code technologyand keeping the samemanual processes in place.But automating processesto reduce mistakes and
improve efficiencies is just the first step. Totruly benefit from RFID, retailers must movebeyond incremental improvements and usethe technology to introduce innovations.
Take Retailer X, for example, which wantedto better understand its customers’ needs andshopping habits. A few years ago, Retailer Xcreated a process to gain insight into theclothes customers tried on but didn’t pur-chase. Any items taken to the dressing roomwere held there until the end of the day, atwhich time a store associate would bar-codescan every item. It was a laborious processthat usually took a couple of hours. In addi-tion, the retailer was missing potential salesopportunities, because those items were keptoff the sales floor.
Recently, Retailer X conducted its first RFIDpilot to improve inventory accuracy. But itused the same process to monitor items left inthe dressing rooms. Instead of bar-code scan-ning the items, a store associate used an RFIDhandheld reader. This took significantly lesstime—a few minutes rather than a couple ofhours—but that was the extent of the improve-ment. The same data was collected as before.
The retailer missed a great chance to createa whole new process that would have deliv-ered more valuable data and sales opportuni-ties. If, for instance, the retailer had installedRFID portals near the dressing rooms, itwould be able to monitor all items going intoand coming out of the dressing rooms—and
any items not purchased could be returned tothe sales floor. That data could be marriedwith point-of-sale data, so the retailer coulddetermine the conversion rate of items takeninto the dressing rooms—impossible to knowwith the existing process.
As an alternative to por-tals, RFID antennas could beinstalled in each dressingroom, providing the oppor-tunity to understand the“basket” of items customersconsider. An interactive dis-play, sometimes called amagic mirror, could beadded to each dressingroom. It could read the RFIDtags on the items the cus-tomer tries on, and then display related information,such as other available col-ors and sizes, accompanyingaccessories or garment careinstructions.
There are many moreexamples, but I’m sure you get the idea. UsingRFID opens up an amazing number of possi-bilities—but only if a retailer is open to view-ing the technology as a way to do things thathave been difficult, if not impossible, to dowith existing technology. Sure, you can useRFID to make incremental improvements, butdon’t let your thinking go there immediately.It’s time to think process enablement, not justprocess improvement.
Bill Hardgrave is the dean of Auburn University’sCollege of Business and the founder of Universityof Arkansas’ RFID Research Center. He willaddress other RFID adoption and business caseissues in this column. Send your questions [email protected].
Don’t Just Automate—Innovate!RFID can do much more than speed up existing processes.
By Bill Hardgrave
tuned in
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THESEDEMONSTRATIONSHIGHLIGHT THEMANY APPLICATIONSAND CAPABILITIES OFRADIO FREQUENCYIDENTIFICATIONSOLUTIONS.
ATTENDEES:Visit the exhibit halland stop by each booth featuring a Coolest Demo Contest floordecal, indicating that it isparticipating in the contest and hasa cool demonstration to show. Cast your vote for the coolest demothrough the RFID Connectsmartphone app to help RFIDJournal’s editors select a winner.
The winner will be determined by RFID Journal’seditors, based on input fromattendee voting. The cost to join is $100. To enter, send a description (300 wordsor less) detailing what makes your demo cool, unique, new and/or [email protected].
RFID End-User Case-Study DVDs
RFID Journal has created a series of DVDs containing presentations by end users,
recorded at various live and online events.
RFID Journal holds several face-to-face conferencesevery year, as well as a number of online virtual eventsand webinars. These events feature end users speakingobjectively about the business reasons that theydeployed an RFID system, the technical hurdles theyovercame in doing so and the benefits they nowachieve as a result, as well as presentations byacademics, vendors and other experts. Many of thesessions were recorded, and we have compiled theserecordings into seven DVDs that are available forpurchase for only $99 or free with a one-year premiummembership to RFID Journal.
