Featured Articles

  1. Montreal Commuters And Dispatchers Get Bus Info Via RFID
    Featuring Pierre Malboeuf, president, Eminencia     12/12/2007
    Commuters using two newly built bus and subway transit terminals in the Montreal suburb of Laval won't need to worry about frostbite as they wait for busses during cold winters, thanks to an RFID-system deployed by the city's Agence Métropolitaine de Transport (Metropolitan Transport Agency). Used with permission from RFID Journal
  2. Active RFID And RTLS In Manufacturing By Dr. Peter Harrop, IDTechEx 11/21/2007
    The ultimate supply chain and the ideal control of parts, materials, work in progress, and finished goods in manufacturing will be provided by Real Time Locating Systems (RTLS), ultimately with sensing as well. These are a form of active RFID and there are various types available from Ultra Wide Band (UWB) which uses a broad range of frequencies in the microwave region, to systems in the megahertz region, though 2.45 GHz is now very popular for RTLS. Submitted by IDTechEx
  3. Real Time Locating Systems — Now a Very Hot Topic By Dr. Peter Harrop, IDTechEx 11/21/2007
    Real Time Locating Systems (RTLS) involve small tags that can signal their location at all times. There is no need for an RFID reader to be nearby. They variously work at ten meters to several kilometers and they are already widely used from Club Car golf kart production line to military helicopters monitoring assets. However, the applications and the technology are now moving forward at a blistering pace. Submitted by IDTechEx
  4. RFID Sweetens Imperial's Shipping Process
    Featuring Greig DeBow, VP of consumer sales and marketing, Imperial     11/16/2007
    Imperial Sugar is using RFID-enabled plastic pallets to track its shipments from the refinery to the store. The pallet tags are providing a more visible (and safer) supply chain. The tags' unique ID numbers, and the data associated with each number, enable the company to know where the pallets have been in the past, and to ensure that the pallets have not been used to ship bacteria-laden products, such as raw meat, that could contaminate Imperial's products. Used with permission from RFID Journal
  5. Northstar Ski Resort RFID-Enables Guest Locker Rooms
    Featuring Andy Buckley, director of resort experience, Northstar     11/16/2007
    As anyone who has recently visited a large ski resort knows, high-touch (and high-cost) ski concierge services are hot these days. Destination resorts are going all out to attend to customers' every need and keep them comfortable. To that end, California's Northstar-at-Tahoe ski resort offers its guests season-long ski-storage and locker-room services. In an effort to raise the convenience level even more, the resort recently began issuing RFID-enabled cards for accessing those services. Used with permission from RFID Journal
  6. Two Singapore Fashion Retailers Use RFID To Track Inventory
    Featuring Keton Lee, director, SeeNow     11/16/2007
    Two fashion retailers in Singapore are deploying an RFID-based tagging system to manage their inventory, using handheld interrogators to capture ID numbers attached to garments for stocktaking purposes. Bella East Fashion Studio and 77th Street Pte. Ltd. are each using the system. Both stores report a reduction in stocking time from 12 hours to 25 minutes. The deployments began as a pilot in March 2007, in which the retailers used Tracient Padl-R handheld RFID interrogators to obtain real-time stock visibility. Used with permission from RFID Journal
  7. German Hospital Expands Bed-Tagging Project
    Featuring Thomas Jell, RFID project manager, Siemens IT Solutions and Services     11/16/2007
    The Bielefeld City Clinics, a public hospital in northern Germany, is moving into the second phase of a test designed to use radio frequency identification to expedite the cleaning of beds. The second phase plans to expand the application to additional wards so they can collect enough data to calculate how much money the hospital would save by using RFID to track all of its beds. Before the tests were conducted, no tracking system was in place. Used with permission from RFID Journal
  8. UID Data Management White Paper Published By A2B Tracking 11/3/2007
    A2B Tracking Solutions Inc. has published a new White Paper titled “Data Management Excellence – Eradicate UID Compliance Errors with Data Management,” aimed at Department of Defense (DoD) contractors and military personnel who must report legacy and government furnished property to the DoD’s IUID Registry.
  9. Lean Manufacturing And WIP Visibility
    By David Orain, Omnitrol Networks     10/24/2007
    Most manufacturers have been slowly implementing Lean Production methodologies for years. The goals are to reduce labor costs, keep less inventory, minimize time to market, and become highly responsive to customer requirements to produce high quality, error-proofed products efficiently at low cost. Implementing a WIP Visibility system on the edge of the network, on the actual production floor, focuses on the production staff first and the back-end systems second. An automated WIP visibility system will be able to immediately infer production bottlenecks or quality issues and flag machine operators as soon as the problem is found, followed by management update via back-end ERP integration. Submitted by Omnitrol
  10. Wal-Mart, Best Buy Spearhead DVD-Tagging Pilot
    Featuring Gay Whitney, standards director, EPCglobal     10/23/2007
    Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and other members of EPCglobal's Media and Entertainment Industry Interest Group are conducting an item-level DVD-tagging pilot with EPC RFID tags to help ensure that DVDs are in stock and available on the store floor at the proper time. Upon completion of the eight-week pilot, the participants hope to have gained enough information to move toward a broader deployment of item-level RFID tags. Used with permission from RFID Journal