tuned in march/april 2016 omnichannel...
TRANSCRIPT
D E D I C A T E D T O R A D I O F R E Q U E N C Y I D E N T I F I C A T I O N A N D I T S B U S I N E S S A P P L I C A T I O N S
Why The EquationIs Changing
• VERTICAL FOCUSUtility Companies Adopt RFID To Reduce Costs,Maintain Services And Improve Safety PAGE 26
• PRODUCT DEVELOPMENTSSolutions For Automotive, Health Care And Retail PAGE 34
• TUNED INOmnichannel Only Works With RFID PAGE 42www.rfidjournal.com March/April 2016
RFIDRiskvs
RewardPAGE 18
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EDITORIAL
Mark Roberti, [email protected]
Andrea Linne, Executive Editor/[email protected]
Paul Prince, Executive Editor/[email protected]
John Hull, Creative Director [email protected]
Rich Handley, Managing [email protected]
Claire Swedberg, Senior [email protected]
Sam Greengard, Contributing [email protected]
Bob Violino, Contributing [email protected]
Jennifer Zaino, Contributing Writer [email protected]
Edson Perin, Brasil [email protected]
Beth Bacheldor, Senior [email protected]
Rhea Wessel, Contributing Writer/[email protected]
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Mary Catherine O’Connor, Editor [email protected]
RFID JOURNAL EVENTS
Kimberly A. Ray, VP of [email protected]
Cheryl JohnsonSenior Director of Events [email protected]
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Deborah LambertEditorial Coordinator of [email protected]
SALES
Alan McIntosh, Senior Director of [email protected]
Matt Singer, Senior Director of [email protected]
SUBSCRIPTIONS
ARTICLE REPRINTS
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Editorial office:PO Box 5874Hauppauge, NY 11788
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Contents © 2016 RFID Journal LLC
Vol. 13, No. 2 | March/April 2016
CONTENTS
FEATURES
C O V E R S T O R Y
18 Listen Up, Laggards! It’s time to get up to speed on RFID, before your
competitors leave you in the dust. By Samuel Greengard
V E R T I C A L F O C U S : U T I L I T I E S
26 Ground Control Gas, electric and water companies slowly adopt RFID
to reduce costs and improve services. By Jennifer Zaino
P R O D U C T D E V E L O P M E N T S
34 Solutions for Automotive, Health Care and Retail The Sensor Tadpole tag helps automobile
manufacturers ensure their vehicles are watertight;VueTrack-UDI enables medical device manufacturersto comply with the FDA’s identification mandate andachieve internal benefits; Clarity 3.X software letsretailers manage enterprisewide inventory processesmore effectively. By Bob Violino
DEPARTMENTS
2 Editor’s Note Fast followers, it’s time.
10 Out in Front Reading tags in space; RF-enabling mussels to monitor
rivers; mussel atrophy.
12 Perspective How RFID will reach mass adoption; RFID adoption
in retail gains momentum.
COLUMNS
42 Tuned In If you build an omnichannel house without an RFID
foundation, it will crumble. By Bill Hardgrave
44 Health-Care Beat The business case for managing surgical instruments.
By Ygal Bendavid and Harold Boeck
46 The Four Questions What you must know before you begin an RFID project.
By Ken Traub
PAGE 18
PAGE 26
PAGE 34
PAGE 12
PAGE 46
2 RFID JOURNAL • MARCH/APRIL 2016
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RFID Journal has always beencareful not to oversell radio fre-quency identification and not to
scare end users into deploying the tech-nology. Many trade publications pushthe hype in order to get more subscrip-tions, sell more ads and make moremoney. I like to make money, of course,but I began RFID Journal with an eye onthe technology’s long-term prospects—and with a commitment to serve endusers by honestly presenting the bene-fits RFID can deliver, as well as the deployment challenges.
Is now the time to adopt RFID? I stillbelieve adoption is a decision each busi-ness must make on its own. If you are inthe middle of upgrading or replacingyour enterprise resource planning software, for instance, then maybe not.But I think—and this issue’s cover story supports my belief—that the technologyhas reached a point at which a well-executed deployment can deliver a greatdeal of value without a lot of risk (seeListen Up, Laggards!).
In some cases, the risk is in notadopting RFID. Bill Hardgrave, dean ofAuburn University’s Harbert College of Business and founder of the RFID Lab, wrote in a recent column: “I firmly believe retailers must adapt to an omnichannel world or they will not survive.” And, he added, you cannot doomnichannel retailing without the visibility RFID provides.
RFID has become a corporate priorityfor some retailers, such as Macy’s andMarks & Spencer, as well as for someaerospace and aviation companies (Air-bus, Boeing and Delta Air Lines) andmanufacturing firms (American Wood-mark). These companies were earlyadopters of RFID, and they have proved
the business benefits and defined thebest practices.
Even utilities, which often have mo-nopolies or limited competition, arelearning that RFID can pay off (seeGround Control). The Orangeburg, S.C.,Department of Public Utilities, for exam-ple, is using RFID to identify and manageutility poles and all the equipment onthem. The village of Thiensville, in Wis-consin, is RFID-tracking sewage pipes,to avoid damage to the system whenother entities dig near its assets.
Will your company go bankrupt ifyou don’t adopt RFID within the next 12 months? Of course not. But it takestime to learn how to use RFID to extractthe most value for your business. Waiting until your main competitorshave begun using it means being severalyears behind them. And that could leadto big problems. As Geoffrey Moore, anauthor and leading expert on technologyadoption, told RFID Journal: “If you don’ttransform, you’re going to be put out ofexistence.”
The pace of RFID adoption is acceler-ating. At some point, RFID will reach atipping point in your sector, and yourcompany will likely need to implementthe technology to stay competitive. Acting now gives your firm time to learn the best way to deploy and useRFID, to apply a thoughtful approachthat delivers the most value. That seemssmarter than waiting and rushing into itlater. You follow?
PERSPECTIVEEDITOR’S NOTE
Fast Followers, It’s Time
Mark Roberti, Founder and Editor, RFID Journal
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Find New Business OpportunitiesRFID providers now have a sourcewhere they can find companies world-wide that are actively seeking todeploy the technology. RFID Requestsfor Proposals is updated regularly,with new RFPs from companies indiverse industries. Each RFP includesdetailed information, contacts andsubmission deadlines.
RFID Journal Virtual Events These live interactive programs offer a convenient way to learn why and how companies are using RFID to improve the way they do business. Presenters will answer your questions. If you miss an event, check our archive for on-demand viewing.Harsh Environments, June 2Retail and Apparel, June 23RFID in Health Care, July 19
RFID ConnectFind products that can help you deployRFID successfully, such as Invengo’sXC-1003 IoT Phone. The compact ultrahigh-frequency RFID reader has an Android 4.4 operating system. Itsmultiple connectivity options make itsuitable for retail, health-care andevent-management applications.
Top 10 Search Terms in March 1 Supply chain 6 Burberry 2 Time/attendance 7 Jewelry 3 RTLS 8 Security4 Laundry 9 Decathlon 5 Retail 10 Beacons
Most-Read Stories in March• Airista Acquires Ekahau’s RTLS
Division• CCL Agrees to Buy Checkpoint
Systems• Retailer Uses RFID, Social Media and
Cameras to Track Shopper Behavior• Publix Plans to Automate Specialty
Drug Management Via RFID• American Apparel, Postmates Use RFID
Visibility for On-Demand Delivery
Ideas ExchangeRFID Journal maintains an Ask the Experts forum, where you can submit questions about RFIDtechnology and its applications. Yourquestions will be answered by RFIDJournal editors or outside experts.Recent questions include:
• What companies manufacture RFIDsystems for cemeteries?
• Can UHF tags be read in both thenear and far fields?
• How do RFID scanners connect withnetworks?
• What companies have deployedpassive RFID technology throughoutthe supply chain?
• What are wet RFID inlays ?
The Inside Scoop What are end users saying behind thescenes? Why should the RFID commu-nity be optimistic about the industry?Who’s spreading misinformation?Get insight and perspective at theRFID Journal Blog.
Premium Online StoriesHow to Conduct a Successful Proof of Concept
This important test will help you determine how best to use RFID to solve your problems.
Resin Supplier Uses RFID to Perfect the Curing Process
Reichhold helps a fiberglass pipe manufacturer improve production, saving time and money.
French Laundry Company Cleans Up Linen LossesBIH adopted RFID to save costs and improve customer service.
Cruise Ship Fights Fire With RFIDThe Ruby Princess keeps crew safe with a personnel-tracking system.
