A short video that explains the way in which RFID affects the transfer and distribution of goods.

Related Articles: Integrating RFID Into Your Packaging | Is Radio Frequency ID the Wave of the Future? | Retailers plow ahead with RFID chips

There's a great need for profit optimization and careful product positioning in the frenetic but unforgiving RFID market.


Editor's Note: RFID is a global industry that is increasing 10 times to become a $26-billion business by 2016. UK-based market researcher IDTechEx has analyzed profit, cash generation, fund raising and acquisition strategy in RFID for a new report, "How to make money out of RFID." Here, Peter Harrop summarizes some of the results.


Ask someone in the street about RFID, and they may say it is tagging prisoners. However, those in the industry generally talk about putting labels on pallets and cases necessitated by the commendable commands of leading US retailers, which see sales increase and costs decrease as a result of their suppliers doing such tagging.


However, if we look at the major spend and potential spend on RFID, we get a very different picture. The global spend on RFID labels for pallets and cases alone—mainly for consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies—will be around $90 million this year rising to no more than $1.75 billion in 2017, provided the collapse in prices is halted at five cents and users demand it all over the world. The value of the associated systems and services will be a similar figure.

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While everyone races to find the industry standard, Omron presents their latest offering.


Omron RFID has announced the launch of a new passive EPC (Electronic Product Code) second generation RFID tag which should, according to its specs, deliver high performance whether encoded and read in the United States, Europe or Asia.
For a whole plethora of reasons, regulators in each of these regions mandate the use of different parts of the UHF band:

Japanese UHF tags run between 950 MHz to 956 MHz

European Union tags run between 865.6 MHz to 867.6 MHz range


Some manufacturers address these spectrum variances by tuning the tag to function best in specific parts of the spectrum. For its ‘OneTenna’ tag, for example, Finnish tag maker UPM Raflatac places the RFID chip at one of three different locations on the antenna, depending on which part of the UHF spectrum it will be used in.


Bill Arnold, Omron RFID's chief strategist:

The company's new V750 Series EPC Gen 2 UHF Wave tag functions equally well in all parts of the UHF band, thanks to a design that matches the impedance of the chip to that of the antenna.

The tag uses an Impinj Gen 2 chip. Arnold says an end user is currently testing the Wave tag on shipments tagged in Asia and delivered to the United States, but did not disclose further details.
According to Omron RFID, the Gen 2 Wave tag will be available in production quantities next month. Pricing information has not yet been released.

Procurement Contract for RFID Products and Services Extended Two Years




WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has increased its RFID II contract value with Savi Technology from $207.9 million to $424.5 million and extended the ordering period for the company's active Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) products and services by another two years -- through January 31, 2008. The contract amendments were made by the U.S. Army's Information Technology, E-Commerce and Commercial Contracting Center (ITEC4), and the executive agent for the DoD is the office of the Product Manager, Joint-Automatic Identification Technology.

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Not yet a household name, but well respected in the industry, UPM Raflatac is well positioned to take centre stage in the burgeoning RFID market. Here's their profile, as presented to RFID Solutions:


UPM Raflatac is a world-leading supplier of pressure sensitive labelstock for a wide variety of needs in product and information labelling. In addition, the company is at the global forefront in the development and high-volume production of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags and inlays. Headquartered in Finland, the company has the broadest and most comprehensive in-house know-how and capabilities for RFID tag and inlay design and manufacturing.UPM Raflatac has around 2,300 employees and an annual turnover of approximately EUR 850 million. The company has a global service network consisting of 11 factories on five continents and a broad network of terminals and sales offices worldwide. UPM Raflatac is part of UPM, a leading global forest products company with annual sales of EUR 10 billion and stocks listed on the Helsinki and New York stock exchanges.


RFID Applications
RFID is a technology that enables wireless data capture and transaction processing. There are two main areas of application, defined broadly as proximity (short range) and vicinity (long range). Long range or vicinity applications can generally be described as track and trace applications, but the technology provides additional functionality and benefits for product authentication. Short range or proximity applications are typically access control applications.


UPM Raflatac RFID business focuses at the following segments:


Pharmaceutical industry

The e-pedigree is a hot topic in the pharmaceutical industry. The origin of pharmaceuticals has to be verified on the item-level. There is also need for anti-counterfeiting procedures. The utilization of RFID empowers safe and secure supply and administration of pharmaceuticals.


Supply chain management
Supermarkets are tagging pallets, cases and other returnable transit items, such as plastic crates used for fresh foods. The RTIs are capital assets, so visibility is essential. Tagging the crates gives total asset visibility and allows better management of the asset pool. The ability to write to the tag also allows the addition of information such as the contents of the crate, sell-by date and manufacturer. Linking this type of information to the store’s inventory management systems can ensure that goods are moved to the shelves in strict rotation and reduce spoilage and out-of-stocks.


Libraries and media management

RFID is used in many libraries to automate the issue and return of books, videos and CDs and to give real-time visibility for library inventory. Until recently, books and CDs have been identified using bar coded labels, each of which had to be read individually with a bar code reader. Inventory control and reconciliation has been a laborious and time-consuming operation.


With RFID, books and CDs can be checked in and out automatically and inventory control can be automated using scanners on shelves or with their hand-held counterparts. The result is a reduction in the need for personnel and a much higher degree of accuracy in inventory management.