Supply Chain Management Blog : RFID

RFID looking at the same problem with a different set of eyes

guillaumeoget — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 23:06:00 GMT

We would easily think by reading about RFID trials in the Airline Industry that price , lack of global agreements even when IATA is moving forward , are making short term deployments hard to come by. Well, let’s look at the latest United Airline effort...(read more)

Let's predict 2009 - 10 proposals for Manufacturing

christianverstraete — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 10:53:00 GMT

As 2008 winds down, many people are attempting to predict what will happen in 2009. One common element is that the year will be difficult from an economical perspective. Whether the crisis will last 6, 9 or 12 months is open for debate, but there is a...(read more)

RFID hardware form factors

guillaumeoget — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:13:00 GMT

Earlier this week I was at RFID World in Las Vegas. Even though it is not the main RFID trade-show in the US it was interesting for a number of reasons.

Tag vendors appear to have recovered from the price reductions of the last few years and seem to focus high quality/yields and high volume (very high volume) opportunities.

RFID readers form factors are exploding clearly and I was able to see north of 30 types of readers/antennas combinations made specifically for a particular situation/use case. This includes SDIO/CF, small PocketPC based devices, creative use case based antennas and cool looking form factors from Samsung (yes they do have UHF readers) and several others I can’t even describe.

This is all goodness for the industry which now has to provide answers to a larger number of requests and opportunities in what was before considered fringes or niche areas, not big enough to justify hardware investments.

This new wave of hardware push is going to enable software vendors and system integrators’ to provide solutions in more areas and continue the acceleration of the adoption of RFID.

Do you have in mind a reader form factor that does not exist yet?

Is RFID mainstream?

guillaumeoget — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 19:17:00 GMT

The topic of RFID has been approached a few times in this blog. RFID, being a technology, is supporting a number of usage scenarios and its maturity depends on the area we are looking at. Access control and retail and certainly not at the same place.

Still the middleware space has changed significantly over the last year, with the Oracle/BEA deal, steady progress from Microsoft and SAP, and the Checkpoint/OAT deal more recently. I found this article to be quite interesting about this and trying to look at the future of middleware…http://www.rfidupdate.com/news/07082008.html#editorsNoteWhile the functions provided by the middleware themselves are certainly going to stay in some form, it will be interesting to see if some of the larger players are able to use this as a differentiator versus a “need to have” type set of features.

Why isn't a 60 years old technology more mainstream?

Introduction

christianverstraete — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 08:12:00 GMT

Welcome to our new team blog. We are members of the global Manufacturing & Distribution Industry team and spend a vast amount of time working with both customers and HP’s own design and supply chain teams worldwide. In that process, we discovered that, beyond the differences between industry segments, there are many experiences that can be adapted from one industry segment to another. That is the reason why we started this website. We want to share with you our findings from a business and technology perspective, covering industries as different as Automotive and CPG, Aerospace and Oil & Gas, Retail and Electronics, Utilities and Logistics.

I often hear companies telling me “we are different, so what is applicable to segment X is not applicable to us”. With respect, I would like to disagree. Indeed, if a company wants to be the best in its own segment, it needs to look outside its segment for ideas. Otherwise it can only be as good as its competitors. Obviously, you may not be able to copy an experience, a best practice, as is. It may have to be adapted to the specifics of your enterprise. But isn’t that where innovation actually comes in?

The use of RFID to track production across the Supply Chain is getting popular in the Electronics and Aerospace industry, but what about using a similar approach in Oil & Gas. Tracking barrels of oil across a pipeline obviously does not make sense, but in discussion with companies, we discovered the need to track drilling equipment. Indeed, when drilling a new well, loads of equipment is required. Particularly when off-shore, all equipment cannot be held on or around the platform. Managing the supply chain is becoming increasingly important to keep drilling going. And at 100K$ per hour, one better make sure there is no shortage of material. The application is quite different, but many of the best practices can be re-used.

Hope this gives you a glimpse of what we want to talk about. But blogging is not just about publishing a point of view, it is also about engaging in a dialogue. Let us know what you think, what subjects you would like us to address and don’t hesitate to disagree with us. That’s what makes it interesting.