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Biomet Tags Its Orthopedic Knees
Only loaner sets with knee joints will be tested at this juncture. Earlier testing had reportedly shown that read rates of 100 percent could be achieved with replacement knee parts, whereas some of the company's other products have proven harder to tag and read reliably. For example, spinal parts are apparently too small for tagging, while the cement used to fuse the replacement parts inside the body is packaged in metal foil, causing interference with a tag's RF signal and resulting in a lower read rate.
Jan Willem Bartz, former CIO at Biomet Europe, is currently the managing director of RFID systems integrator Applaza. Biomet's initial tests with EPC Gen 1 ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) tags in 2004 resulted in too low a read rate for RFID use to be practical. However, in December of last year, the company began trials using a high-frequency (HF) tunnel reader and tags that comply with the IS0 18000-3 standard and use phase-jitter modulation (PJM). That system, supplied by Australian HF RFID specialist Magellan Technology, is said to have delivered the 100 percent read rates required by the application.
This summer, Biomet plans to use 4- by 8-centimeter tags from Aivar Technologies, made with inlays from Tagstar. From the start of the trial, the RFID system will be fully integrated with Biomet's mySAP ERP system, which incorporates SAP's Auto-ID Infrastructure application development software. "RFID-tagged or non-RFID-tagged items will be handled the same way by the SAP system," says Bartz.
This software integration means the RFID used in the trial will be part of the company's day-to-day operations—an essential scenario, says Bartz, to determining the value of using RFID. "The solution has to be 100-percent implemented before we can compare it to existing operations," he says.
No date has yet been set for determining the effectiveness of the RFID system, though Bartz believes any benefits could lead to further tagging of loaners sets, including those for other types of implants such as hip replacements, as well as deployments at other Biomet DCs in Europe.
In addition, Bartz points out, RFID might help not only Biomet but also its hospital customers. Those hospitals with a tunnel reader would be able to see exactly which parts have been delivered, eliminating the need to check boxes to make sure parts required for surgery are present.
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Jan Willem Bartz, former CIO at Biomet Europe, is currently the managing director of RFID systems integrator Applaza. Biomet's initial tests with EPC Gen 1 ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) tags in 2004 resulted in too low a read rate for RFID use to be practical. However, in December of last year, the company began trials using a high-frequency (HF) tunnel reader and tags that comply with the IS0 18000-3 standard and use phase-jitter modulation (PJM). That system, supplied by Australian HF RFID specialist Magellan Technology, is said to have delivered the 100 percent read rates required by the application.
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| Starting in July, Biomet Europe will add 13.56 MHz tags to orthopedic knee implant items in five "loaner" sets it already sends to surgeons. |
This summer, Biomet plans to use 4- by 8-centimeter tags from Aivar Technologies, made with inlays from Tagstar. From the start of the trial, the RFID system will be fully integrated with Biomet's mySAP ERP system, which incorporates SAP's Auto-ID Infrastructure application development software. "RFID-tagged or non-RFID-tagged items will be handled the same way by the SAP system," says Bartz.
This software integration means the RFID used in the trial will be part of the company's day-to-day operations—an essential scenario, says Bartz, to determining the value of using RFID. "The solution has to be 100-percent implemented before we can compare it to existing operations," he says.
No date has yet been set for determining the effectiveness of the RFID system, though Bartz believes any benefits could lead to further tagging of loaners sets, including those for other types of implants such as hip replacements, as well as deployments at other Biomet DCs in Europe.
In addition, Bartz points out, RFID might help not only Biomet but also its hospital customers. Those hospitals with a tunnel reader would be able to see exactly which parts have been delivered, eliminating the need to check boxes to make sure parts required for surgery are present.
