EPCglobal releases road map for easy RFID data exchange
By Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 12/1/2005 12:00:00 AM
The oft-cited vision of a global infrastructure that would allow companies to conduct electronic commerce without worrying about integrating systems or translating documents may be closer to reality with the recent release of a report outlining a proposed EPCglobal Architecture Framework.
The report defines a collection of standards for the hardware, software, information exchange formats; and core services that will enable automatic identification of objects as they move through the supply chain. The key technology for identifying objects will be RFID tags bearing electronic product codes—or EPC, a compact set of characters sometimes referred to as a "license plate" that uniquely identifies cases, pallets, or other objects in a supply chain.
The combination of EPC, RFID technology, and supporting software based on EPCglobal standards is known as the EPCglobal Network.
EPCglobal—a nonprofit, worldwide consortium based in Brussels—manages this network. In addition to RFID, the EPCglobal Network will use existing Internet technologies to convey real-time information on items moving through supply chains. As a result, companies will be able to pinpoint the location of all goods contained in a shipment, even when those goods are in a trading partner's possession.
Henri Barthel, CTO of EPCglobal, says having technology vendors and users comply with the standards of the EPCglobal Architecture Framework will have numerous benefits, starting with an easy means of letting trading partners know which items have been shipped to them. Other benefits, according to Barthel, include the ability to alert trading partners—without fear of the message being lost or misinterpreted—of any problems that may occur during product shipment, such as a truck breakdown, or the temperature in a refrigerated railcar dropping below acceptable levels.
Today, manufacturers wanting such capability have little choice: they build solutions themselves, or use proprietary systems such as Wal-Mart Retail Link, which helps Wal-Mart and its suppliers communicate. Tomorrow's choices should be wider. "We expect this framework document will serve both end users and technology providers as a road map," says Chris Adcock, president of EPCglobal.
Members of the EPCglobal consortium—including major manufacturers and retailers such as Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble; Northfield, Ill.-based Kraft Foods; and Cheshunt, U.K.-based Tesco—contributed to the drafting of the framework.
While publishing the framework document is a significant step, Barthel says it will be some time before the EPCglobal Network is fully operational. "There are a number of pilot projects under way," he says, "but a significant implementation is some way off."
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