RFID Gazette

This is a roundup of recent RFID news and views.

The ROI of RFID
While many small vendors cannot use the volume of RFID tags to make the ROI (Return on Investment) worthwhile, some companies are finding it. A trailer dealership near Toronto, Canada is using RFID to manage over a 1,000 trailers in four lots and claims they've had a return on their investment since the installation last September. [via RFID Journal]

RightTag Acquired
RightTag, an RFID equipment manufacturer, has just been acquired by Inova Technology. RightTag were the first company in the RFID industry to manufacture a 13.56 Mhz Bluetooth-enabled scanner.

NCR Division Acquired
NCR's Systemedia Division's RFID assets have been acquired by The Kennedy Group, who provide RFID labels, packaging and other products. [via RFID Update]

Yet More Anti-RFID Envelope Makers
National Envelope Corporation is the latest company to go after the potentially lucrative anti-RFID envelope and wallet market with their Smart Card Guard products. The envelopes can be used to protect contactless credit cards, ID cards, and e-passports. [via Contactless News]

A Smart RFID Mirror
Paxar is currently showing off its smart mirror at a show in Miami, Florida. The mirror, typically to be used in retail clothing stores, gives customers information about a tagged item of clothing. [via RFID Update]

Free RFID Discovery Service
Affilias is offering a service to companies that want to share RFID EPC data over the Internet. What information is to be shared can be configured on a per subscriber basis. Affilias calls the service ESDS (Extensible Supply-Chain Discovery Services) and hopes it'll become an industry standard. [via RFID Journal]

The NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) recently released a 150+ page PDF report that details some of the security risks of using RFID in a supply chain. Said Robert C. Cresanti, Under Secretary of Commerce for Technology:

RFID tags, commonly referred to as smart tags, have the ability to improve logistics, profoundly change cost structures for business, and improve the current levels of safety and authenticity of the international pharmaceutical supply chain and many other industries. This important report lays the foundation for addressing potential RFID security risks so that a thoughtful enterprise can launch a smart tag program with confidence.

The report also suggests ways to get around the security risks. Download from NIST issues guidelines for ensuring RFID security. [via Extreme RFID]

OTA Training announced last week a new RFID training and certification program in Argentina. This is the first program of its kind in the region. The program is a joint effort between OTA Training, EPCGlobal Argentina, and Telectronica. Said Robert Sabella, CEO and founder of OTA Training:

We are extremely proud to be a part of this first offering of high quality RFID training in Argentina. Telectronica and EPCGlobal, in particular, have taken a leading role in building awareness around RFID and we are honored to help them promote real, hands-on training in RFID technology.

This is of course good news, as support for RFID training and certification is a good sign of the expanding global RFID market. A minimum of training programs around the world will hold back widescale enterprise adoption of RFID, due to lack of skilled workers.

RFID is arguably a very efficient technology, made for multiple purposes, useful for private and public sectors. The benefits of RFID are far too numerous to mention in a single article, as the potential applications are seemingly endless. Many in the industry and elsewhere feel that the technology will become ubiquitous and replace older technologies because of its efficiencies and extra functionality. The problem is, it is also a very controversial technology for many reasons, which are thus a barrier to widespread adoption of RFID.

So you're a company that is thinking about using RFID technology for asset management. Maybe you have to use RFID to meet some compliance requirements? What do you do? Where do you start? RFID training is highly recommended, but a supplement to this is an RFID starter kit.

Now, there are the toy kits and the more serious ones like the RFID starter kit offered by Fluensee, which can actually be used in a production environment. This one costs $10,000, includes asset tracking software, a handheld reader (ruggedized), and a few hundred passive tags. Not quite as cheap as the $99 toy kit, but likely more useful.

As RFID matures and becomes more commonplace, we should see more specialized kits at difference price points. This will be almost necessary to entice smaller businesses that could benefit but are concerned about the total cost outlay.

RFID Update has a 3-part series on RFID trends for 2006. Number 10 was "RFID and the Citizen: Passports, Privacy, and Politics". I would have have put this as number 1 myself, in terms of public concern. Their number 1 was "The Industry itself". Each item has a number of links to related articles, and the series is definitely worth a read to get a perspective of what's happening. These types of articles are never easy to write - I know first hand. But here are my 5 issues in RFID (not quite the same type of list).

1. RFID and identification. Should citizens be concerned? Is it all fear-mongering or do we really need RFID citizen cards between Canada and the US?
   
