The RFID Reader

NCR To Use RFID Technology

The NCR Corporation has announced today that it will use RFID technology to tag and tracks the products that the products it produces such as printers, software, and RFIT tags.

Vice President John Greaves sees this as a step in the right direction, "NCR is deploying RFID throughout its own supply chain to help realize the operational efficiencies our RFID solutions are delivering to our clients across multiple industries. We fully expect to realize measurable supply chain benefits in the short term for our own organization as a result of this process deployment."

Based in Dayton, Ohio the company is made up of 28,500 people. NCR expects to complete its RFID tagging by the end of 2006.

AT&T To Undergo RFID Trial

In an article appearing on CRMbuyer.com, similar to Walmart adopting RFID technology, telecommunications giant AT&T plans to begin a 3 month trial on using RFID in the new year.

The article stated:

“AT&T is planning a wide-sweeping RFID trial in the beginning of next year, the first such service initiated by a U.S. telecom operator. The 90-day trial will involve a half-dozen customers, ranging from the retail and financial sectors to manufacturing, and possibly even a government office, said Eric Shepcaro, AT&T vice president of business strategy and development.”
During this trial AT&T will conduct a certification program to vendors it plans to partner with. The full text of the article is available on the crmbuyer website.

Dow Chemical Forms Agreement With EPCglobal US

An agreement has been signed by the Dow Chemical Company and EPCglobal US, as announced on sdcexec.com, in a effort to help develop the Electronic Product Code for RFID. Under this new agreement, the Dow Chemical Company will be able to further expand their research into their Corporate RFID/GPS Strategy.

Corporate Vice President Dave Kepler is just thrilled about the new venture, “"Joining EPCglobal US enables us to take our use of RFID/GPS technologies to the next level, contributing to the development of industry standards for RFID and helping drive increased usage of RFID/GPS to enhance the efficiency and security throughout the chemical industry supply chain," he said during an interview.

EPC is clearly one of the new “buzz” phrases and more companies are utilizing its ability to help them tag and track their inventory.

TNT Express Expanding To China

The RFID technology company TNT Express is expected to continue its expansion into China with its software that will help a laptop manufacturing plant tag and keep track of tis inventory.

"There is the potential for reduced shrinkage, reduced error rates and reduced labor costs [by using RFID to replace existing bar code scans" stated the project leader Sybren Tuinstra "It's not a question of if we deploy RFID but how much we deploy, how fast we deploy it and how much capital we invest."

In the beginning, TNT helped tagged and keep track of approximately 2000 laptops. The company is now expected to use “M” tags with better antennas, to increase the efficiency of keeping track of tags. This will increase the reading rates from 87% to 100%.

TNT Express Expanding To China

The RFID technology company TNT Express is expected to continue its expansion into China with its software that will help a laptop manufacturing plant tag and keep track of tis inventory.

"There is the potential for reduced shrinkage, reduced error rates and reduced labor costs [by using RFID to replace existing bar code scans" stated the project leader Sybren Tuinstra "It's not a question of if we deploy RFID but how much we deploy, how fast we deploy it and how much capital we invest."

In the beginning, TNT helped tagged and keep track of approximately 2000 laptops. The company is now expected to use “M” tags with better antennas, to increase the efficiency of keeping track of tags. This will increase the reading rates from 87% to 100%.

Kroger Working With OATSystems

The latest news is that Kroger Co, nationwide retail grocery store is considering switching to RFID technology, with OATSystems help, to make them become more competitive against other supermarket chains. .

According to Marc Osofsky, Vice President of Marketing, the new RFID technology will help Kroger better handle their fresh produce, among other things:

AMR Research has found that for most grocers, fresh items makes up 50 percent of profits, but 60 percent of shrinkage [items lost to spoilage or theft]. [Grocery stores] make the most money from fresh products, but fresh products are generally not managed very well, so a lot of people are looking at RFID to help them sell more fresh products," he stated.

Impinj, Inc Secures Funding

In a press release yesterday, the semiconductor company Impinj, Inc stated that it had secured the necessary 26.5 million dollar funding that it needed by contributions from new and existing investors.

Impinj, Inc is one of the leading manufacturers of high performance RFID products. The company expects to use the money to increase its research and product development in the semiconductor field.

As stated by Dr William Colleran, CEO and President of Impinj, Inc, "This new injection of capital allows Impinj to maintain our excellent progress delivering the semiconductor solutions that our customers in the explosive RFID and the nascent embedded nonvolatile markets are demanding. "We will continue to aggressively drive our product development and operations to maintain our leadership positions in those markets."

RFID Used To Tag Children In Japan

An interesting article appearing on the rfidjournal.com website stated how the authorities in Yokohama City, Japan will tag school children in an effort to study of RFID technology can monitor their safety to and from school.

The software that is being used to monitor this is AeroScout I-Safety, which involves having the child wear a bracelet with a 2.4 GHz RFID tag. According to Josh Slobin, marketing director, “The tags do not carry any information about the child. There is no data being transmitted that is potentially insecure.” Slobin later went on to say, "The information about the child resides on the software side of the system. There is no data being transmitted that is potentially insecure. That means no one could access the child's name or other personal information simply by using an RFID interrogator to capture the tag's data.”

The only thing that the bracelets will be able to tell is the correct address of the child. It will also give the child the ability to press a button and notify their parents if they need help.

Stores Soon To Get RFID

Based on an article by Ray Unger of Madison.com, numerous businesses will be soon throwing out their bar-codes and replacing them with RFID technology.

Unger feels that the company most responsible for everyone switching to barcodes, Walmart, will also be one of them responsible for everyone switching to RFID, “In fact, the people who forced bar coding on the public in the first place, Wal-Mart, are among those who are doing the same with RFID. In early 2005, Wal-Mart required its top 100 suppliers to affix RFID tags to all bulk shipments. This mandate sped up the transition process and probably gave detractors another reason to hate the retail behemoth. Nonetheless, RFID is coming and promises to bring smiles to both retail shoppers and supply chain managers alike, “ Unger wrote. 

However some analysts feel that IBM and Walmart will be in competition to both see which of them can first introduce this technology.

TrueVue RFID

Vue Technology and Symbol Technologies announced yesterday that they will enter into an agreement to develop RFID technology to curtail the theft of software and hardware products.

The use of RFID technology in the sale of pharmaceutical items is seen as a good thing, according to Kara Romanow, the research director at AMR Research Inc, "Tagging everything all the time doesn’t provide a lot of value, but tagging specific items to try and prevent counterfeiting does, such as high-end apparel, shoes, jewelry, sporting goods and pharmaceuticals. Tagging specific high-value items where counterfeiting is a problem holds tremendous potential for return on investment on technology projects."

The RFID platform will be called TrueVue RFID and it will allow retailers the ability to track inventory and sales.