DON’T MISS THESE…
No. 1 search term: supply chain
PERSPECTIVETUNE IN ONLINE www.rfidjournal.com
Harsh Environments, June 2
T he National Aeronautics andSpace Administration RFID-tracks all inventory on the Inter-
national Space Station. Efficiencies arecrucial, because sending items up to the station is extremely expensive, and resources, includingelectricity, are precious.NASA was looking for anRFID system that could readtags simultaneously ratherthan sequentially, to reducethe time and battery life re-quired to take inventory onthe space station. Jacobs Technology, a sub-
contractor for NASA’s JohnsonSpace Center, was working onresearch with the IngramSchool of Engineering at TexasState University. In January2015, senior engineering stu-dents Ramsey Doany, CodyLovejoy and Kyle Jones wereassigned a NASA-sponsored project to design an RFID system that could readmultiple RFID tags simultaneously. The students did not have any expe-
rience with RFID systems, but their advising professor, Harold Stern, is anexpert in wireless communication sys-tems and a regular attendee of RFIDJournal LIVE! The team members in-tended to build an entirely new RFIDreader but did not have access to thenecessary tools, so they decided tomodify existing hardware. “The RFID companies we contacted
would not grant us access to the privi-leged information required to modifythe existing hardware,” Doany says. “So we turned to simulation. After deter-mining the modulation technique of thetags we were using, we built the entire
system in Simulink, a graphical pro-gramming environment for modeling,simulating and analyzing multidomaindynamic systems.”Once they had a simulated signal,
they transmitted with an RFID reader antenna using an RF arbitrary waveformgenerator. They received the signal usingthe HackRF One tool, and demodulatedand decoded it using MATLAB software.The team considered frequency
division multiplexing, an RF codingscheme in which numerous signals arecombined for transmission on a single
communications line, but quickly foundthe system’s narrow bandwidth wouldlimit the number of RFID tags that couldbe read. “The clear option was code division multiple access,” Doany says. A CDMA-based system would not bebetter in every application, but it wasideal to meet NASA’s needs because it requires less power and works well innoisy environments. Passive ultrahigh-frequency readers
use time division multiplexing, which requires sending signals at specific inter-vals. “Since a standard passive UHF readerdoesn’t know how many tags it is going to read, once it signals for all the tags inthe area to generate a response delay, ittransmits a signal and waits for a tag to
respond at each possible delaytime slot, whether there is a tag at that slot or not,” Doany says. “If the reader istransmitting without any response, this is a huge wasteof information and power.Additionally, if there are col-lisions, this process may repeat several times. In aCDMA-based system, eachbeckoning transmission willyield information from thetags within range of thereader, even in the presenceof high amounts of noise.”While the researchers test
the simulation with largernumbers of tags and improve the design,they are looking for an RFID manufac-turer to assist them in obtaining the nec-essary tools to alter the tags, so they cantest CDMA-based RFID in the real world.“There have been discussions about future teams expanding this project todesign a versatile RFID system that canswitch between current and CDMA pro-tocols, and even work as a tag-locatingsystem,” Doany says. “We hope to in-volve future senior design teams and/orgraduate students on the expansion ofthis project.” —Mark Roberti
10 RFID JOURNAL • MARCH/APRIL 2016
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PERSPECTIVEOUT IN FRONT
Reading Tags in SpaceTexas State University engineering studentsare designing an RFID system that couldread multiple tags simultaneously.
TECHNOLOGY
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International Space Station
In Iowa, more than 2 billion poundsof nitrogen fertilizer are used togrow corn, and roughly 20 percent
of the nitrogen, in the form of nitrate,runs off into lakes and rivers. Nitrate isfood for the algae and plankton that livein these waterways, leading to excessivegrowth of these organisms. After they
die, the decomposing organisms depletethe water of oxygen, killing fish. Two University of Iowa colleagues—
Anton Kruger, professor of electrical andcomputer engineering, and Craig Just,assistant professor of civil and environ-mental engineering—were discussinghow to monitor the impact of nitrate inthe Iowa River and reduce the amount ofnitrate that flows down into the Missis-sippi Delta. They decided to equip fresh-water mussels, which consume algaeand phytoplankton, with tiny sensorsand radio transmitters and use them tomonitor the health of Iowa rivers. Theyalso wanted to show that mussels canhelp remove nitrate from the water. Themollusks’ excrement contains ammoniaand urea; the urea more readily deposits
to the riverbed than the water, Just says, and bacteria convert the ammoniainto nitrogen gas that bubbles harm-lessly to the surface. For the study, a team of students at-
tached a magnet to one side of eachmussel’s shell and a sensor connected toa wireless transmitter to the other side.
The tiny battery-poweredsensor can detect changesin the magnetic field eachtime a mussel opens andcloses its valve. If the valveopens and closes moreoften, it means there ismore food in the water,which could mean morenitrate.The data was sent via a
radio transmitter to a basestation. The team used ra-
dios that operate in the 400 MHz range,and can transmit 10 feet or so in the river.The researchers hope to obtain fund-
ing to develop the prototype sensorsinto ad hoc mesh networks that couldcommunicate with receivers on buoys,so the data could be relayed by a Wi-Fior cellular network to researchers in thelab. If they can show the mussels im-prove the water quality, they might beable to convince government agenciesand businesses to help restore the fresh-water mussel population, which is anendangered species. “The mussels areanalogous to the canary in the coalmine,” Kruger says. “If they are healthy,the water is healthy. If they are notdoing well, then you know there is aproblem.” —M.R.
RF-Enabling MusselsECOLOGY
11RFID JOURNAL • MARCH/APRIL 2016
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MusselAtrophyPercentage of North Americanmussel species either extinctor imperiled:
70
Percentage of decline amongEuropean mussel populations:
90
Percentage of industrial wastedeveloping nations dump intowaters untreated:
70
Percentage of oceanicacidification increasethroughout the past twocenturies:
25
Total number of embankmentdams in operation worldwide:
100,000
Projected global market forcultured pearls by 2020:
$10.7 billion
—Rich Handley
Each mollusk wears a sensor connected to a wireless transmitter.
Mollusks provide scientists with data aboutthe amount of nitrate in rivers.
12 RFID JOURNAL • MARCH/APRIL 2016
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How RFID Will ReachMass AdoptionSolutions must become simpler to deploy and use,as well as more scalable.
According to Geoffrey Moore, author of Crossing theChasm and other important books on the technologyadoption life cycle, new technologies follow a clear
and consistent path to mass adoption. First, visionaries seethe great potential of a new technology and jump on board,but the vast majority of companies do not follow their lead.Instead, they wait, because the technology seems immatureand risky. And the technology falls into the chasm.
Over time, companies with a compelling business problem that no other technology can solve adopt the newtechnology and solutions begin to mature. At some point, thetechnology crosses the chasm between visionaries and the“early majority.” Eventually, enough companies in one industry adopt the technology that it hits critical mass andjust about everyone in that industry adopts it. From there, it
spreads to other industriesand eventually reaches massadoption.
Radio frequency identifica-tion has followed exactly thispath. Walmart was an early vi-sionary, along with the U.S. De-partment of Defense and a fewother organizations. But thevast majority of companies didnot follow their lead, and in2007 RFID plunged into thechasm. Since then, we have
seen companies across many industries deploy the technol-ogy to solve specific business problems, including lost or mis-placed assets, inventory inaccuracies and shipping issues.
Retail is one industry that has embraced RFID more thanall others, because virtually all retailers share a commonbusiness problem—inaccurate inventory data and resultingout-of-stocks. But only a dozen or so retailers have deployedRFID in all their stores, and the vast majority of retailers havenot begun using RFID in any serious way. So what needs tohappen for RFID to reach mass adoption in retail and thenspread to other industries?
Moore says five conditions must exist for a technology toreach mass adoption:
• A global standard • A problem no other technology can solve• The “whole” product (integrated solution)• Critical mass of end users• A “gorilla” the market can embrace (a dominant tech-
nology provider)In retail, there is a global standard for RFID. Virtually all
retailers RFID-tracking clothing, footwear and accessories are using passive ultrahigh-frequency technology based
RFID JOURNAL • MARCH/APRIL 2016
PERSPECTIVE: THE STORY BEHIND THE NEWS
Virtually all retailersRFID-trackingclothing, footwearand accessories areusing passive UHFtechnology basedon the ISO 18000-6C standard.
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on the ISO 18000-6C standard. There is a problem no othertechnology can solve (cost-effectively): lack of inventory visibility and accurate inventory data.
But there is no whole product yet. Retailers typically haveto buy tags from one company, readers from another andsoftware from a third. It’s unlikely one company will everprovide the entire solution. Just as the PC industry had Mi-crosoft, Intel and IBM in the early days, it will likely be threeRFID companies coming together to provide a complete solution. Some systems integrators will provide software andsource readers and tags for retailers.
The whole product alsomust be relatively simple todeploy. For years before Applecreated the iPod, a consumerwho wanted mobile access toMP3 files had to buy a separateMP3 player, CD ripper and soft-ware and copy songs from CDs.Apple developed a whole solu-tion that included the iMacwith a built-in CD-ROM drive,software for copying songs toiTunes, and iTunes to createplaylists and copy the songs tothe iPod. But it wasn’t just thatApple created a complete solu-tion. The iPod took off becauseiTunes and the iPod were easyto use.
Today’s retail RFID solutions are not simple to deploy. Com-panies can use handhelds to take inventory, but most retailerswant overhead readers that provide real-time inventory. Intelhas created an overhead reader that is designed to be easy todeploy and use, and is relatively inexpensive. It remains to be seen if that solution will lead to industrywide adoption,but Intel appears to be one of the few companies trying to simplify always-on inventory data collection.
When RFID becomes easier to deploy and use, as well asmore scalable, more retailers will quickly adopt it and thetechnology will reach critical mass. All chains will begin usingRFID and all clothing will have manufacturer-applied tags.Then, RFID will rapidly spread to sporting goods, jewelry andauto parts retailing (that’s already beginning to happen).
WILL RFID GO BEYOND RETAIL?
It’s difficult to say. Apparel is RF-friendly, so deployment canbe made relatively simple. Tagging metal parts in a factorywill always involve special tags. One day, these tags might be
built into parts, but it’s unlikely that will happen unless keyplayers in an industry make it happen. Airbus and Boeing are driving parts tagging in the aerospace sector, and the U.S. Department of Defense is doing the same in the defensesector. It’s possible these industries will achieve mass adop-tion and the technology will then spread to other manufac-turing sectors, such as automotive and electronics.
It’s likely many industries would adopt RFID if providersmade always-on overhead readers that were easy to installand configure and were relatively low-cost. I’m not sure whythat’s such a big if. Where’s RFID’s Steve Jobs? —Mark Roberti
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RFID JOURNAL • MARCH/APRIL 2016
Intel has created anoverhead readerthat is designed tobe easy to deployand use, and isrelativelyinexpensive. Itremains to be seenif that solution willlead toindustrywideadoption.
The retail sector is clearly following the technologyadoption life cycle explained by Geoffrey Moore in hisbook Crossing the Chasm. Marks & Spencer, Macy’s and
other early adopters have proven the benefits of using RFID,and now more retailers are following their lead.
