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Baggage-Tagging Projects Gaining Altitude
Hong Kong and Las Vegas airports are upgrading and ramping up their RFID bag-tagging efforts.
By Mary Catherine O'Connor
April 18, 2008—In January, Hong Kong International Airport announced that it had retrofitted all baggage-tag printers at its check-in counters to accommodate RFID-enabled tags, and also installed RFID interrogators in all of its baggage-handling equipment. The airport has now contracted George Schmitt & Co. to be its provider of RFID-enabled baggage labels.
Mary Ann Allen, George Schmitt's director of business development, says that while she can not reveal the size of the contract, the label converter will employAlien Technology's EPC Gen 2 Squiggle inlay, using Alien's Higgs 2 integrated circuit in the baggage tag, exclusively. The contract is for one year, according to Mark Turner, assistant general manager of Hong Kong International Airport's terminal business office.
According to Allen, George Schmitt & Co. continually tests inlays from various tag manufacturers and is tag agnostic—it converts Motorola inlays into baggage labels used by Las Vegas' McCarran Airport, for instance. She adds, however, that based on her experience with the Alien Squiggle tag, she considered it the best candidate to satisfy the Hong Kong airport's requirement for performance and price. The airport, having performed its own tests of submitted Gen 2 labels, agreed.
Hong Kong International Airport, like many others, has been testing RFID baggage tracking for a number of years, using baggage labels containing RFID inlays made by Motorola, but Allen says it is the first airport to deploy an EPC Gen 2 system rollout beyond the pilot stage. The airport began using Gen 2 labels produced exclusively by George Schmitt roughly two weeks ago.
"Our read rates before were good," Turner says, "and have been improved by an average of 3 percent with the George Schmitt & Co. labels."
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April 18, 2008—In January, Hong Kong International Airport announced that it had retrofitted all baggage-tag printers at its check-in counters to accommodate RFID-enabled tags, and also installed RFID interrogators in all of its baggage-handling equipment. The airport has now contracted George Schmitt & Co. to be its provider of RFID-enabled baggage labels.
Mary Ann Allen, George Schmitt's director of business development, says that while she can not reveal the size of the contract, the label converter will employAlien Technology's EPC Gen 2 Squiggle inlay, using Alien's Higgs 2 integrated circuit in the baggage tag, exclusively. The contract is for one year, according to Mark Turner, assistant general manager of Hong Kong International Airport's terminal business office.
According to Allen, George Schmitt & Co. continually tests inlays from various tag manufacturers and is tag agnostic—it converts Motorola inlays into baggage labels used by Las Vegas' McCarran Airport, for instance. She adds, however, that based on her experience with the Alien Squiggle tag, she considered it the best candidate to satisfy the Hong Kong airport's requirement for performance and price. The airport, having performed its own tests of submitted Gen 2 labels, agreed.
Hong Kong International Airport, like many others, has been testing RFID baggage tracking for a number of years, using baggage labels containing RFID inlays made by Motorola, but Allen says it is the first airport to deploy an EPC Gen 2 system rollout beyond the pilot stage. The airport began using Gen 2 labels produced exclusively by George Schmitt roughly two weeks ago.
"Our read rates before were good," Turner says, "and have been improved by an average of 3 percent with the George Schmitt & Co. labels."
READERS' COMMENTS
STRATEGIC MARKETING MANAGER
DEAR ALL, I AM VERY NEW TO RFID. MY QUESTIONS ARE AS FOLLOWS: 1. WHAT IS THE ROADMAP FOR STARTING THE RFID IMPLEMENTATION? 2. HOW TO WELL-INTEGRATE THE MANUFACTURING, INVENTORY AND LOGISTIC OPERATION? THANK YOU FOR ALL.
Posted By: W. Lo 12/15/2009 at 2:48:26 AM
roadmapping and integration
Strategic marketing manager: Good questions. This story might give you a good start: http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/1365/1/430/ But there is plenty of other great how-to content on the site, depending on your specific needs. Here is the index: http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/archive/430/1 For integrating the technology across your operations, you'll probably want to start talking to your business partners that provide these services (see: http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/1048/1/429/ ) and look around at RFID system integrators who can help link the technology between disparate parts of your business (http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/1763/1/429/). Good luck!
Posted By: M. Oconnor 12/15/2009 at 12:29:24 PM
RE: roadmapping and integration
> Strategic marketing manager: The following might help. In many applications, the RFID tag serves as a key the system uses to unlock item information from a database. You need to look beyond the tag to understand how RFID will create value and provide a return on investment. Today, most of the focus is on how emerging Electronic Product Code (EPC) RFID tags can help connect trading partners and align supply chains. However, to see the immediate benefits RFID can provide, manufacturers should look inward at their operation’s own business processes, not just forward into supply chain customer’s compliance requirements. RFID provides a quick return on investment in many factory and warehousing industrial operations, without as much co-ordination and complexity as supply chain implementations require. The RFID tag is only one component of a total system that may combine bar codes, mobile computers, wireless LANs, material handling systems and industrial controls to manage materials and assets more effectively. A “tag first” approach – i.e. looking at tag capabilities and trying to force fit them into operations – is not advisable. Cybernetics Consultancy has developed a five step approach for a successful implementation of an Automatic Identification and Data Collection application; 1. Scope and Focus on that Scope 2. Research the available technologies 3. Set a achievable process- and time frame. 4. Set up realistic field tests and discuss the outcome with the stake holders. 5. Keep it simple to start with. Integrate the information step by step into the back-office or the network. www.cybernetics-associates.com www.ukcoding.co.uk
Posted By: F. Van Calker 1/28/2010 at 1:48:40 AM