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Putting RFID Know-How to Work
HP has distilled its RFID experience into three RFID service offerings, which it launched in May (see HP Debuts RFID Services). For its entry-level offering, the RFID Discovery Service, HP brings customers to its own facilities where RFID has been deployed and to its RFID centers in Palo Alto or Taiwan, where it runs workshops to help customers become familiar with RFID technology. Customers can develop an understanding of how the technology could be implemented in their business, and they can use the center’s RFID equipment to run proof-of-concept tests for the items that they plan to tag. HP plans to open RFID centers in Singapore, Tokyo, Geneva and the United Kingdom.
HP’s second offering, the RFID Adaptive Starter Kit, is aimed at companies that want to proceed with an RFID pilot. The Starter Kit includes a selection of suitable tags and readers, as well as middleware that can be customized to each deployment. HP also provides guidance and training for the pilot.
HP’s RFID Readiness Assessment and Roadmap Planning service helps customers that have already completed RFID pilots develop and implement ways to connect their RFID deployments to their existing IT systems. The goal is to help companies find greater internal use RFID systems and potential benefits within their own operations. These internal benefits can offset the cost of tagging goods for a retail customer or the U.S. Department of Defense.
In addition to its three packaged services, HP can help its customers implement a full RFID deployment. HP maintains that it is flexible in how it develops RFID projects for its customers. “Some customers want us to be a one-stop shop, while others want to play a very active role in deciding which middleware, for example, that they want,” says Pradhan. HP’s pricing depends on the size of the pilot, ranging from a single portal to a whole warehouse.
HP is developing several RFID projects in its own facilities to increase its understanding of RFID and provide a clearer picture of what the technology can deliver to its customers. At HP’s Memphis facility, where one production line has been enabled to place RFID tags on products, the company is working to determine what problems might arise as that capability is deployed across the facility’s 21 other production lines and how much of what has been learned on the first line is applicable to the others.
HP Labs is planning an end-to-end RFID pilot involving the manufacturing and customer deployment of HP servers. The project will implement RFID technology for every stage of the process, from the creation of components that are used to make the servers all the way through to server deployment in a customer data center.
While HP says its RFID business will benefit from the experience, the company also believes its core server business will reap benefits. “With RFID used to ensure the correct manufacture of servers, we can make sure each configuration is correct before it is shipped,” says Pradhan. “There are very high costs for us when servers have to be returned, and those costs cut into profits.”
HP Labs is also developing a return-on-investment analysis model that it can share with customers, so they can see the financial benefits for deploying RFID at each stage of deployment. “Linking all suppliers in an adaptive supply chain with RFID is not going to happen overnight,” says Pradhan. “We have to show companies a way to invest enough [in RFID] to make progress but not too much to keep them from getting a real ROI.”
Further out, HP Labs would like to develop ways to supplement RFID systems in the supply chain by linking them with video so that items detected by RFID readers can be tracked across a large facility with a video camera. The use of a video system could eliminate the need for a large number of readers (see HP Designs Tracking System). The company is also looking at what it calls next-generation RFID, which will require a higher level of network resilience. “When whole world depends on RFID, there will be no room for failure,” says Pradhan. “RFID networks will have to be self-healing.
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| An EPC tag on an HP product shipped to Wal-Mart |
HP’s second offering, the RFID Adaptive Starter Kit, is aimed at companies that want to proceed with an RFID pilot. The Starter Kit includes a selection of suitable tags and readers, as well as middleware that can be customized to each deployment. HP also provides guidance and training for the pilot.
HP’s RFID Readiness Assessment and Roadmap Planning service helps customers that have already completed RFID pilots develop and implement ways to connect their RFID deployments to their existing IT systems. The goal is to help companies find greater internal use RFID systems and potential benefits within their own operations. These internal benefits can offset the cost of tagging goods for a retail customer or the U.S. Department of Defense.
In addition to its three packaged services, HP can help its customers implement a full RFID deployment. HP maintains that it is flexible in how it develops RFID projects for its customers. “Some customers want us to be a one-stop shop, while others want to play a very active role in deciding which middleware, for example, that they want,” says Pradhan. HP’s pricing depends on the size of the pilot, ranging from a single portal to a whole warehouse.
HP is developing several RFID projects in its own facilities to increase its understanding of RFID and provide a clearer picture of what the technology can deliver to its customers. At HP’s Memphis facility, where one production line has been enabled to place RFID tags on products, the company is working to determine what problems might arise as that capability is deployed across the facility’s 21 other production lines and how much of what has been learned on the first line is applicable to the others.
HP Labs is planning an end-to-end RFID pilot involving the manufacturing and customer deployment of HP servers. The project will implement RFID technology for every stage of the process, from the creation of components that are used to make the servers all the way through to server deployment in a customer data center.
While HP says its RFID business will benefit from the experience, the company also believes its core server business will reap benefits. “With RFID used to ensure the correct manufacture of servers, we can make sure each configuration is correct before it is shipped,” says Pradhan. “There are very high costs for us when servers have to be returned, and those costs cut into profits.”
HP Labs is also developing a return-on-investment analysis model that it can share with customers, so they can see the financial benefits for deploying RFID at each stage of deployment. “Linking all suppliers in an adaptive supply chain with RFID is not going to happen overnight,” says Pradhan. “We have to show companies a way to invest enough [in RFID] to make progress but not too much to keep them from getting a real ROI.”
Further out, HP Labs would like to develop ways to supplement RFID systems in the supply chain by linking them with video so that items detected by RFID readers can be tracked across a large facility with a video camera. The use of a video system could eliminate the need for a large number of readers (see HP Designs Tracking System). The company is also looking at what it calls next-generation RFID, which will require a higher level of network resilience. “When whole world depends on RFID, there will be no room for failure,” says Pradhan. “RFID networks will have to be self-healing.
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