RFID swims into the spotlight

Imagine sitting at a sushi bar where a buffet of tiny pieces of heaven are moved along by a conveyor belt. You don't need to wait for a server to come by; you can help yourself as your choice plate moves by. The food is always fresh and served at the right temperature. Your bill is automatically calculated by the number of plates you choose. It may sound futuristic, but it's happening now - thanks to RFID technology, which is coming into all sorts of businesses.Seattle's Blue C Sushi uses a closed-loop RFID system to track serving information in real time - details such as how long the plate has been on the belt, which types of food are running low and what type of sushi is on each plate. Each plate is RFID tagged, enabling the restauranteurs to leverage the traditional inventory tracking tools of RFID while also providing sufficient data for culinary planning. This could be part of RFID's next wave. Gao RFID Inc.'s Edmund Rucels, VP sales, said his company has been approached by similar businesses to create comparable solutions. While track and trace solutions continue to dominate the RFID arena, attendees of the 2007 Wireless and Mobile Expo and Conference/ RFID Forum in Toronto last week heard that many companies and organizations are going beyond traditional applications.Niagara Falls' Great Wolf Lodge, a hotel with an indoor water park, is earning praise from industry experts for its RFID wristbands, which guests use to unlock hotel rooms. The wristbands are better than keycards, "which are particularly hard to manage if you're swimming," explained IBM Canada Ltd.'s Shai Verma enthusiastically during his presentation. It wasn't clear how, or if, IBM was involved in the Great Wolf Lodge deployment.According to Verma, the 13.56 MHz tags in the wristbands can be used to purchase food and other services and contain robust point-of-sale (POS) functionality such as currency conversion and multiple tax capabilities. It's like a cashless wallet; guests no longer have to deal with multiple cards or wet money. A family destination, Great Wolf Lodge created two sets of waterproof bracelets for adults and children. Children's bracelets don't unlock everything and parents can establish spending limits on their children's bands. The solution was first launched at Ripley Entertainment's Pocono Mountain's PA resort and is expected to be included in the new Mason OH Great West Lodge. "It's really quite cool," Verma added.RFID applications may be increasing the fun factor in entertainment venues, but they are also being used to save time, money and potentially, lives.Chang-Gung Memorial HospitalIn January, Hewlett-Packard Co. and Precision Dynamics Corp. announced the successful implementation of the world's largest RFID patient management system at Chang-Gung Memorial Hospital (CGMH) in Keelung, Taiwan. The 8,800-bed facility launched the solution in its 96 operating rooms. The goal was, among other things, to improve patient safety by verifying patients' identities and reduce the risk of wrong-site or wrong patient surgery. Since the implementation, CGMH has achieved 100% accuracy in patient identification in the OR.Patients are issued RFID wristbands that are verified at several stages throughout the administration and medical process. The wristbands contain patient medical data and other confidential information. CGMH staff members estimate that automating patient verification data saves them approximately 4.3 minutes per patient. But perhaps more importantly, as Victor Garcia, HP Canada's CTO, stressed in his presentation, it has helped the hospital identify problems within its business processes."RFID improved hospital leaders' understanding of the hospital workflow," he said. "The anesthesiologist was identified as the bottleneck in the whole process." Through the automated process, CGMH was able to speed up the anesthesiologist-patient interaction and create solutions that dealt specifically with the delays."First bring the technology in, use the technology and find out how the process works and where you can improve. You'll be improving your process based on facts," he advised industry stakeholders.HP practices what it preaches. In May, RFID Journal awarded HP Brazil the award for "Best RFID Implementation," for its large-scale deployment in its San Paulo printer manufacturing facility. The solution is used for mobile and automated warehouse management and includes 12 manufacturing and six completion lines, amounting to more than 3 million products and hundreds of SKUs a year.At the start of the manufacturing line, a UHF RFID tag is placed in the printer's exterior case and as the printer is assembled, data is written to the tag. "This is a unique component," Garcia said. "We store the product's DNA right on the tag. When it was made, who made it and inspected it." This enables HP to identify potential problems in the manufacturing process.Each tag's unique electronic product code (EPC) is read several times throughout the manufacturing and delivery process. Entire pallets of products are tagged and their locations on the warehouse floor are identified, helping to ensure the correct products and pallets are chosen by forklift operators. Product selections are verified on drivers' on-board screen, and there is no need for manual barcode scans. As a vehicle approaches a pallet location, Garcia explained, the product is verified again. From a business perspective, Garcia said the solution saved 2.5 minutes