A diverse sampling of RFID product & services news…
By Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 6/1/2006 12:00:00 AM MDT
DHL and IBM demo shipment tracking
International express-shipping company DHL highlighted the RFID tagging component of its DHL Innovation Initiative at the Hannover, Germany-based CeBIT show in March. Partnering with IBM to leverage WebSphere middleware, DHL is tagging product-repair shipments from customers to a large consumer electronics manufacturer's service & repair facility in Memphis, Tenn.—and their subsequent return to the customer. Improved visibility and efficiency are key goals.
"[The facility] receives more than 800 returns daily," says Bob Berg, global RFID manager for DHL Express. "They absolutely need answers when their customers ask where their devices are. The granularity that we can provide is all about customer satisfaction—that of our customer, and of our customer's customers."
In addition to greatly improved track-and-trace visibility, RFID also speeds receipt at the repair facility by eliminating hand scanning of boxes. Currently in pilot, DHL plans to deploy the tagging component globally.
EPCglobal tests item-level tagging
The viability of item-level RFID tagging gained considerable credence at a late-March demonstration testing hosted by EPCglobal at a MET Laboratories facility in San Jose, Calif. The testing covered scenarios for likely real-world applications, from clothes on a moving rack, to goods on a shelf, to products randomly thrown into a pharmaceutical delivery tote.
A total of 56 demonstrations tested the validity of UHF, HF, and LF technologies to discern which frequencies were best suited to each business case.
"The pleasant surprise was the technology at multiple frequencies is more mature than a year ago," says Sue Hutchinson, U.S. director of industry adoption, EPCglobal. "We have a lot more alternatives to choose from than we thought going in. We don't think the lack of technologies is going to be a major issue for item-level tagging."
EPCglobal says it will issue a final analysis of the demonstration results.
Introducing "RFID in a glove"
METRO Group, the world's third-largest retailer, used the CeBIT technology fair—held in March in Hannover, Germany—to showcase a mobile RFID reader that is worn by the worker.
The unit—developed by Deister Electronic for METRO AG—includes a headset with voice activation, and a glove with built-in RFID antenna that reads EPCglobal Gen 2 tags to aid proper item picking in the warehouse. The headset receives instructions for order picking. If the wrong item is picked, the worker receives an error message via a wireless LAN link. The result is more efficient picking.
"The big advantage is that the worker's hands are free," says Albrecht von Truchsess, a spokesperson for METRO AG. "He doesn't have to carry a scanner or a clipboard because he receives the information on what to pick over the headset and the database is updated automatically."
Lack of talent threatens RFID adoption
Shortage of skilled personnel poses a threat to RFID adoption, according to a new survey by Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA). Of the survey respondents, 75 percent say they don't believe there is a sufficient talent pool of experienced RFID personnel from which to hire, while 80 percent say the deficit would negatively impact adoption.
CompTIA has been working with more than 20 major players in the RFID market—including product manufacturers, system integrators, training providers, and end users—to develop a professional training & certification program.
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