Finalists Unveiled for Seventh Annual RFID Journal Awards

RFID Journal has unveiled the finalists for its 2013 RFID Journal Awards. The winners will be announced at RFID Journal LIVE! 2013, the company's 11th annual conference and exhibition, to be held at the Orange County Convention Center, in Orlando, Fla., from Apr. 30 to May 2. Each end-user finalist will be invited to present its case study at the event.

"I know I speak for all 30 judges when I say that choosing only 10 Best in Show finalists was very difficult," says Mark Roberti, RFID Journal's founder and editor. "There were some tremendous deployments described in this year's submissions. Attendees at LIVE! 2013 will benefit from hearing from each finalist live on stage, and they will be able to view and vote on the new products featured in our Best in Show category."

End-user companies were nominated in four categories:

Best RFID Implementation
• Hanmi Pharmaceutical, for its system of tagging and tracking individual pharmaceutical products (see Hanmi Pharmaceutical Uses RFID to Automate Picking, Shipping)
• Sesa Goa Ltd., for an RFID solution that allows the company to track, in real time, more than 7,000 truck movements daily
• The Swedish Transport Agency, for its Way Side Monitoring system, used to detect wheel or axle damage and other potential maintenance issues

Best Use of RFID to Enhance a Product or Service
• BarMaxx, for a liquor inventory-management system that can save bar and restaurant owners money by reducing over-pouring (see BarMaxx RFID Solution Tracks Liquor Usage By Weight)
• Boeing, for a solution that replaces detailed visual inspection with the use of RFID (see Boeing to Launch RFID Program for Airlines in February)
• Parker Hannifin's O-ring division , for a system of identifying and tracking visually and dimensionally identical O-rings that have radically different performance and functional properties

Most Innovative Use of RFID
• Infinite Biomedical Technologies, for an RFID system that enables a prosthetic limb to operate more effectively and naturally (see The Feel-Good RFID Video of the Year)
• Waterloo Labs, for an entertainment application that turned Nintendo's Mario Kart videogame into a real-world experience (see Developers of Real-World Mario Kart Game Seek to Spur Interest in RFID)
• Weatherford International, for a drilling reamer system that provides a simple, reliable method of tool activation and deactivation (see Petrobras Opts for RFID to Track Drill Pipe).

RFID Green Award
• The City of Grand Rapids, Michigan, for its use of RFID-enabled recycling and refuse collection
• Lufthansa Technik, for an RFID-enabled system of tracking hazardous waste
• The Riverside Health Fitness Center, for a towel-management system that has reduced the amount of laundering it performs