TO LEARN MORE, VISIT www.rfidjournal.com/dvds
Hear presentations from RFIDJournal events, including:
• RFID in Health Care
• RFID in Energy
• RFID in Defense and Security
• RFID in Aerospace
• RFID in Manufacturing
• RFID in Retail and Apparel
• RFID in Supply Chain andLogistics
These case-study DVDs can be purchased at the RFID Journal booth at RFID Journal LIVE! 2013
45RFID Journal • March/April 2013
ashton’s view
Since i waS born in thelate 1960s, the world pop-ulation has doubled. Backthen, the average personlived to be 52 years old.Today, the average lifespanis 70. With more of us liv-ing longer, our consump-tion of food, water and
other resources is increasing. Food intake, forexample, was 800,000 calories per personper year in the late ’60s. Today, theaverage person consumes morethan a million calories annu-ally. The amount of watereach of us consumes—todrink, bathe and grow allthat food—has doubled:from 160,000 gallons peryear to nearly 330,000gallons.
Despite the rise of theInternet and the decline ofthe newspaper, our use of paperhas more than doubled since I wasborn: from 55 pounds per person annuallyto 120 pounds. We have more energy-efficienttechnology, but we also have more technologyoverall, and more of the world has access toelectricity. We used 1,200 kilowatt hours perperson per year in 1968, and today we each use2,900 kilowatt hours. Our consumption ofplastic has increased more than fivefold, from14 pounds per person per year to 75 pounds.
When I was born, climate change was notan issue. Today, no matter what oil-spon-sored shills would have us believe, climatechange is both real and dangerous, and it is aconsequence of our crisis of consumption.Climate change threatens our ability to feed,water and otherwise care for the world’sgrowing population.
This crisis of consumption is the result ofgood things. More of us are living longer,healthier lives, with enough to eat and drink.Technology helps heal us when we are sick,warm us when we are cold and cool us whenwe are hot. We’re not going to select sufferinginstead of comfort to avoid the distant dangerof extermination from overconsumption.
We cannot consume our way out of ourconsumption crisis. The answer is, and must
be, information. Information is barelyphysical; it requires only comput-
ers, cables and a bit of electric-ity. A lack of information
about the physical world isone big reason we are inthis mess in the firstplace. We cannot clearlysee what we have andwhat we are doing with
it—and that results inmassive amounts of waste.
The U.S. EnvironmentalProtection Agency, for exam-
ple, says leaks account for an aver-age of 10,000 gallons of water wasted in
the home every year—enough to fill a back-yard swimming pool. Most of us do not knowhow much water we use personally—or howmuch of that water we waste, and on what. Wecan say the same of anything else we con-sume. If we had access to that information,most of us would waste a lot less.
The system that will capture that informa-tion is the ubiquitous network of RFID andsensor technologies called the Internet ofThings, which we are building now. And wehad better hurry up. By 2100, the world popu-lation is expected to double again.
Kevin Ashton was cofounder and executivedirector of the Auto-ID Center.
The Crisis of ConsumptionInformation can save us from eating, drinking and powering our way to extinction.
By Kevin Ashton
ILLUSTRATION: ISTOCKPHOTO | RFID JOURNAL
With the ePix Power Mapper, you are no longerworking in the dark. This meter is speciallydesigned to reveal null spots in the UHF radio fieldas well as the edges of the read field. The meteralso shows polarization effects, ground and waterabsorption and other problems that prevent energyfrom reaching the tag.
The meter relies on the power of radio waves, so it cannot give a false reading. And a newattenuator switch enables you to get close-rangemeasurements.
To order your Power Mapper, go to
ePixI N T R O D U C I N G T H E
PowerMapper2A battery-free tool to simplify
RFID deployments.
» No battery—uses RF energy
» Pocket-size
» Simple to use
» Works with all knownEuropean and U.S. UHFRFID readers
» Range can be adjustedusing external resistor
» A new 9dB attenuatorswitch allows for close-range measurement
Features
rfidjournal.com/mapper