Computer World Network Note, retailers continue to promote RFID (RF Identification) tags in the supply chain, which not only detonated suppliers to carry out a series of mad activities related to RFID, but also for those commitments in RFID technology. A service provider who provides help provides a market opportunity. HP has recently claimed that it has introduced 3 RFID services and will continue to expand RFID-related services. The company said that by 2008, it expects markets to increase from $ 100 million today to $ 300 million. In addition to the RFID consultation and integration business that currently provided, HP's upcoming business also includes a service that helped customers plan "Discovery Service", establish RFID adaptive startup tool suite, and for those very eagerly hope Developing and implementing RFID technology provides RFID ready assessment and road map planning tools.
RFID technology is usually used to track product shipments and delivery to reduce costs in inventory control. Salil Pradhan, Chief Technology Officer, Hewlett-Packard, said RFID as the perfect example of the company's adaptive corporate strategy, fundamentally, to monitor the physical layer, then collect data on the operating layer, and finally apply it to the business level .
The implementation process of RFID technology in the supply chain is as follows: Tags containing RFID chips on the container and pallets, when the goods pass through a RFID card reader, the small antenna in the chip can emit the product identification code. This information is then transferred to the inventory control system.
The use of RFID makes sales related hardware, software, and services to a potential beneficiary. In addition, heavyweight retailers, including Wo, Mart, authorize their suppliers to use RFID to accelerate the commercial application of RFID. Last year, Woy Ma is the top 100 suppliers to start using RFID tags on the container and pallets before January 2005.
As the RFID provider, HP is working closely with Woyi Ma to carry out RFID fields, and will continue to advance in the name of the Epcglobal Working Group. The Epcglobal Working Group is defining the international standard of RFID, and HP said it has joined the Epcglobal Committee.
Not only the merchant notes the market of RFID, but Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, etc., also launched a new action in RFID. Recently, Sun has set up a test factory in Dallas, which is mainly designed to track the wireless label of customer products and inventory control, and Sun also plans to build a similar plant in Scotland in the nearly a few months. Sun is also working with Woyou's suppliers to help them achieve the final deadline using RFID technology in January.
Although RFID holds a cost-saving commitment, the advocate of this technology also recognizes the presence of challenges, such as the hardware and software needed to achieve collaborative relationship between trading partners, suppliers and customers. In fact, because the merchant proposes to help those companies find out, this is also the root cause of RFID services.
In addition to investigating RFID implementations on a single company, industrial groups are also studying the impact of this technology on its market. For example, the Computing Technology Industry Association (Comptia) starts its own RFID research today to investigate how these labels will affect computer and electronic product supply chains to plan to interact with neighboring supply chains and provide ongoing RFID education and training. .
David Sommer, Vice-Chairman of Comptia E-Commerce, said that most of this work will be detailed by the workgroup members to explain their concerns and needs, "RFID has attracted many people's attention, our members have tried to explain these challenges."
Comptia hopes to cooperate through the work of members to make them clarify the needs and challenges of this unique industry to RFID. Sommer said, "Obviously, in addition to making this technology to run, the main goal of the merchant is potential new business and new products."
The RFID's head is in power, trying to adopt the company that has at least from where to get help. Pradhan said, "RFID will not happen over the night, but in the end we will see that its application will be all right." Goodyear restricted Sun's RFID technical support.
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Ltd. is the world's largest tire supplier, with a total number of tires per year to 2.2 billion. From the next year, all of their products also require RFID activation technology, but the implementation of RFID is facing a lot of significant technical problems.
Steve Lederer Goodyear is responsible for RFID project manager, senior engineer Steve Lederer, said their company is the main supplier of Woyou, the US Department of Defense and Target. Lederer said that the problems they face mainly: decide what type of label, place the label, buy what type of label reading device, how to apply RF identification warehouse, and how best to determine the label The expected effect, etc.
He also said that because of our tire built-in metal strip, research shows that it is difficult to use RFID technology in a metal environment. To seek help, Lederer has sent a help from Sun Microsystems, while Sun Microsystems has opened a RFID test center in Dallas in the near future. The 17,000 square feet of warehouse has been equipped with the gate, conveyor belt, shelf, and other representatives that enable the company to use radio frequency identification to test products and procedures in the working environment.
