Hong Kong Center Aims to Put China at the Forefront of RFID Growth

"RAE was one of the six foundation R&D projects funded by the Innovation and Technology Commission but transferred to the LSCM at its inception," Tan explains. The project was granted HK$10.5 million (US$1.35 million) and completed in December 2006. "Upon completion, development on RAE was continued, and the RAE middleware was commercialized into RFiDY by E-Business Solutions to suit real business deployment. It allows companies to integrate new RFID systems with existing legacy systems at minimal effort and cost."

By adopting the middleware, Tan indicates, businesses will be able to connect quickly to global supply chain infrastructures, such as EPC, EDI and DTTN. RFiDY has already been adopted by organizations in the banking and finance, transport and education sectors. In two years, its generated value has exceeded its initial funding input by 140 percent. The EPC Network Infrastructure for End-to-End Supply Chain Visibility project has shown similar success, he notes.

"This project pioneered the building of an EPC infrastructure, and integrating it with real industry users of a global supply chain in four pilots, which required tremendous support from industry player of different sectors and leading institutes," Tan says. "Upon completion of R&D, a globalized track-and-trace platform, ezTrack, was launched in June 2008 to provide companies in Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta region with real-time visibility of goods and product information."

The ezTrack platform, managed by GS1 Hong Kong, enables companies to access information regarding RFID-tagged goods moving through the supply chain, such as inventory data, progress status and delivery schedules (see GS1 Hong Kong Launches Online Track-and-Trace Platform). For an annual subscription fee, businesses receive access to the plug-and-play Web application, which requires no IT infrastructure investment to implement or upgrade. The platform is interoperable with existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) software and warehouse-management software (WMS) systems, provided they comply with the Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS) standard.

With more than 30 projects still at the trial stage, Tan is confident commercial benefits will continue to flow, thus keeping China at the vanguard of RFID development.