RFID Journal is seeing an increase in the number of retailers subscribing to our retail newsletter. Another note-worthy trend is the increasing number of companies thatprovide labels for clothing manufacturers signing up for that newsletter. As retailers ask their apparel suppliers to tagclothing, the clothing label suppliers are no doubt beingasked to integrate RFID into their labels. This is important,because adoption cannot reach critical mass until apparel istagged at the source.
Moreover, since the beginning of the year, RFID Journalhas published 15 news stories on the use of RFID in retail.That compares with six articles during the same time in 2015. The retailers featured in the 2016 articles are from theUnited States, Europe, Asia and South America. And while all the solutions are based on solving a common problem—inventory inaccuracy, which results in lost sales—some retailers are also using RFID to improve customer service andachieve other benefits.
Retail Articles in 2016Gieves & Hawkes Installs RFID to Prevent Shrinkage, Track InventoryThe men’s clothing retailer has deployed RFID at its store inBirmingham, England, and is implementing the solution atits newest store in Hackney, an East London borough.
RFID JOURNAL • MARCH/APRIL 2016
Anecdotal evidence suggests thatthe number of retailers deployingRFID solutions is accelerating.
RFID Adoptionin Retail GainsMomentum
PERSPECTIVE: THE STORY BEHIND THE NEWS
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American Apparel, Postmates Use RFID Visibility for On-Demand DeliveryPostmates is offering one-hour delivery of the clothingcompany’s products in 31 cities, using RFID data that tellsshoppers which goods are available within theirgeographical area.
Retailer Uses RFID, Social Media and Cameras to Track Shopper BehaviorISA Fashion Boutique, a seller of international luxurybrands in Hong Kong, China and Macau, has deployed anRFID inventory-management system.
Publix Plans to Automate Specialty Drug Management Via RFIDThe U.S. supermarket chain, which has 980 pharmacylocations, is implementing a drug-management system thatwill let pharmacists automatically track high-value, low-volume specialty medications on consignment.
Reebok, Music Festival Reach Out to Visitors With iGotcha RFID SolutionAthletic footwear and apparel company Reebok is using anRFID solution to display product information to visitors atits Innovation Showroom.
SportLife Tracks Athletic Shoes, ApparelThe Colombian retailer of athletic shoes, apparel andequipment deployed an RFID system at its 38 stores and its distribution center, to reduce labor costs and out-of-stocks.
RFID Brings Customer Shipments into Focus for Eyewear CompanyNorwegian online eyewear company Extra Optical ispiloting an RFID shipping solution to automatically trackevery pair of glasses it ships to customers, and to trigger anotification to each customer when his or her shipment isabout to be delivered to that person’s home or office.
PERSPECTIVE: THE STORY BEHIND THE NEWS
RFID JOURNAL • MARCH/APRIL 2016
Macy’s confidencein its RFID-basedinventory dataenables thecompany to listgoods for saleonline even whenthere is only onesuch item availableat the store.
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Singapore Fashion Company Adopts RFID to Be on the Cutting EdgeDecks is RFID-tagging all its merchandise at the source, andis using the technology to expedite inventory counts andsales transactions, with the goal of boosting sales andattracting and retaining employees.
C&A Rolls Out RFID to All of Its French StoresThe apparel company is expanding its RFID deployment to164 sites, to boost sales by improving the availability ofitems on shelves.
Japanese Retailer Aeon Checks Out Checkpoint’s RFID-enabled RobotThe general-merchandise chain Aeon Retail is piloting anRFID-enabled robot to track inventory at its flagship storein Chiba, and is rolling out an RFID-based electronic articlesurveillance system.
German Clothing Retailer Adler Gives RFID Robots a SpinAdler Modemärkte is using an RFID-enabled robot at itsstore in the city of Erfurt and a store at its corporateheadquarters in Haibach, to count inventory and identifythe locations of merchandise on store shelves each day.
Macy’s Launches Pick to the Last Unit Program for Omnichannel SalesThe retailer’s confidence in its RFID-based inventory dataenables the company to list goods for sale online evenwhen there is only one such item available at the store. Inthe past, inventory counts were simply not precise enoughto ensure that a particular product was actually in stock andavailable for sale.
Rebecca Minkoff Adds RFID to More Stores, Boosts SalesThe high-end fashion retailer is now using RFID at its storesin New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, to improvecustomer service.
RFID Pops Up in Mobile Interactive StoresShopWithMe pop-up stores are visiting cities and sellingmerchandise via RFID technology that displays productinformation automatically when a shopper picks up aproduct and tries it on in a fitting room. It also streamlinesthe purchase process.
G-Star RAW Store Finds Many Uses for RFIDThe RFID solution deployed at G-Star’s New York storetracks inventory, manages sales transactions and security,and improves customer service.
PERSPECTIVE: THE STORY BEHIND THE NEWS
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Several years ago, being an RFID laggard could be considered a safe, even smartmove. After all, RFID was an expensive new technology that didn’t always workso well. Let other aerospace and energy companies, hospitals, manufacturers,logistics providers and retailers figure out where and how to use it—andwhether it was possible to achieve a return on investment.
Well, early adopters in each of those industries did exactly that. Theyworked with RFID providers and standards organizations and, as a result, thetechnology has improved, prices have dropped and standards have coalesced.Just as important, companies in each industry have developed solid business
It’s time to get up to speedon RFID, before your competitors
leave you in the dust.
by samuel greengard
Laggards!Listen Up,
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“If you are on the sidelines, Iencourage youto consider thereason(s) youhave not adoptedRFID andaddress themaccordingly.”BILL HARDGRAVE,AUBURN UNIVERSITY
cases for employing RFID, and many haveshared information documenting the benefits,including cost savings, improved efficiencies,better inventory control, safer operations andmore satisfied customers.
To be sure, RFID is still not a plug-and-playtechnology. Any reliable RFID provider or systems integrator will advise companies considering RFID to first conduct testing todemonstrate proof of concept and then pilotthe technology. That’s one of the critical bestpractices early adopters have developed for deploying the technology successfully.
And RFID has not yet reached the tippingpoint in any industry, though that’s likely tooccur in apparel retail within the next year ortwo. The need to compete in an omnichannelworld is one of the business cases drivingadoption. Retailers now understand that in-store inventory accuracy is key to omnichannel retailing, and RFID is the only efficient way to achieve it. In a recent Tuned Incolumn, Bill Hardgrave, dean of Auburn University’s Harbert College of Business andfounder of the RFID Research Center, said: “I firmly believe retailers must adapt to an omnichannel world or they will not survive.”
RFID adoption is making steady gains inmost other sectors. Recently, David Johnson,American Woodmark’s materials technologyand projects manager, said custom and officefurniture manufacturers “are coming around toRFID” because they understand how the tech-nology can address manufacturing problems byproviding visibility into the production process(see Automating Craftsmanship). AmericanWoodmark adopted the technology enter-prisewide to better compete in the remodelingand new-home construction markets.
In fact, there’s been a notable shift in thismagazine’s Vertical Focus articles, which exam-ine RFID adoption in particular sectors. In thepast, each story typically highlighted a few earlyadopters that were benefiting from RFID andexplained the challenges the industry faced inusing the technology, including identifying the business case, cost and tag readability. Nowthe benefit-challenge balance has shifted in di-verse industries, including steel manufacturers,
mining companies, airports, horticulturalfirms, and wine and spirits makers. In each sector, the business cases have been identified,and while some deployment challenges stillexist, more end users are adopting RFID andseeing a return on their investment.
In some industries, government regula-tions are driving RFID adoption. Farmersworldwide, for example, are using the technology to identify livestock for diseasemanagement and prevention. In the UnitedStates, medical device manufacturers and foodproducers are exploring the technology tomeet U.S. Food and Drug Administration man-dates. The FDA’s Unique Device Identificationsystem requires that most medical devicescarry a unique device identifier to facilitatequick and efficient recalls. The Food SafetyModernization Act, which takes effect in Janu-ary 2017, will require growers to monitor envi-ronmental conditions. Other companies areadopting RFID to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act or facilitate state audits. In each case,organizations that adopt RFID to meet theseregulations also find internal benefits.
In 2016, being an RFID laggard is no longera smart or safe move. “In today’s global busi-ness environment, technology innovation isthe key to success,” states Nandini Bhat-tacharya, a Frost & Sullivan senior research analyst. “Laggard companies are left behind bytheir peers. RFID is a critical component because it works in tandem with many othertechnologies.”
Hardgrave was addressing retailers when henoted: “If you are on the sidelines, I encourageyou to consider the reason(s) you have notadopted RFID and address them accordingly.”But clearly, this advice holds true for any laggard company. “It’s impossible to constantlybe on the leading edge of technology adoption,”he says, “but it’s also important to stay focusedon how it’s possible to innovate and use thetechnology to achieve maximum value.”
Addressing your RFID laggard status can bea challenge. If you’re still sitting on the side-lines watching your competitors benefit fromthe technology, here are four strategies to helpyou get in the game.
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Know the TechnologyAdoption CycleFirst, to understand why it’s no longer smartor safe to be an RFID laggard, it’s essential toknow how companies adopt new technologies.When author and technology advisor GeoffreyA. Moore penned his landmark book Crossingthe Chasm in 1991, he ushered in a far deeperunderstanding of the way organizations approach and use information technology. Although the book focuses on business and ITin a general way, the lessons learned are highlyapplicable to RFID projects.
New IT technologies, Moore says, passthrough several distinct stages before theygain widespread adoption. In the first stage,technology innovators and early adopterssponsor visionary projects intended to gain adramatic competitive advantage.
In the second stage, called the “chasm,” ven-dors offer these solutions to other end users,but the technology meets with resistance because it isn’t complete enough to satisfy alltheir needs. The technology must cross thechasm for pragmatists (what Everett Rogers, inthe original work on technology diffusion,called the ”early majority”) to invest in it. To doso, Moore says, vendors must solve a painfuland otherwise intractable problem and, withinthe constraints of that specific problem, bringto market a complete solution.