Sun is responsible for the supervisor of the RFID business department, said: "This is not an exemplary center, but a center of the exquisite distribution and structure in the simulation environment, which will be used to help these companies implement relevant tests and provide experts Opinions and service. With this center, Sun is able to show the data obtained from the RFID tag to the potential user to provide practical benefits between the server and storage systems. "
Lederer said that Goodyear has been tested for RFID technology for a while. The company hopes to combine the RFID tag to establish a smart tire in combination with tire pressure sensors. This tire can communicate with the automotive electronic control module to warn the unresolved safety hazard.
Goodyear and other tire manufacturers are also facing the automatic monitoring of tires in the future government. Lederer said that this application of RFID is a closed loop, which is more secure than those who need product allocation and tracking open loop systems.
He said that although Woyi Mart requires the RFID tag for the container, the pallet level, and the tire is usually used to transport a separate label in a single body.
Goodyear will take the lead in using Sun's RFID test center to find answers to our own plan. Ledere said he hopes to use this center for several weeks to make them a better solution. This center will help Goodyear test a wide range of labels, read equipment, printing equipment, wireless infrastructure, enterprise application integration software, warehouse management software, enterprise information system software, and other applications that determine future issues.
For Sun, RFID may become a major growth means of the company system, storage devices, software, and services. Sun's RFID Business Unit Marketing Manager Vijay Sarathy said that in traditionally, Sun was seen as a hardware manufacturer but we have long realized that RFID is a system-level issue. Test Center, Sun company-related products and services are your own system with other collaborative companies, including Alien Technology, Applied Wireless Identification Group, I2, Matrics, Nortel Network, SupplyScape, Texas Instruments, Thingmagic, Tibco , Tyco Fire, Security, Sensormatic, and Verisign.SARBArBacker, in the test center, a simulation run is usually taken for about two weeks, and more than 10 customers use the test center in accordance with the scheduled time, and launched in Europe and Asia. The process of establishing a similar test center.
Sunset RFID Test Center
It is reported that Sun Microsystems regard RFID technology as an important way to deepen customer relationships and ultimately improve customer demand for Sun servers.
Recently, Sun has opened up a 4,000-square-foot warehouse for testing RFID devices. Sun Micrososystems guarantees to act entirely in accordance with the Norms developed by retailers such as Wal-Mart and the US Department of Defense.
These RFIDs require forcing suppliers to buy equipment, software, technology, and testing, resulting in confusion that meets the requirements. SUN's official spokesperson said that using Sun's equipment test RFID can speed up the process and save money.
The device is a model of a warehouse, including pallets, storage racks, and conveyor belts that carry 600 meters per minute. A wide variety of RFID devices such as Sensorid, Adt Security Services Inc., ProdexNet Inc., Venture Research Inc., Provia Software Inc. and Alien Technology, ProdexNet Inc., and Alien Technology Corp are placed.
Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. are using this device to test their RFID. "We just started. After a month, we will learn more about the" Steve Lederer of the Goodyear Vehicle System. "
"Our goal is to make the tires feel that you can communicate." Lederer said, "To add RFID tags to the tires, it is the only difficulty we have encountered. Radio frequency interference makes it impossible to identify correctly. "
The tires cannot be packed, so they are forced to place a label plastic skin at each tire surface. Goodyear hopes to eventually develop a permanent label capable of accompanying tires.
Wo Shima has recently launched the RFID test plan in Texas.
Although Sun does not produce RFID equipment, it still hopes to expand its network, server, and storage subsystem products.
"All values are inseparable from the network," said Larry Singer, Vice President of Sun Global Market. He also predicted that RFID label production will reach 10,000 billion in 2012.
"Sun has the core competitiveness of the establishment of groups around the standard, just like the Java group and the Freely League," Singer said that the same function will increase the RFID. "Sun's task is to solve large-scale processing issues. We sell basic components - memory, server, and intermediate equipment - used to calculate results. The larger the network processing, the more beneficial to Sun Microsystems."