2. The industry itself. How's the industry doing? Can it support RFID IPOs?
   
3. Item-level tagging. I'm referring to the retail industry and the intent of giants such as Wal-Mart to tag everything. A reduction in price for item-level tags should push this application forwards.
   
4. RFID in the pharmaceutical industry. The FDA D-Day, Dec 1st, has come and gone, but in fact, a US Federal Court judge apparently issued an injunction lifting the e-pedigree requirements on certain drugs. The pedigree requirement is a good idea, especially for fighting drug counterfeiting, by the industry has been self-admittedly behind the curve. Will they catch up in 2007? Well, it's been 10 years since an e-pedigree solution was mandated. What's taken so long? (Item-level tagging costs, technological hurdles, etc.)
   
5. RFID in payment systems. Do we need contactless credit cards? Are they secure? And should it be legal for merchants to refuse cash?

Of these, three concern me, but only because of my own personal feelings about them. I've written about them often enough, so I'm not going to repeat myself. You'll notice, though, that I'm talking less about the technology and more about issues.

Here's watching the detectives. Well, security guards at any rate. (Anyone else remember that old British TV show, which pseudo-nebbish angry young intellectual punk Elvis Costello immortalized in his 1970s new-wave song ?) It seems Nokia   feels the need to watch their secruity guards, so they're issuing them RFID phones to  keep track of assigned work within some of their US premises.

Each Nokia handset has an embedded 13.56 MHz RFID tag and a reader. As soon as a guard enters the work premises, s/he waves an RFID-enabled employee id in front of the provided Nokia handset. This enables guards to log their in-time/ out-time.

The phone is carried in the open position while guards patrol the Nokia premises. This allows the embedded reader to pick up information in RFID tags installed at various locations on the premises, which will stand as a record of the posts the guard has supervised on that day.

At the end of the work shift, the handset is closed and data on the phone's RFID tag is transferred via the cellular network to a web-based application termed the Service Manager. Supervisors can retrieve the records in the Service Manager to get information about any guard's assigned and actual work.

RFIDJournal  reports:

The RFID system has been in use for just four months at Nokia's U.S. facilities in Atlanta, Dallas, New York and Seattle. Thus far [...] ithas collected well over 5,000 reads on the guards' activities.

Nokia, who not long ago bought RFID manufacturer Symbol Technologies, is pushing the technology into other applications, including a collaboration with JCDecaux  Finland. The latter provides billboards and other marketing materials. Nokia RFID-enabled phones will be used to track the installation and removal of billboards and posters.

[UPDATE: It was Motorola, not Nokia, that bought Symbol. Apologies for the error.]

US Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke delivered one of his fearsome talks today at the Italian-American club. If what he's saying bears out, the labour force is not growing at the rate it used to, especially amongst the female population. He did say, though, that improvements in SCM (Supply Chain Management) are helping maintain/increasing productivity for the time being.

I'm reading between the lines here and guessing that he's referring to radio frequency technology. Even if that's correct, there will still be a shortage of skilled workers that have an understanding of RFID - even more so if the workforce size is not growing. Fortunately, the number of organizations offering RFID training is growing.

While RFID is expected to create many jobs and opportunities, this isn't the first time that people have predicted that the use of RFID in the enterprise may affect jobs, namely the loss of them. There are other concerns, such as employees will be affected by process. Amid concerns about how RFID and employees in the retail sector, the ILO (International Labour Organization) met in Geneva earlier this year to discuss the issues. Two reports resulted, one entitled (PDF, 60 pgs). [via The RFID Weblog]

The latter report is split up into 7 main sections:

1. Retail trade: Characteristics, trends and prospects
2. Retail trade: Regional overview
3. Technology and supply chain management
4. Radio frequency identification
5. RFID and commerce
6. Social and labour implications
7. Social dialogue

Regions analyzed include the US and North America, the European Union and other parts of Europe, Japan and other Asian countries, and Africa and the Middle East. Included in the report is a discussion of the benefits of RFID, both in pallet-level and case-level tagging, as well as how RFID affects workflow processes.

While the report says that some jobs may be lost, employees could be trained for customer service work. I find this hard to accept, as not everyone is cut out for customer service. Since RFID will make business process workflow more efficient, it's likely that labor needs will be reduced. There will be a shortage of skilled workers in relation to RFID, so employers considering a switch to RFID should consider in advance where they may want to reposition to-be-affected employees, if at all. Retraining may have to be part of the process, which will potentially cut into any profits gained from the use of radio frequency technology - something to be considered.