|
RFID: a rising star
Ken Mark
The third Canadian RFID (radio frequency identification) conference held in Markham, Ont. in April delivered the goods. It laid out the current status and the future direction of the fledgling technology.
The bottom line is RFID is moving along smartly and making inroads in some surprising places. The opening keynote speaker, Dan Fortin, president of IBM Canada, set the tone for the conference when he said, "While many of the initial applications of RFID will be in the supply chain, the future of this technology is only limited by our imaginations."
Other speakers expanded on that theme as they shared their own experiences. Those examples are starting to abound as the price of RFID chips continues to fall.
"We're seeing a huge increase in the number of tag manufacturers," said Bill Allen, Plano, Tex.-based director of strategic alliances and programs with Texas Instruments, a supplier of the technology. "As a result, tag costs are now under US 20 cents each."
RFID is touted as a supply chain savior, but it's also making an impact in manufacturing plants. Hewlett-Packard Co. is among the most active participants in the technology. It has extensive deployments throughout its global production and distribution facilities.
"Before, shipping was cumbersome, requiring lots of queuing," said Greg Edds, HP's Houston-based manager of global operations, at the conference. "It was full of manual processes that were time-consuming and error-prone.
Workers had to use hand-held bar code readers to capture product serial numbers on skids before they were shipped. Often it would take them 20 to 90 seconds to scan an entire skid. Today, all items can be automatically verified as they pass through centralized portals where an electronic eye trips the RFID reader."
Thanks to the portals, cycle time was reduced to 20 seconds, an improvement of 30 per cent to 40 per cent. Along the way, HP also quickly learned the importance of tag orientation. By staggering the tag location on cartons loaded on skids, it eliminated the interference between and among tags. To boost the system's efficiency, it started requesting Asian suppliers to apply tags at source.
Too much data?
Despite the vast improvements to supply chain visibility, the physics of RFID remain a challenge. "RFID is not a single-tool solution," said Bob Moroz, Markham, Ont.-based president of R. Moroz Ltd., the conference organizer.
"It consists of several different layers...application, database, middleware, reader, air interface and tag. It’s extremely important for users to get the identification right first. The rest is easy. And the key to [identification] is controlling the air interface, the space between the tag and the reader, because the success of the entire implementation rides on it."
Inside its warehouses, HP has mounted RFID readers on forklifts and imbedded location chips in the floor. This way, workers can always look up the actual location of a product on the system. The feature eliminates problems of "mislaid" items that have been temporarily moved so forklift operators can reach another carton.
HP's Greg Edds dispelled the myth that the volume of RFID-captured data will be overwhelming and disruptive. "Of course, there will be more data. But we forecast it will only increase by 2.5 times, which should be manageable."
At the same time, RFID is constantly expanding its role in asset management. In the healthcare field, chips are used to monitor the movements of everything from stethoscopes, newborn babies, wandering Alzheimer patients and organ donations.
In his talk, Victor Garcia, chief technology officer for HP Canada, cited the example of a Boston-area hospital that was losing 33 per cent of its pacemakers. It hoped to reduce losses to five per cent by using RFID tracking. But in fact, losses were reduced to zero.
"In Canada it's estimated that hospitals have 20 per cent to 25 per cent excess assets and their staffs spend about one-third of their time just looking for things. RFID can help solve both problems," Garcia said.
New and more advanced RFID applications continue to multiply. "Packaging makers such as Smurfit-Stone are about to launch a new line of packaging material with imbedded RFID tags, eliminating the need to attach them externally. Since the tag becomes a permanent part of the packaging, this could become another milestone on the long road to reaching the holy grail of affordable item-level tagging," said Allen of Texas Instruments.
Besides becoming smaller, newer tags are also smarter. The intelligence comes in the form of sensors capable of monitoring product status such as temperature, humidity, mishandling, etc. Whenever tagged items encounter conditions beyond acceptable limits, the tag sends an alert or sets off alarms.
In the long term, there's potential for RFID chips to "talk to" and manage other chips. The idea opens the door to even more innovation. "We have to stop looking at RFID as just an identification technology, and visualize it more as a wireless processor capable of integrating peripherals into the overall IT network," Moroz said.
RFID is also gaining prominence as a tool to boost security for mobile payment systems. "The new American Express Blue Card has an RFID transponder to replace the old magnetic strip technology," said Allen. "It links into a central database with all the relevant information."
The security level on these transactions is based on 128-bit encryption--the same one that banks use for transferring funds. "We will also soon see more mobile payment systems from portable electronic devices such as cell phones and even watches."
Although the speakers talked about the progress of RFID, it's still premature to declare a breakthrough. "That’s still at least 18 months away," said Mike Nichols, manager of systems with Intermec Technologies Corp. in Combine, Tex.
"We're starting to see greater interest in tagging item-level, CPG (consumer and perishable goods) products such as the new Gillette Fusion; its new five-blade razor blade. But if there are new government mandates requiring RFID tags for tracking and tracing pharmaceutical products, the breakthrough might happen even faster."
Another driver of rapid adoption is the arrival of the EPCglobal Gen 2 standard, which many trade associations are promoting as the worldwide parameter for RFID. When the Gen 2 standard meets widespread acceptance, RFID adoption will really take off. Perhaps that will be the theme for next year’s Canadian RFID conference.
Ken Mark is a Toronto-based business and technology writer.
|