Based on evidence from logistics, livestockmanagement and luxury consumer goods retail, in 2012, Moore observed: “RFID hascrossed the ‘chasm’ period in which earlyadopters conduct projects while the rest of theworld is in a wait-and-see mode. That meansRFID is not going away.”
The vast majority of enterprise buying deci-sions, Moore says, are made by pragmatists orconservatives (Rogers’ “late majority”). Most organizations, he says, position themselveshere, to remain competitive without takingundue risks. Pragmatists go when they see theproductivity gains outweigh the change-management demands, whereas conservativespostpone until the world simply will not put up
with their old-fashioned ways anymore.“Conservatives don’t trust their own judg-
ment,” Moore says. But, he adds, they can bewon over when they see their organizationisn’t breaking new ground—that others intheir industry are benefiting from the tech-nology. At this stage in the RFID adoption lifecycle, conservatives are beginning to learnabout the technology—reading case studiesand white papers, attending RFID eventsand/or conducting proofs of concept. They understand the risk of falling too far behindthe early adopters and pragmatists.
By focusing solely on technology and notprocess automation, laggards too often under-estimate the time and steps required to movean RFID initiative forward, says Su Doyle,Checkpoint Systems’ director of RFID applica-tions. While RFID is becoming faster and easierto deploy, it’s important to take the time to in-tegrate the data into core business applications.Establishing committees, identifying organiza-tional goals and opportunities, and building outthe IT framework and systems can take weeksor months—all while the current RFID environ-ment continues to shift and advance.
Finding the sweet spot on the technologycurve is easier said than done. It requires an eyeon your industry, another on the technology,and an understanding of how business condi-tions are changing. “Some businesses that de-ployed advanced RFID solutions a few years agomay now face the challenge of spending moremoney to bring them up to date through up-grades or entirely new hardware, software andsystems,” Bhattacharya points out. Conversely,she notes, some laggards may benefit by enter-ing the space with little or no existing baggageor overhead. They may have the luxury ofadopting a state-of-the-art solution whileavoiding integration problems.
Address Cultural IssuesOf course, an organization can lead in one areaand lag in another. Or it can establish itself asa leader in a space and later, due to advancesin technology or changing business condi-
“RFID has crossedthe ‘chasm’period in whichearly adoptersconduct projectswhile the rest ofthe world is in await-and-seemode. Thatmeans RFID isnot going away.”GEOFFREY A. MOORE,AUTHOR
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tions, find itself trailing the pack. “Organiza-tions that may have been leaders at some pointin the past may now be lagging in terms ofRFID adoption and use,” Doyle says.
It’s no secret that an organization’s culturecan make or break an initiative. Companiesthat trail peers often have an entrenched “risk-averse” mentality, Moore says. Either theydon’t recognize the need to change or they par-rot the axiom “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Butin today’s business environment, standing stillcan easily translate into moving backward.Fear or indifference can lead to inaction and,ultimately, failure. “Although visionary andearly adopting cultures tend to move toward asolution voluntarily, pragmatists, conserva-tives and laggards often require some type ofevent to galvanize action,” he explains.
Too often, organizations become stuck onshort-term goals and capital expenditures anddon’t think about how to build a long-termfoundation for success. RFID represents a siz-able capital expenditure and it demands con-siderable IT and other resources, so sliding thedial from resistance to an embrace requiressomeone who can see the value of RFID, serveas a visionary and communicate the valueproposition, Hardgrave says. “Company cul-ture can change—and it’s possible to overcomeresistance—but it’s a difficult and sometimesfrustrating process.” Most organizations, hesays, follow a predictable pattern. If they areinnovators overall, they will be innovatorswith RFID. If not, they will lag behind in RFIDadoption, or, at least, not benefit as much asthey could because they fail to integrate thetechnology with other IT systems and tools.
One thing that makes it so difficult tochange a culture is the fact that “companiesthat are laggards or late to the game often windup rewarded because they suffer no strategicor competitive harm,” Hardgrave says. “Theprocess becomes reinforced over time.” But ata certain point, the entire business landscapechanges, the model breaks and the companyfinds itself floundering—or even fighting for survival. “There is a point at which an organization faces a competitive disadvantagethat it cannot overcome,” he explains. “They
are simply too far behind the curve.”Cultural change is “really difficult” but
possible, says Ed Nabrotzky, Omni-ID’s chiefsolutions officer. The process, he says, beginswith a visionary or group that recognizes thebenefits of an RFID initiative and communi-cates this to senior executives, a CIO and otherkey decision makers. “The No. 1 selling pointfor business leaders is ROI,” he says. “You haveto establish a use case that is compelling. Youhave to have a way to sway management to authorize an initiative.”
This, Nabrotzky adds, means research. Areothers in your industry using RFID? What havetheir experiences been? It then means build-ing a business case that delivers a clear view ofthe opportunities and benefits. “It’s ultimatelyabout how you can make money, cut costs orfundamentally change things for the better,”he says. “If you can provide a solid businesscase and demonstrate value, you can breakthrough the cultural inertia or resistance.”
Develop a Strategic PlanWhile many industries have developed busi-ness cases for RFID, you have to understandwhere and how RFID supports your organiza-tion’s goals. Some hospitals, for example, areinitially using the technology to manage high-value assets while others are deploying it to improve patient flow or increase hand-washing compliance. Similarly, some automo-tive companies are first adopting RFID tomanage returnable transport items, while others are implementing it in factories tomanage tools or track work-in-process.
A good starting point for developing a strat-egy and a plan, Hardgrave says, is to under-stand the conditions in which a businesscompetes and how RFID can change the stakes.Although every industry and organization isdifferent and there’s no single template forsuccess, the common denominator is a needto understand what RFID can do, where itmakes sense and how it leads to real-worlddollar gains. A persuasive business case, Hardgrave says, often revolves around a more
“The No. 1 sellingpoint forbusiness leadersis ROI. You haveto establish ause case that iscompelling. Youhave to have away to swaymanagement toauthorize aninitiative.”ED NABROTZKY,OMNI-ID
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24 RFID JOURNAL • MARCH/APRIL 2016
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automated real-time business model that letsan enterprise update, change, customize ortrack products in a way that would have beenunimaginable only a few years earlier.
Companies must work from a value propo-sition to a solution, Doyle says. The questionsthat need to be asked include: “What is the organization attempting to accomplish? Howcan we improve functions and processes? Howcan we monetize this particular technology? If a company can solve multiple businessproblems and improve things like financialperformance, costs and regulatory compli-ance, it’s possible to move to adoption withouta lot of resistance. No longer is RFID viewed asa niche technology or a one-off tool but, rather,a valuable technology that can solve real challenges and help transform the business.”
The strategic plan must also involve building a coalition of support for your RFIDinitiative. If you’re a department or mid-levelmanager who understands the benefits of RFID,Nabrotzky says, it’s important to identify an allywho has influence within the organization. “Ifyou have a team that can stand shoulder-to-shoulder and say, ‘This is absolutely the rightthing to do and here is why: It saves money, itmakes people’s jobs easier, it delivers better cus-tomer sales or service’—and you can supportthis with facts and numbers—it goes a long waytoward reducing anxiety and achieving buy-in.”
Information is one of the best ways to buildsupport. Invite potential team members toRFID events, so they can learn from thoughtleaders and other companies in your industrythat have adopted RFID and are willing to sharetheir experiences. This presents an opportu-nity for your designated ally and others in yourorganization to ask questions and gain adeeper understanding of business benefits,opportunities and challenges, Nabrotzky says.
In addition, reach out to your business partners that have deployed RFID successfully.They can provide a valuable outside-in per-spective along with ideas about how to moveforward. “In many cases, business partners arewilling to share expertise because an inte-grated supply chain and more comprehensivetagging earlier in the product life cycle bene-
fits everyone,” Doyle says. In fact, discussingprojects that have the potential to yield mutual gains could provide the impetus to puta project into motion.
Lay the Groundwork“Businesses need to understand that in today’senvironment, disruption is the new normaland innovation is critical,” Moore says. “If youdon’t transform, you’re going to be put out ofexistence.”
While your organization may not be readyto fully embrace RFID, the end goal is to movefrom a risk-averse culture to one that has roomfor innovation. Organizations frequently benefit from creating incubation zones fortesting and experimentation, Moore says. It’salso wise to zone off portions of the businessfor traditional activities and understand where and how to apply new and innovativetechnologies. Laggard companies that engagein pilots and test projects learn from initia-tives—both successes and failures—and, ultimately, begin to view risk and disruptionas opportunity.
The price of RFID technology has dropped tothe point at which the risk-reward model hasflipped to a far more favorable position formost businesses, Nabrotzky says. “We nowhave ultralow-cost microtransmitters that op-erate on tiny power or no power at all that canbe embedded into all sorts of devices or putinto applications,” he says. “We also have RFIDstandards firmly in place. So the technologyhas arrived. It’s now a matter of figuring outhow to use it and make it work within an overall framework of information technology.”
As RFID adoption ramps up in most industries, organizations that may have beenrewarded for standing on the sidelines can nolonger remain spectators. “As long as a markethas not been disrupted, it’s not a bad strategyto be a conservative or a laggard,” Moore says.“But when conditions shift, it’s important tobe equipped to move forward. Having yourhead in the sand and avoiding innovation is asure way to get killed.”
“If a companycan solvemultiplebusinessproblems andimprove thingslike financialperformance,costs andregulatorycompliance, it’spossible to moveto adoptionwithout a lot ofresistance.”SU DOYLE,CHECKPOINT SYSTEMS
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 fromRFID Journal events, including:
• RFID in Health Care
• RFID in Energy
• RFID in Aerospace
• RFID in Manufacturing
• RFID in Retail and Apparel
• RFID in Supply Chain andLogistics
UPDATED WITH NEW CASE STUDIES
VERTICAL FOCUS: UTILITIES
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TOCKPHOTOGas, electric and water companiesslowly adopt RFID to reduce costs
and improve services.
by jennifer zaino
Ground Control
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“The utilitiesindustry is veryconservative. Ithas beenresisting, to adegree, some ofthe newtechnology.”
