Mobile partnership: RFID ramps up to "Context-Aware" applications
By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 5/28/2008 10:09:00 AM
Cisco Systems and RFID specialist OATSystems announce a solutions partnership that will reduce the time to deploy RFID solutions by integrating flexible, standards-based applications more tightly with existing business processes.
The new collaboration seeks to integrate Cisco’s just announced Context-aware Mobility Solution with OATindustrial RFID applications from OATSystems, including the Asset Tracking and Work-in-Process solutions.
The combination will enable OAT customers to seamlessly run mission-critical RFID applications over the Cisco Unified Wireless Network today, and virtually any wireless network in the future.
OAT pioneered the use of RFID in industrial applications with packaged solutions that increase productivity, decrease labor costs, and reduce inventory requirements while improving forecasting and planning. The packaged applications enable organizations to deploy solutions reportedly in less time, with less risk and with less cost.
OATindustrial solutions track parts and assemblies through the production cycle, integrating with existing systems and processes yet requiring little or no retooling. With them, organizations gain a new level of control over manufacturing operations and significantly reduce operating costs.
The Asset Tracking solution tracks the movement of assets or reusable containers from suppliers, to warehouses and through all key production stages covering an enterprise’s entire value chain. The Work-In-Process solution streamlines operations and accelerates output in a manufacturing environment.
Cisco Context-Aware Software captures contextual information from a full range of sensors, mobile devices, and RFID tags over the Cisco Unified Wireless Network, allowing companies to move beyond basic location tracking to gather detailed asset information such as location, temperature, and availability. Many of OAT’s customers track work-in-process and finished products with OATSystems RFID solutions using large-scale networks to obtain enterprisewide visibility across their supply chains. Today, OAT supports heterogeneous or multi-modal asset tracking, where customers can use bar codes; passive, active and WiFi RFID technologies; or any combination thereof.
Cisco’s Context-Aware Mobility Solution with its open API running on the Mobility Services Engine will help OAT integrate more tightly with its customers' networks and needs. This integration further strengthens OAT’s value proposition, enabling its customers to use OAT’s RFID solutions in virtually any RFID or wireless environment.
“Cisco and OATSystems are the respective leaders in the enterprise WLAN and RFID segments,” says Venkat Krishnamurthy, CTO, OATSystems. “Our collaboration will reduce the time to deploy RFID solutions by integrating flexible, standards-based RFID applications more tightly with existing business processes.”
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