Chemical Industry Explores ROI for RFID

"CIDX has an opportunity to play a role in the development of standards by the CIAG, by providing existing Chem eStandards to the CIAG for discussion," write the authors of the new white paper, entitled "Chem eStandards Initiative—Radio Frequency ID." The authors include a number of executives from CIDX member companies, including Dow Corning, Eastman Chemical Co. and DuPont. "The business processes within the Chem eStandards should be analyzed for applicability to EPC RFID by the CIAG and recommendations for changes communicated to CIDX," the authors add. CIDX plans to appoint an individual from one of its member companies to represent CIDX's interests on any EPCglobal industry action group.

CIDX members, EPCglobal members and students at Stanford University and Eindhoven University worked with the CIDX staff to develop the model, which the group named the Chemical Value Model. The document is intended to help determine the value potential of RFID adoption for a given chemical company's operating profile and processes. To use the model, a company defines its business objectives, evaluates plant activities and current costs, and inputs all that data into the model. "This will serve as starting-point assessment to determine where RFID will add business value," the authors write, "and to help plan a scalable deployment approach, starting with a controlled pilot for chosen business processes being targeted." Hutcheson says CIDX will test it out and add more business scenarios specific to chemical companies.

The white paper also discusses other ways EPCglobal standards and CIDX's own Chem eStandards may converge. For example, the paper cites EPCglobal's EPC Information Service (EPCIS), a network infrastructure that serves as a communications mechanism between applications and data repositories so companies can exchange data. According to the CIDX white paper, EPCIS "contains both the specification of the interfaces and the data itself and is a possible overlap with Chem eStandards." Another area where EPCglobal and CIDX may work together, the paper suggests, is the EPC Tag Data Standard, which defines some common container types. "The chemical industry would likely have more [container types] to add [to the EPC Tag Data Standard]," the authors write.

With the publication of this second white paper, CIDX has launched a project team to develop an RFID evaluation process for analyzing business scenarios of value to the chemical industry. The team will also review the Chem eStandards with EPCglobal to determine RFID opportunities and potential impact on existing CIDX standards, as well as identify required CIDX documentation to support, among other things, RFID enablement.

CIDX's new white paper, downloadable from the organization's Web site, is free to CIDX members and available to non-members for $1,000. The Chemical Value Model is available from EPCglobal to CIDX members free of charge.