JIM ANSPACH, CARDNO
RFID, often in combination with other tech-nologies, can help utility companies save timeand money by speeding their ability to locateand identify assets, thereby facilitating in-spections and services. The solutions also provide a more cost-effective way to complywith government regulations.
In addition, the ability to quickly locate critical assets during an emergency can reduceinfrastructure damage and enable utilities torestore services to customers within hoursrather than days. Responding to the natural gasexplosion that took place in Seattle in Marchwas delayed, in part, because workers had tofind and then drill down to underground gasshutoff valves, says Mike Klonsinski, interna-tional business development director forBerntsen, which makes the InfraMarker RFIDsystem.
A public works group responsible for waterutility maintenance is considering using RFIDto help it speed repairs when a water mainblows, preventing thousands of gallons ofwater from becoming waste, says RobertZielinski, CDO Technologies’ director of com-mercial marketing. Multiple valves sit atstreet-level intersections, and each valve con-trols a different water line and has a differentset of tooling and on/off configuration proce-dures. “If they had a passive UHF RFID tag nextto each valve, repair crews could read them[even through inches of water] to find outwhich valve controls which line and what tooling is needed for it,” he says.
Clearly, several strong business cases existfor using RFID in the utilities sector. RFIDproviders say utility companies now under-
stand what the technology is and how it canaddress their problems, and interest in theirsolutions is picking up. But while some utilitycompanies have deployed RFID systems (see “Where in the World Is RFID Helping Utilities?” on page 31), many are not in a rushto embrace the technology.
Cost, especially for small, local utility firms,remains a barrier to adoption, as does the industry’s culture. “The utilities industry isvery conservative,” says Jim Anspach, directorat Cardno, which coordinates and conductsworldwide research of utility issues, andfounding governor of the American Society ofCivil Engineers’ Utility Engineering and Surveying Institute. “It has been resisting, to adegree, some of the new technology.”
One concern utilities have is that they’ll become too efficient using technologies likeRFID, Anspach says. “They can’t put them-selves in danger of not being able to, say, carryenough manpower on a regular basis to han-dle those emergencies that crop up,” he says.
ABOVE GROUND
RFID really shines when it comes to deliveringfield data to workers that identifies an assetand its history, CDO’s Zielinski says. Workerscan know when activities, such as inspections,were conducted, and who performed those operations. They can also see which tools arerequired for repair services. Moreover, compa-nies that tag poles at the point of manufacturecan use RFID for asset tracking at storage yards(see “A Lifetime of Benefits” on page 29).
A few years ago, for example, the Orange-
Cities and towns worldwide are populated with a wide varietyof cables, pipes and poles that supply us with electricity, gasand water. These assets, made of concrete, metal, plastic orwood, reside above and below ground. Every day, workersspend hours in the field inspecting the integrity of theseitems, doing essential maintenance and repairs, and ensuringother utility or construction firms working in the vicinitydon’t accidently damage them. Much of that time is spentlocating the assets and manually updating records.
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Assets that are RFID-tagged at the manufacturing plant can be tracked from construction throughmaintenance and operational inspectionsfor quality control.
burg Department of Public Utilities (DPU), inOrangeburg, S.C., began rolling out an RFIDsystem from Sustainable Management Sys-tems, to improve maintenance and repair op-erations on roughly 30,000 poles that supplyelectricity to some 25,000 customers. Thepoles are identified with passive RFID tags,and each tag’s identification number is associ-ated with DPU’s geographic information sys-tem (GIS), to provide a visual understanding ofevery pole’s location via GPS coordinates, saysSMS CEO Barry Breede.
SMS’ Pole Information Management System(PIMS) software is also integrated with theDPU’s GIS database. Office personnel use PIMSto assign inspection and maintenance work.Field workers read the tags with RFID hand-helds or RFID-equipped iOS or Android smart-phones or tablets. “PIMS self-populates allassets on that pole from transformers to lightsto wiring [from the GIS], and then the inspec-tor makes an assessment of the condition ofthose items,” Breede says. An inspector canphotograph problems and transmit those
images, along with an updated maintenancerecord for the RFID-identified asset, to the GIS, to streamline communications and speedrepairs.
Before-and-after studies of the Orangeburgutility’s inspection process “showed time andlabor rates improved along with dollar sav-ings,” Breede says. “In this case, it paid backwithin a year of implementation, so that’s apretty quick return.” But, he notes, RFID forsuch use cases makes more sense for utilitiesthat have a certain scale to them—larger cooperatives or investor-owned utilities, forinstance.
BELOW GROUND
RFID in passive and even most active formsdoesn’t provide X-ray vision to an asset buriedmore than a foot in moist, metal-filled dirt,CDO’s Zielinski says. While it can help detectthe zone an asset is in, it can’t pinpoint theasset’s location for absolute assurance that agas or fiber line, for instance, won’t be hit P
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“Anycontracting workthat could hit ordamage themain sewer linewould be afinancial andenvironmentaldisaster.”
ANDY LAFOND, THIENSVILLE PUBLICWORKS
when utility crews start digging, he says. Forbetter location accuracy, underground solu-tions may equip an asset with RFID and othercapabilities, such as GPS receivers or cellularconnections and services. But that, he says,represents a more significant investment thanfor a passive tag, which could limit the type ofutility assets on which the technology can bedeployed.
The one-square-mile village of Thiensville,in Wisconsin, implemented Berntsen’s Infra-Marker RFID system, to ensure any diggingtaking place there wouldn’t damage its mainsewer line, which intersects with other utili-ties. The solution, designed to find subsurfaceassets, combines RFID with GPS and magneticlocating technologies, and includes handheldreaders and mobile application software. TheUHF tags don’t sit on the iron pipe, but ratherreside above it or slightly off to its side. Thiseliminated the need for Thiensville to digdozens of feet down or through asphalt or con-
crete. RFID identifies the pipe, and the magnetthat sits atop the tag is used in conjunctionwith GPS data to locate it.
While Thiensville never experienced aproblem with its sewage line before imple-menting the RFID system, the process of dis-patching surveyors and trucks to confirm pipelocations and determine whether it was safe todig somewhere was arduous. Andy LaFond, thevillage’s director of public works, believes thelocating system helped to avoid potentialproblems when the WE Energies electrical utility undertook a conversion project that required a lot of boring near the pipe. “Anycontracting work that could hit or damage themain sewer line would be a financial and environmental disaster,” he says. “On average,we pump probably 600,000 to 700,000 gallonsof sewage a day. If we were just to shut that off[if an incident occurred], that would back upbasements with sewage.”
Riviera Utilities, which serves South Bald-
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most rfid utility projects aredesigned to identify cables,pipes and poles once they’re inthe field. But Texas Electric Cooperatives (TEC), which represents dozens of electriccooperatives statewide, wantsto cash in on RFID’s benefitsearly on. TEC is deploying Sus-tainable Management Systems’
YardTrack solution to automate the time-consuming, error-pronemanual processes used to inventory the many thousands of assetsat its Jasper manufacturing facility and yard and at roughly 20member-operated storerooms.
TEC will print the ultrahigh-frequency RFID tags onsite and affix them to the newly manufactured poles. The RR Donnelleytags are encapsulated in weatherproof material and tracked withMotorola Solutions handheld readers. The YardTrack solution in-cludes software, from SMS partner Stratum Global, for identifying
the location of assets in real time. “We showed them we can take athree-, four- or five-day process and winnow that down to lessthan a day in terms of inventory management, and with a higherdegree of accuracy” at the manufacturing yard, says Barry Breede,SMS’ CEO.
The individual co-ops will use fixed readers at the entry and exitpoints of their facilities, to confirm receipt of new poles and identifypoles taken from inventory. “We chose fixed read zones because ofthe need to have 24/7 read capability,” Breede says. “Often, the util-ities must access inventory during nonworking hours, particularlyduring storm response. With inventory visibility, they will quicklyknow how many poles they can deliver after a big storm.”
TEC is now considering using SMS’s Pole Information Manage-ment System (PIMS) for inspection and maintenance in the field.“Doing so would allow TEC and its members the ability to leveragetheir investment in RFID, because we can associate PIMS-drivenfield data with the original data captured in YardTrack,” Breedesays. “Effectively, this will give TEC full life-cycle visibility of itspoles, from manufacturing through final disposal. —J.Z.
A Lifetime of Benefits
VERTICAL FOCUS: UTILITIES
win County in Alabama, participated in a research project conducted by the GeospatialResearch and Applications Center (GRAC) atAuburn University, to determine whether underground assets could be found morequickly with GPS alone or with GPS and theRFID InfraMarkers. “The research we have donewith Riviera and with other projects clearlyproves GPS alone is not sufficient to mark in-frastructure elements,” says Chetan S. Sankar,GRAC’s director. “You need other technologiesin addition to GPS,” he adds, noting that RFIDcan play a very strong role in identifying thoseelements.
The InfraMarker system provides other ben-efits, Sankar says. Every time a tag is interro-gated, that information is captured anddate-stamped for a true audit trail, key for life-cycle management. “With small companies,the utility people have been there for a longtime and often know the history” of their assets, he says. “While it’s helpful there, too, it can be very helpful in big city utilities, where there may be large turnovers of staff,”
and with them asset knowledge. Corley Lauderdale, Riviera’s utilities engi-
neering and field operations superintendentfor gas, water and wastewater, participated inthe research project and is a fan of the Infra-Marker system. But cost played a role in Riv-iera’s decision not to “take things beyond theexperiment stage at this point,” he says. “Eachof the InfraMarker units is about $25 to $30,and that’s rather expensive if you need a fewthousand of them.” Plus, he says, you have toequip workers with handheld readers.
