RFID Lowdown

Microsoft Chooses RFID Hardware from Intermec

-- Pushpa Sathish, Staff Writer

Microsoft’s Technology Centers in Austin, Reston, Chicago, Boston, Silicon Valley and New York have been embedded with RFID hardware from Intermec Inc., which designs and develops products that facilitate the tracking and management of supply chain assets. CV60 vehicle-mounted computers, IV7 vehicle-mounted RFID readers and IA33E RFID antennas will help Microsoft’s client enterprises and ISV (independent software vendors) to use these state-of-the-art facilities to design, develop, test and implement its .NET Enterprise Servers, .NET Framework and XML Web services, before they deploy them in their own IT environments.

[via Business Wire]

Microsoft selected Intermec for its RFID technology and thought leadership, its commitment to the Microsoft platform, and Intermec RFID hardware interoperability with the Microsoft BizTalk RFID platform.

RFID Business Advice

Martin Haas, a consulting director at IDC, spoke at the Siemens RFID conference in Germany recently. His advice to businesses considering implementing RFID is simple: have a clear business goal and don't believe the hype. If you collect RFID data but don't "consider the entire RFID ecosystem", then your return probably isn't going to be realized.

If you know what you want to achieve with radio frequency technology, and consider how it will integrate with your business processes, you stand a much better chance of realizing a return on investment. If your workflow processes are flawed, technology isn't going to help magically make it better. It's also quite possible that your business can use RFID for more than one application. So planning and cataloging potential uses will help later determine the type of tags, readers, and middleware that you may need, as welll their implementation. Understand this at a functional level, before calling in consultants.

Paucity of Proficient Professionals

-- By Pushpa Sathish, Staff Writer

The RFID industry is growing by leaps and bounds but there seems to be a shortage of experienced professionals to handle specialized deployments. A survey of 80 companies conducted earlier this year by the Computing Technology Association (CompTIA) revealed that 75 percent of the respondents felt that there were very few personnel skilled enough to take charge of real-world implementations.

Book knowledge just doesn’t seem to cut it in this highly specialized field, as Robert Sabella, president of OTA Training, says. The company provides three-day, hands-on training programs that teach the basics of RFID implementation and concepts and also offers the CompTIA RFID+ exam. But certification and training are not enough to hold one’s own in the real world of deployments. 

Another reason for the dearth of competent workers is the high cost of training. But options abound if students are interested – a few like OTA and others like those offered by the Oakton Community College.

RFID In Robots

--By Raj Dash, Staff Writer

Robots are used in a lot of manufacturing processes in numerous industries. But each robot is typically programmed to do a specific task, and would have to be retooled to perform a different type of task. Wittmann, a manufacturer of automation systems, is employing RFID technology to make their robots smarter [RFID Journal].

An RFID tag in a robot arm's hand define the type of robot and thus its role and the sequence of tasks it should perform. Each type of hand has a different role, as indicated by the tag. Apex Automation is also using RFID in its robotic automation sytems. As companies realize the various benefits of RFID in manufacturing, we're likely to see more usage of RF technology.

Pharmaceutical RFID Strategies

With the FDA deadline looming near for US-based pharmaceutical companies to e-pedigree a select range of their products, a number of trials are already ongoing, despite the otherwise delayed implementation in the industry. Pfizer is one company that has a Viagra anti-counterfeiting pilot project running, which has resulted in over 2M bottles of Viagra being tagged.

Their strategy is interesting, using all of item-, case- and pallet-level RFID tags. However, they do not necessarily validate all item-level tags. They do, however, structure tagging in using a hierarchy, so that a particular item-level tag can be associated with its original case or pallet. They state that they do not include the NDC (National Drug Code) number on item-level tags for security reasons. Barcodes are included as backup. (They've had a tiny percentage of "dead" tags.) [via RFID Journal]

This code hierarchy allows for the tracking of indvidual bottles. So, if a bottle is sold somewhere, and its parent case/ pallet tag does not match the pharmacy a shipment was sent to, this can easily be determined.

As for what type of RFID is most suitable for the pharmaceutical industry, it's expected that they will eventually move to NF UHF (Near-Field Ultra High Frequency) via a hybrid path of HF-UHF first. That's according to Venture Development Corp, a market research firm. This is because UHF works better in liquids and metals than HF, reads faster, and encodes tags faster. There are still technical issues to be worked out before EPC Gen 2 tags are widely available at reasonable prices. But a report from late last year, by ABI Research, indicates that the cost of UHF tech will drop.

Barcodes, Not RFID, For Now?

