DHL Expects to Launch "Sensor Tag" Service by Midyear

During the pilot tests, the pharmaceutical company loads a box of products onto a pallet in its warehouse. Because of the sensor tag's long shape, the company can place the sensor side inside the box, enabling it to more accurately track temperature changes. The company can then attach the tag's RFID side onto the pallet, where it is more accessible to an RFID interrogator and would be less affected by aluminum and other RF-unfriendly materials commonly found in the packaging of pharmaceutical products. The sensor tags can be manufactured up to 30 inches in length, depending on the size of the box being monitored.

The company first writes information onto the sensor tag's microchip, including a description of product being shipped; its serial number, shelf life, expiration date and temperature requirements; and how the shelf life would be reduced, based on specific temperature increases.

As the box leaves the facility, warehouse employees record its departure and temperature by interrogating the sensor tag. Employees At the airport, inspectors and other DHL employees do the same before the pallet is loaded onto a DHL plane. After capturing the temperature of the product, the interrogator sends that data wirelessly to the pharmaceutical company's computer network. The DHL solution could instead include a hosted Web server if the customer requested it, though Ulrich is unwilling to elaborate on the specifics at this time. "This would be part of a detailed alignment with the customer and the dedicated DHL business unit," he explains.

The project includes handheld RFID interrogators from Intermec; RFID consulting services from Intel; chip technology from NXP; temperature sensors from Infratab; SAP software; and middleware, hardware and software from IBM.

Ulrich says DLH hopes the to have solution available to any DHL pharmaceutical customer by the second half of this year. "We think it is very important to bring together the physical flow of goods and the flow of data," says Ulrich, adding that this will boost efficiency of the supply chain. He will not discuss the cost of the technology, pointing to a variety of solutions available at various prices, but says the solution will be cost-effective.