Still, “The potential for RFID adoption byutilities is very high,” Sankar says. He notesthat Auburn students who participated in theresearch projects calculated as much as a 20 percent cost savings using RFID to tag theassets of 10-mile-long gas pipelines. The savings, he says, comes from how quickly onecan identify an asset to fix it.
LaFond notes that Thiensville was fortunatenot to have cost issues around its deployment.The village, he says, is 100 percent debt-free andat the time of its implementation, Berntsen was
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VERTICAL FOCUS: UTILITIES
31RFID JOURNAL • MARCH/APRIL 2016
just developing the technology and provided itat reduced cost in exchange for the utility’sfeedback and efforts in helping it move thetechnology to the next stage.
Klonsinski says it’s important to considerhow the system can help utilities save money.By finding critical underground assets faster,he says, the customer spends less money onlabor, suffers less damage to the infrastruc-ture, and minimizes time wasted from projectsput on hold while assets are located. The solution, he adds, “works best for new con-struction or in places where you already areuncovering assets for inspection or mainte-nance, or new placement or repairs. It’s verycostly just to go ahead and choose to find allyour infrastructure, dig it up and put a tag onit. But if you’re uncovering assets on a regular
basis, you can mark all your infrastructureover time.” That said, Berntsen now offersaboveground markers, so customers can markunderground assets without having to wait forthem to be uncovered.
COMPLIANCE COULD DRIVE ADOPTION
Some utilities may turn to RFID location solu-tions to solve another issue—the need to bettermanage and assure the integrity of under-ground assets, to support compliance withstate or federal safety regulations. Metalliclines that utilities laid 50 to 100 years ago aredeteriorating, says Tony Radoszewski, presi-dent of the Plastics Pipe Institute (PPI). TheU.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipelineand Hazardous Materials Safety Administra-
California Water Utility Uses RFID to Reduce Terrorism RiskAlco is utilizing active tags to control access to its pump stations,as well as track assets, enabling it to locate equipment quickly inthe event of an emergency.
GDF Suez Tries RFID UndergroundThe multinational energy firm is testing a system that employspassive RFID tags to enable the detection of subterranean polyethylene utility pipes.
Heathrow Airport to Use RFID to Map Underground UtilitiesBAA Airports, an owner and operator of seven airports in theUnited Kingdom, plans to use RFID markers to help workers locateunderground pipes and cables before they begin to dig.
RFID Keeps City Sewers Running SmoothlyIn Warendorf, Germany, workers use RFID to track the mainte-nance of the city’s 127-mile network of sewage canals and pipes.
RFID Locates Pipes and Secures Meter Collection for UtilitiesA South American water company is piloting IDMeters’ passiveUHF solution designed to locate pipes above or below ground.
RFID Marks the Underground SpotLondon’s City of Westminster launches a pilot project to use RFID-enabled markers and GPS to identify and manage undergroundmunicipal water pipes and electrical cables.
RFID Tracks Wooden Utility Poles at the Factory and in the FieldCox Industries is using EPC Gen 2 tags to manage the storage andshipment of poles it makes, while a South Carolina city is employ-ing similar tags to manage its poles’ inspection and maintenance.
Westar Energy Tracks Power Poles, Transformers With RFIDThe Kansas utility company uses the technology to automaticallyidentify when each pole and transformer is removed from storageyards, by whom, and when unused items are returned.
Companies worldwide are adopting RFID location solutions, to reign in costs,maintain services and improve safety. Here are some examples.
Where in the World Is RFID Helping Utilities?
“If you’reuncoveringassets on aregular basis, youcan mark all yourinfrastructureover time.”
MIKE KLONSINSKI, BERNTSEN
32 RFID JOURNAL • MARCH/APRIL 2016
VERTICAL FOCUS: UTILITIES
tion (PHMSA) regulations are beginning to require that utilities determine pipeline viability.
“There are increasing regulatory require-ments coming out all the time to improve theinspection and tracking of the nation’s infra-structure,” Klonsinski says. “PHMSA is just oneagency that is becoming more aggressiveabout utility managers tracking the perform-ance and maintenance of the gas transmissioninfrastructure.”
Thiensville, LaFond says, uses the data itwrites back to the RFID tags on its assets withthe InfraMarker system about maintenanceand other actions to help in its reporting toregulating bodies. “Wisconsin has a CapacityMaintenance Overflow and Management pro-gram for sewer systems, so every year it hasbenchmarks and definable goals,” he says.“Having a way to locate and identify our force’smain assets was a benchmark we achieved.”
Riviera’s Lauderdale also sees the benefitsof using RFID to comply with governmentsafety regulations. “We do have regulationspretty specific to the gas industry about doingquarterly and yearly leak surveys of gas systems, an area at a time, and reporting thesurvey results to the Federal Highway Admin-istration,” he says. RFID, he adds, could be used to document gas distribution system leakrepairs.
Ideally, assets should be RFID-tagged atbirth at the manufacturing plant, says LayneTucker, CEO and founder of EchoRFID, whichmakes the PipeTalker asset and integrity datamanagement system, designed to help reducea utility’s liabilities by proving it has done itsdue diligence. “We can locate all material in-stalled in a project and recall its georeferencedlocation,” he says. The solution uses GPS andRFID to track assets and their attributes, fromconstruction through maintenance and opera-tional inspections for quality control. ThePipeTalker software runs on handheld devices,such as smartphones and tablets, and usesopen architecture to integrate with existingGIS systems.
“You want to follow that component,whether it’s a pipe, valve or fitting that goes
into a line during manufacture, and whetherit’s joining plastic pipe together or weldingsteel pipe or fusing something else,” Tuckersays. “You want to have historical constructioninformation from the manufacturing level on,to trace it at the warehouse, and merge it withthe materials management information.” Utility companies buy and sell assets all thetime, he explains, and having good, up-to-datedata on every asset adds to its value.
Should an incident occur, the utility wouldbe able to provide regulatory bodies or government inspectors with information doc-umenting that it had done its due diligence—and it could comply in a more timely mannerthan if it had to dig through piles of paperstored in file cabinets or cartons. “Our systemgets that information electronically in eformsthat are stored in the cloud very securely,” hesays. “We can search our database for any piece of information on any component tiedinto the RFID tag and find it within secondsand print it.”
PPI’s Radoszewski says industry organiza-tions see value in the concept of improvingtraceability. “The whole idea is to take advan-tage of technology that tells you everythingabout the pipe and anything else near it, so if anything goes wrong you can go back and investigate,” he says.
Pipeline integrity management, as demon-strated by solutions like EchoRFID’s, “is rightin line with what we need in this country,”Cardno’s Anspach says. “We really need to doa better job of determining how we are goingto document the utilities we put in the groundtoday, because we didn’t do a very good job ofdocumenting that in the past,” he says.
In the near future, RFID field markers willbecome more even more valuable when theyare embedded with sensors that detect what is going on in the environment aroundthat tag, Klonsinski says. “Knowing that landin which the pipe is located has shifted or that increased gas levels are detected over aweldpoint can give infrastructure managers an early warning that these assets are at risk,”he says. “This technology has the potential to help stop a disaster before it happens.”
“We cansearch ourdatabase for anypiece ofinformation onany componenttied into theRFID tag andfind it withinseconds andprint it.”
LAYNE TUCKER, ECHORFID
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34
When the U.S. Food and drUg adminiS-tration established its Unique Device Iden-tification (UDI) System to improve patientsafety, it did not specify whether device man-ufacturers should use bar codes or RFID tech-nology to identify medical implants, surgicalinstruments and life-support/life-sustainingmachines. The regulation specifies that eachmedical device must carry a unique identifierto facilitate recalls, improve reports about adverse events and thwart counterfeiting. The system leverages human- and machine-readable UDI labeling for identifying medicaldevices, and requires device labelers to submitinformation about each device to the FDA’sGlobal UDI Database. The data includes lot, serial number and expiration date.
While some device manufacturers are opting
to use bar codes to comply with the FDA man-date, other companies see this as an opportu-nity to adopt RFID because it also allows themto improve their internal processes. And whilebar codes may be the easier route to compliance,VueTrack-UDI—which features VueMed’s soft-ware and Zebra Technologies’ hardware—is acomplete solution that facilitates UDI compli-ance and provides supply-chain visibility.
Boston Scientific, Cook Medical, Gore,Medtronic, St. Jude Medical and other large device manufacturers have adopted VueTrack-UDI and are encoding UDI information ontoRFID tags at their distribution facilities. Theyare leveraging the technology for inventorymanagement and chain-of-custody trackingand tracing of products, says Lana Makhanik,VueMed’s COO. “Other companies are opting to
A Turnkey Solution for MedicalDevice ManufacturersVue-Med enables companies to comply with the FDA’s identification mandateand achieve internal and supply-chain benefits.
Making RFIDdeployments faster,cheaper and morereliable—and solutionsmore powerful. by bob violino
RFID JOURNAL • MARCH/APRIL 2016
IN THIS ISSUE: HEALTH CARE • RETAIL • AUTOMOTIVE
VueTrack-UDI includessoftware-as-a-service to enablecost savings forcompanies.
use bar codes, because to shift to RFID involvesa significant retooling of manufacturing andlabeling operations,” she says. “In terms of ex-ecuting this, it’s going to take time.”
Device manufacturers use a Zebra RFIDprinter (R110Xi4, ZD500R or ZT400) to encodeUDI data onto RFID tags and print the requiredlabels. VueTrack-UDI can work with any EPC Gen 2 passive ultrahigh-frequency RFID tagthat has the extended user memory required forUDI on-tag data (512 bytes).
VueTrack-UDI includes software-as-a-ser-vice to enable cost savings for companies, because VueMed handles all software mainte-nance and upgrades. The cost of the softwarevaries based on the size of the implementa-tion, number of locations and so on, Makhaniksays. “It takes just a few seconds to encode,print, validate and register the RFID tag foreach item, creating its unique identification
and providing the ability to track it throughoutits life cycle using the VueMed cloud,” she says.