Intermec, a company involved in over 60 RFID pilot projects, thinks that RFID is still in an early adopter stage, and that barcoding will be the technology that manufacturing and other industries will go with for quite awhile. I wonder if Wal-Mart has realized this yet, despite their aggresive plan to convert another 500 of their stores and 300 of their suppliers by Jan 2007.

Intermec has previously donated RFID equipment to Oakton Community College, to an RFID lab set up there with the help of Intermec, Intel, and other companies. If more companies helped set up labs in universities and colleges, at least the future expected RFID skills shortage would be partially addressed.

Thailand Thawing to RFID

The adoption of new technology is an expensive, time-consuming process that is fraught with uncertainties and difficulties. The problem is compounded when no concrete decision has been made on the espousal of the technology.

Industries in Thailand are being relieved of the responsibilities associated with such tasks through the efforts of the Software Industry Promotion Agency (Sipa). The agency is collaborating with the National Electronics and Computer Center (Nectec) to set up an RFID test-bed center to conduct tests and demonstrate the uses and applications of RFID technology in a diverse range of applications.

Sipa is hoping to increase awareness on the benefits of RFID technology in various sectors by demonstrating its uses in supply chains, warehouses, logistics applications, retail businesses, vehicles and transport, the garments industry, pharmacy and medical devices, animal ID, electronic consumer products, perishable and metal products, and communications businesses. Organizations can save themselves a bundle in testing and evaluation costs, besides eliminating the risks associated with such ventures.

The center will also be a testing ground for application and middleware developers, hardware developers and system integrators to try out their products in mock real-life situations. Testing services will be offered at three levels, including protocol compliance tests, application tests, and system compliance tests, according to Apinetr Unakul, the secretariat of Tesa, the Thai Embedded System Association that is working with Sipa to test the feasibility of the center.

The center is emerging as a collaborative project with Sipa contributing seed money for the center’s establishment, Nectec playing the role of main sponsor besides providing training support, and the Thai RFID Cluster under Tesa looking after management and operations. Various organizations are also hoping to use the center as an effective promotional base for their RFID chips, tags, and applications – a mutually beneficial relationship for the companies and the center.

The center, which is to be up and running by the end of next year and fully operational the year after, will run on Bt20 million (Thai Baht) for five years after its inception. With Thailand emerging as the new hotspot for RFID technology, it’s a given that the center will be a roaring success.

RFID Faces Various Hurdles

Greater penetration of RFID use around the world faces a number of hurdles. According to a report sponsored by the DTI Global Watch Mission, that includes issues of RFID standards, skills shortages, spectrum differences, and even health worries. In Europe, it's a question of which standards to follow, as ETSI requires a certain protocol which is not compatible with multi-readers, and restricts real-time applications of RFID. US companies are assisting in resolving these problems.

However, even if the technical issues are resolved, there are still a lack of skilled technicians for RF and networking. While there are a few colleges and universities around the world who are running RFID academic programs and laboratories, e.g., Oakton Community College, they are only recent implemented.

[additional sources: Electronics Weekly]

RFID Security Issues Don't Affect Supply Chain Users

Otto Kilb of Printronix feels that all the reports about the security concerns of RFID tags are simply for "potential" problems, not actual ones. He points out that even barcoding, which has been around for several decades now, has flaws, and that "no technology is 100% secure." (I remember the stink that barcoding caused upon its appearance, and all the doomsaying about all of us being branded with a barcode across the forehead.) But Kilb's focus is on SCM (Supply Chain Management), and he says that it is not in danger from RFID security issues. What's more, Gen 2 tags have security features that are being improved all the time. Provided that standard precautions are taken, he says, data should be safe.

Sources: MC Solutions, P and CT.

RFID Unusual Uses: Parkour

You might have seen it in TV commercials: a group of twenty-somethings jumping and vaulting and dropping and generally doing acrobatics in urban areas. (See YouTube video above and below.) They're usually so good they make the activity look easy. But their moves are jaw-droppingly amazing, and reminiscent of the acrobatics of martial arts actor Jackie Chan. I never get tired of watching these incredible athletes in their free-spirited endeavours.

This practice, called Parkour, is discussed in a new RFID-enabled form at The RFID Weblog and Nearfield.org. The RFID is used to set up a sort of obstacle course in three dimensions, and consists of three components: a base station, roaming discs with an RFID reader/ writer, and wearable cip. Read more at The RFID Weblog and Nearfield.org. (Nearfield, I assume is named for NFC, or Near Field Communication, which is a form of RFID technology that works at close ranges and is typically used in contactless smart cards and cell phones.)

By the way, out of concern for your safety, I should point out that Parkour not only takes extreme stamina, strength, and confidence but also a great deal of training. Don't try this, please, without the training, as you can just imagine how much it'll hurt if you miss.