of drivers' time per process. "Drivers spend their time doing their job," not scanning barcodes or finding wayward pallets. Technical DevelopmentsImproving business processes seems to be an emerging field for RFID use, but technical developments are adding value to more traditional supply chain models.HP Labs is testing a next-generation RFID solution, the memory spot. The 1mm x 1mm RFID chip will store up to 2 MB of data and contain a built-in CPU, enabling it to store rich media content such as videos. The light weight and small size will enable it to be embedded in paper or plastic, potentially replacing shipping documents commonly affixed to shipping containers. Garcia offered few details, but said HP is running pilots on product DNA storage and expects it to hit the market in the next 12-16 months. He wouldn't speculate on potential costs, but acknowledged that RFID's comparatively high costs are an obstacle to greater widespread adoption. Thanks in part to their low cost, barcodes are used universally. RFID tags, however, can range from half a cent to more than $20 each, attendees heard. Verma from IBM Canada echoed these sentiments, but took it a step further. He believes that in order for RFID to work efficiently in a supply chain model, "it really has to be a collaborative effort with all the stakeholders. That's what a centralized database or network will allow you to do."One of the architects behind the Canadian Grocery Industry RFID pilot (http://www.ccgd.ca/home/en/PDF/Publications/Cdn%20Grocery%20Industry%20RFID%20Pilot%20-%20White%20Paper.pdf), a collaborative project between the Canadian RFID Centre, industry, associations and technology providers, Verma sees great potential for RFID solutions in the supply chain model. The pilot, which ended in January 2007, focused on the business case validation of food traceability, distribution centre efficiencies, environmental monitoring and reduction of out-of-stock (OOS) at the retail level. Participation from a diverse group of stakeholders, including Maple Leaf Foods Inc., Loblaw Companies Ltd., the Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors and IBM Canada, allowed for a more comprehensive analysis at the retailer, distribution and manufacturing levels.Some of the greatest gains of the implementation were seen in the retail sector, particularly for OOS and promotions management.OOS situations, where a product is literally out-of-stock, are costly for retailers. "Out-of-stock is probably the number one issue Wal-Mart has tried to resolve through RFID implementation," said Verma. "Studies are showing that up to 15% of their products are out-of-stock at any given moment." Real-time visibility of inventory throughout the supply chain can streamline the ordering and forecasting processes, while creating a "fifth wall" in a retail store so store operators can distinguish between backroom and shelf inventory. "With this type of visibility and with the right alerts being sent to the right people at the right time, out-of-stock situations are virtually zero," added Verma.Promotions management, where a retailer encourages consumers to visit the store for door crasher deals, is poised to make real gains through RFID enabled inventory tracking. "Companies spend billions of dollars running promotions and over half of that money they spend do not any benefit. There are almost no incremental sales revenue in over 50% of situations. That's a lot of money," lamented Verma. But there are several hurdles to overcome in order for RFID retail implementations to be truly successful. The pilot found that the current environment of limited information sharing between manufacturers, distributor and retailers reduces the benefits of deployment. The question of who absorbs the costs of implementation still needs to be addressed and continues to dog widespread adoption in grocery stores.Tagging at an item level provides the greatest visibility, but as conference attendees heard time and time again, the costs associated with ubiquitous tagging - however small - seem to have businesses questioning the potential for high ROIs. One area of potential growth, where ROI is measured more so in safety than dollars, is the education system. The Chicago Board of Education is evaluating putting RFID tags on all their bussed students. Rucels says the Board plans to implement a solution where an antenna on school buses would read each child's ID as they enter and leave the vehicle, either through a tag on their knapsack or another location. The Board's goal, according to Rucels, is to provide a human audit trail of their students, ensuring they board and leave the Board's 2,700 buses safely. Trials are scheduled to begin this fall.While this form of human tracking is gaining traction, particularly in danger fields such as mining, Rucels believes the public at large is trepid about its adoption. "There's still a certain paranoia about RFID and how it can invade our private lives," he sighed. "People cannot be tracked all over the place. The read rates are too short for that.""Cellphones and credit card use provides more tracks and trails than RFID can. This isn't a James Bond movie," he added, making reference to Casino Royale where Bond is tracked through a chip embedded in his skin. "There's too much fear mongering going on out there. RFID won't invade people's personal lives."

RFID swims into the spotlight

News | 07/26/2007 2:05 pm EDT

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