Manufacturers can view Web-based reportsto track medical devices throughout the supply chain, from their facility to a hospital’s procedure room. The UDI tag data allows users to locate expiring and recalled productsimmediately.
Hospitals that have a fixed or mobile UHFRFID infrastructure can leverage the UDI datafor their own inventory management and sup-plies documentation, including expiration andrecall tracking. “Both the manufacturer and thecustomer, usually a hospital, can know whenthe device showed up at the customer site,”Makhanik says. The data can be integrated withhospital clinical-documentation and electronichealth record systems. VueMed is working witha number of hospitals to deploy such infrastruc-
ture and services during the next few months,she says.
Hospitals must document the supplies theyuse for patient care, as well as those they pur-chase, Makhanik says. “The specifics and de-gree of supply-documentation requirementsmay vary from one hospital to another, but asa general rule all must document any devicesimplanted in patients, along with the lot andserial number and expiration date for each,”she says. “Most hospitals are also interested incapturing this information, either before or atthe time of receipt into the facility.”
Manufacturers and hospitals don’t need touse the same software, as long as they’re ableto refer to the same item or same instance ofan item, Makhanik says. VueMed’s softwareand cloud data management enable this visi-bility and data cross-references between hos-pitals and manufacturers, as well as between
various systems within a hospital, she says. Because VueTrack-UDI encodes the UDI datadirectly onto the tag, the data can be read byany UHF RFID-compliant technology.
The medical device industry has long suf-fered from a lack of supply-chain visibility andthe ability to do any meaningful supply-chainforecasting, Makhanik says, including knowingwhat items are in the field, when they’re due toexpire, where recalled items are, and which devices have been used for patient care. Thishas resulted in billions of dollars of waste formanufacturers and hospitals, as well as short-ages and inefficiencies in the supply chain andclinical and patient safety risks, she says.
“The current state is that each trading part-ner—manufacturer, distributor and hospital—typically uses its own way to identify theproducts it is selling, distributing or purchas-
35RFID JOURNAL • MARCH/APRIL 2016
PHOTO
S: VUEM
ED
Devicemanufacturers use a Zebra RFIDprinter to encodeUDI data ontoRFID tags and printthe required labels.
PHOTO
: SML
36
Clarity 3.X software canmanage inventorydata collectedfrom fixed andhandheld RFIDreaders, as well asfrom ceilingreaders androbots.
RFID JOURNAL • MARCH/APRIL 2016
When XterpriSe introdUced Clarity’s Ad-vanced Retail System (ARS) in 2008, the soft-ware was designed specifically to enableretailers to use item-level RFID data to improveinventory accuracy in stores. American Ap-parel, one of the first retailers to adopt the solution, rolled it out to more than 250 storesworldwide. The ARS software platform fea-tured five modules for in-store retail applica-tions and in-store servers to collect andmanage the RFID-generated data. The solutionhelped American Apparel reduce overall
inventory by 15 percent and boost sales by 3 percent. Two unexpected benefits were a reduction in shrinkage and a decrease in em-ployee turnover.
Many developments have occurred sincethen. SML Group bought Xterprise in 2013, andchanged its name to SML Intelligent InventorySolutions in 2015, to better reflect its strategy toprovide RFID-enabled inventory-managementsolutions to the apparel market. More apparelretailers began deploying item-level tracking at hundreds of their stores—often within
Retail Software Grows UpSML takes Clarity to the cloud, to help Tesco and otherretailers manage enterprisewide inventory processesmore effectively.
ing, creating numerous disparities in the data,which takes a lot of time and resources to rec-oncile and manage,” Makhanik says.
Although the FDA regulation is aimed at device makers to ensure product safety, theUDI System has broad implications for thehealth-care supply chain. In addition to pa-tient safety, Makhanik says, “UDI adoption
holds numerous potential benefits in gainingsubstantial improvements in supply-chainand workflow efficiencies, data accuracy andmanagement, complete inventory visibility,and significant enhancements in trading-partner relationships across the industry as awhole. VueTrack-UDI was designed to helpachieve these goals for all trading partners.”
months—and at distribution centers. And now,retailers also want to provide their customerswith an omnichannel shopping experience.
Retailers moving toward chainwide adop-tion of RFID for inventory management beganasking for software that could support a broadspectrum of business processes without theneed for costly in-store servers, says DeanFrew, SML’s chief technology officer and seniorVP of RFID solutions.
To address this demand, in 2013, SML beganworking with U.K. retailer Tesco to developClarity 3.X software. Tesco wanted to adoptRFID to boost customer service at its more than500 F&F brand stores, by reducing out-of-stocks and freeing up sales associates fromperforming manual stock counts, so theycould spend more time assisting shoppers.
Retailers today require highly scalable solutions that support hundreds of stores—simultaneously performing stock counts andreplenishment processes, and tracking deliv-eries, Frew says. That meant a fundamentalshift from Clarity’s pipeline architecture to acloud-based software suite that enables hori-
zontal scalability to support retailers of allsizes. Clarity 3.X does not require any serversrunning at a retailer’s site. That means a muchlighter technology footprint in stores, he says,which simplifies deployment and support.
Retailers can also implement Clarity 3.Xwith point-of-sale readers. This enables the retailer to have item-level inventory accuracyat the last transaction point in the chain, withthe customer, Frew says.
Clarity 3.X features a Web dashboard and auser interface for handheld readers or tablets.“These three user terminals support initiation oftransactions, finalization of transactions, orbasic or advanced business intelligence report-ing,” Frew says. The applications enable sales as-sociates or managers to monitor the status of astock count, view a variance of that stock count,direct replenishment or spot a trend in out-of-stocks on the store floor for the week, he says.
Today, Tesco is using Clarity 3.X to managemore than 95 percent of its F&F brand apparelline. SML also provides Tesco with most of theEPC Gen 2 passive ultrahigh-frequency RFIDtags it’s using to identify more than 200 mil-
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Water leakS can caUSe significant damageto a vehicle’s electronics, cabin and trunk, during and after assembly. Automobile manu-facturers rely on time-consuming manualprocesses to check for water leaks in vehiclesbefore they leave the factory. But leakage,which usually comes from window seals,weather stripping and body seams, can be hardto detect, ultimately leading to consumer dis-tress and dissatisfaction.
Now, a German manufacturer of high-endcars is piloting an RFID solution, with indus-trial automation specialist Turck, to ensure vehicles leaving its factory are completely wa-tertight. The solution uses Smartrac’s SensorTadpole, a new passive ultrahigh-frequencyon-metal RFID tag with RFMicron’s Magnus S2Sensor IC, which can sense moisture or pressure. The Sensor Tadpole, which can be delivered pre-encoded, has an Electronic Product Code and a unique sensor code.
Six to 16 tags are attached via adhesives to acar’s body during assembly. Standard UHFhandheld readers or gate readers interrogatethe tags as they pass through the automaker’squality-check areas, which include a high-pressure shower tunnel to ensure the sensorsare placed and working correctly.
The sensors are read before and after a ve-hicle moves through the shower tunnel. Thebefore-and-after data values are compared,using software provided by Turck that runs onthe fixed or handheld readers. If there’s a valuedifference, which would indicate a leak, thetag’s EPC indentifies the specific location ofthe leak.
The tags can detect water under carpets, in-sulators and seats and from high-voltage areas,says Lauri Hyytinen, head of Smartrac’s seg-ment automotive business division. “You don’tneed probes or swabs anymore to identifywater from different locations,” he says.
38 RFID JOURNAL • MARCH/APRIL 2016
Water Leaks in Cars Can’t HideFrom RFIDSmartrac’s Sensor Tadpole tag helps automobile manufac-turers ensure their vehicles are watertight.
Sensor Tadpole is a passive UHFon-metal RFID tagwith RFMicron’sMagnus S2 SensorIC, which cansense moisture orpressure.
lion items annually. The retailer is using fixed and handheld readers from Zebra Technologies, and Nedap pedestal readers.“We also have built Clarity to support future
technologies, such as ceiling readers and ro-bots,” Frew says (see Tesco Deploys Tag-Read-ing Robot at Five Stores to Track F&F Clothing).
Tesco has reduced out-of-stocks by morethan 95 percent, and stock counts take one-twentieth of the time they used to take, sosales associates can spend more time servicing customers. The retailer also has real-time visibility of stock levels and the locations ofspecific items, Frew says, so it can provide anomnichannel shopping experience for cus-tomers, such as buy online pickup in store.Based on the benefits seen with the F&F apparel brand, Tesco is now rolling out RFID atthe mobile phone shops in its superstores.
As for American Apparel, the retailer is nowevaluating whether to upgrade its RFID item-level tracking software.
Clarity 3.X does not requireany servers runningat a retailer’s site,which simplifiesdeployment andsupport.
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Automakers can use Smartrac’s Smart Cos-mos cloud-based services platform to collateand analyze the data received from the sensortags. They can, for example, track the perform-ance of vehicle components and potentiallyimprove the quality of those components.
“There have been several tests and proofs ofconcept [with the auto company] to establishan error-free solution,” says Walter Hein,Turck’s business-development manager. “Webegan our tests reading the tags via handhelds.The next step was a gate test to simulate realproduction conditions. The first gate test has been finished and others are just in progress.” Turck is also running tests withother automakers and still more are interestedin testing the product, he says.
Smartrac designed the Sensor Tadpole tag asa low-cost solution to the challenge of water-sensing applications in high-volume deploy-ments. Water sensors using active tags are toocostly for wide-scale use, Smartrac’s Hyytinensays. They require batteries that must be re-placed on a regular basis, which drives up thecost. “So,” Turck’s Hein adds, “obviously there isa huge demand for a turnkey solution like this.”
The auto company is now deciding whetherto move forward with a full-scale implementa-tion, Hein says. “We are very confident to seesuch solutions running this year,” he says. The customer can benefit in a number of ways,he adds, such as the elimination of errors resulting from manual operations.
“With the current test methods for leakage,some of the faulty vehicles are not detectedand are delivered to the customers,” Hein says.With the automated system, faulty vehicles areimmediately detected and removed from theline. “The 100 percent detection ensures thateach vehicle is leak-proof when it leaves theproduction hall,” he says. “Any costly rework isno longer required.”
In addition, Hein says, because only checkedvehicles that have been verified as leak-proofare delivered to consumers, complaints aboutleaks “are becoming a thing of the past. Thus,both the customer and the brand can benefitfrom the increased level of quality.”
The Sensor Tadpole has the potential to de-liver benefits to other industries, such as avia-tion and shipbuilding, that also must monitorproducts for water leakage, Smartrac says.
40 RFID JOURNAL • MARCH/APRIL 2016
The sensor tags, attached viaadhesives to acar’s body duringassembly, candetect waterunder carpets,insulators andseats and fromhigh-voltageareas.
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On a recent conference call with aleading RFID integrator discussing RFIDadoption, the conversation turned tocompeting retail projects. During theprevious holiday season, thevast majority of retailers failedin their efforts to provide anomnichannel shopping experi-ence for customers. As a result,retailers were setting aside RFID inventory-managementprojects and escalating theiromnichannel efforts. A few days later, I visited the VP ofoperations for a major retailer.He told me that while the company was interested inRFID, it had other priorities andhad decided to focus onenabling customers to buyonline pickup in stores (BOPIS).
On my drive home later thatday, I passed by a new housebeing built on my street. Thebuilders had spent the pastmonth preparing the groundand laying the foundation, and now they were beginning to frame the house. Why, I wondered, would retailerstry to build an omnichannel house without the proper foundation? I canonly surmise that retailers still don’t understand that RFID is the only reliableand cost-efficient way to obtain highinventory accuracy—and having high
inventory accuracy is the only founda-tion on which an omnichannel housecan be built.
The first floor of an omnichannel
house is represented by the two com-merce channels—digital and physical.The digital channel represents online efforts, and the physical one, stores orcollection points. Since the inception of the Internet, the general trend hasbeen for brick-and-mortar retailers toadd the digital channel. Recently, the reverse is happening as digital retailers
are adding physical channels.The second floor of an omnichannel
house is composed of two key om-nichannel capabilities—BOPIS and shipfrom store (SfS). BOPIS blends the digital and physical channels from thecustomer’s perspective, providing ananytime, anywhere shopping experi-ence. SfS blends the channels from the operations perspective, as digitalpurchases become sourced from thephysical stores.
There’s a critical subfloor between the first and second floors: visibility to the single unit. For BOPIS and SfS to
blend the channels, retailersmust know what merchandisethey have and where they haveeach item. Finally, and most importantly, the entire house is supported by a firm founda-tion, based on high inventoryaccuracy.
The ultimate outcome of awell-built omnichannel house isa superior customer experience.Retailers are frantically trying tobuild the first and second floorsin an effort to get the roof put onthe house very soon. But if theybuild the house without a firmRFID foundation, they will fail.
RFID should not be viewed as an independent initiative or a competing priority to any omnichannel initiative. With-out high inventory accuracy, an
omnichannel house cannot be built, or, if it is built, it will not stand.
Bill Hardgrave is dean of Auburn University’s
Harbert College of Business and founder of the
RFID Lab. He will address other RFID adoption
and business case issues in this column. Send
your questions to [email protected].
Follow him on twitter at @bhardgrave.
42 RFID JOURNAL • MARCH/APRIL 2016
ILLUSTRATION: JOHN HULL
Retailers Must ReframeTheir ThinkingIf you build an omnichannel house withoutan RFID foundation, it will crumble.
TUNED IN|By Bill Hardgrave
RFID-enabled inventory accuracy
Physical
Buy online,pick up in store Ship from store
Visibility to single unit
Digital
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• VERTICAL FOCUS
Utility Companies Adopt RFID To Reduce Costs,
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• PRODUCT DEVELOPMENTS
Solutions For Automotive, Health Care And
Retail PAGE 34• TUNED INOmnichannel Only Works With RFID PAGE 42
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March/April 2016RFIDRiskvsRewardPAGE 18
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In 2011, Shimane University Hospital, inJapan, deployed a high-frequency RFIDsolution to track surgical instrumentsused on patients through cleaning, steril-ization and storage. The Rigshospitalethospital, in Copenhagen,recently completed an 18-month trial in which it usedultrahigh-frequency RFIDtechnology to track surgicalinstruments. While they tookdifferent approaches, bothhospitals found that item-level monitoring improvedpatient safety and reducedcosts and labor.
To help determine whetheran RFID surgical-instrumenttracking solution will delivera return on investment foryour hospital, consider the hard and softbenefits to be gained throughout theprocess: the preoperative stage, duringthe assembly of instrument trays at thecentral sterile department (CSD); intraop-erative stage, for verifications before surgical interventions in the operatingroom; and postoperative stage, whenhospital personnel collect all soiledinstruments and send them back to theCSD for reprocessing (decontamination,assembly and sterilization).
As we discussed in our recent columnHard vs. Soft Benefits, hard benefits arethose that will be converted into cashsavings or additional revenues. Soft ben-
efits will improve efficiencies, but theywon’t necessarily impact your bottomline. Still, when it comes to managingsurgical instruments, the soft benefitsmay drive your business case, because
patient safety comes first. Automaticallytracking instruments can greatly reduceor eliminate infections, and it ensuresno instruments are inadvertently left in the patient. Item-level tracking alsofacilitates traceability for compliancewith sanitization and record-keepingrequirements. Moreover, Shimanereports its solution reduces nurses’ mental stress and enables them to spend more time caring for patients.
But to be sure, the soft benefits arebolstered by recurrent hard benefits.Rigshospitalet, for example, which con-ducts approximately 75,000 surgeriesannually, found automating manual
processes could save the hospital 31,000 hours a year in operating-roomprocedures. Similarly, Shimane, whichperforms roughly 6,000 surgeries annually, found the entire process ofmanaging instruments per operationwas shortened from 150 minutes to 50minutes, with expected annual savingsin hundreds of thousands of dollars.More efficient use of instruments alsoenabled the hospital to reduce its inven-tory by 20 percent, with anticipated savings related to further procurements.In addition, the RFID data can be used for quality control, maintenance and
repair. The hard benefits your hospital could achieve willdepend, in part, on howmany surgeries are per-formed annually and howmany tools you tag and track.
Using RFID to manage surgical instruments is a relatively new applicationthat involves a number ofchallenges. When developingyour business case, assessyour workflow and all theareas in which you will needto establish read points. Also,
consider the up-front cost of taggingtens of thousands of instruments (whichrequires specific competencies andequipment), as well as trays and carts.
If your business case indicates yourhospital could achieve a ROI, put out acall for tenders. Then, as the Shimaneand Rigshospitalet examples demon-strate, you’ll have to evaluate the HF and UHF RFID options and decide whichis best for your hospital.
Ygal Bendavid and Harold Boeck are professors
in the school of management at the Université
du Québec à Montréal, and members of RFID
Academia’s research board.
44 RFID JOURNAL • MARCH/APRIL 2016
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HEALTH-CARE BEATBy Ygal Bendavid and Harold Boeck
Managing SurgicalInstrumentsRFID can improve patient safety and delivercost savings to hospitals.
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Many of my consulting clientscome to me when they run into troublein the middle of an RFID project. Often,their software problems could havebeen avoided, and much time andmoney saved, if those involved under-stood the answers to the followingquestions before they bought a singletag or reader.
Is this a point solution or an enter-prise project? A point solutionautomates a single process, andthe RFID data doesn’t interactwith other business applica-tions. With an enterprise proj-ect, RFID data has value to manybusiness processes and, possi-bly, to trading partners. At first,tracking tools in a plant mightseem like a point solution thatwill be confined to helping factory workers improve pro-ductivity. But the RFID data alsocould help with job scheduling,capital equipment accountingand workflow analysis. If yourRFID project has the potentialfor broader use, plan for that (seeDocument Your Software DeploymentDesign).
Should I invent my own encoding schemefor the tag data? The answer is no!Whether you’re tracking items withinyour company or through the supplychain, it’s best to use a global industrystandard. I’ve addressed this issue inprevious columns (see What’s In a
Name? The Right Way to Encode RFIDTags for Consumer Products and A NewEPC on the Block).
What data should I put on the tag? A passive EPC Gen 2 ultrahigh-frequencyRFID tag has user memory that canfunction as a miniature database. This
is useful for some applications, such astracking airplane parts for maintenanceand repair operations. But for mostother applications, it’s best to encodeonly a unique identification numberonto the tag, and put all the other infor-mation into a database, which you canlook up using the tag’s UID number.That way, you can easily update theinformation even if you don’t have
physical access to the tag, and you won’tlose any data if the tag fails. There is alittle more up-front work to deploy thedatabase and make sure it’s alwaysaccessible, but the long-term benefitsmore than outweigh that.
Should I design my own data format forsending RFID reads to my businessapplications? Again, the answer isno. Use the industry standardElectronic Product Code Infor-mation Services (EPCIS), whichprovides context to tag reads. Itnot only tells you what tags wereread and when, but also whereand why. EPCIS is flexible toaccommodate your project’sinformation needs, while help-ing make your data resilient tochanging business requirements(see EPCIS for Internal Projects and Supply Chain Visibility).
Understanding these softwareissues will ensure your RFID implementation can scale anddeliver all the benefits possible.Otherwise, you’ll be locked into a
rigid system in which you can’t adaptdata to new purposes or upgrade to moreadvanced hardware down the road.
Ken Traub is the founder of Ken Traub
Consulting, a Mass.-based firm providing
services to com panies that rely on advanced
software technology to run their businesses.
Send your software questions to
46 RFID JOURNAL • MARCH/APRIL 2016
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The Four Questions What you must know before you begin an RFID project.
SOFTWARE SAVVY|By Ken Traub
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