Jan 09, 2014The following are news announcements made during the past week by the following organizations: Xerafy; Impinj, Tyco, Technology Solutions Ltd. and Round Rock Research; the U.S. Department of Defense; inMarket; Retail Systems Research (RSR); TechNavio; and PAMI.
Xerafy Upgrades On-Metal Inlays and Labels With More Flexible Material
Industrial RFID tag supplier Xerafy has announced that it will replace its Metal Skin family of flexible ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) EPC Gen 2 RFID inlay and labels this year with updated versions. The Mercury inlays and labels have been redesigned based on customer feedback, the company reports. The new Gen1+ Mercury Metal Skin inlay and labels are made from more flexible material, according to Xerafy, enabling them to be attached more securely around small curved surfaces. The Gen1+ Mercury Metal Skin maintains the same look, feel and performance of the original product, the firm notes, and uses the same Impinj Monza 4E chip, adhesive and facestock. The new version contains substrate composed of expanded polyethylene (EPE), while the previous model uses polypropylene substrate material. The bending radius for the Gen1+ measures 40 millimeters (1.6 inches), compared with 30 millimeters (1.2 inches) in the original version. The updated version is compatible with most types of standard desktop RFID printer-encoders on the market, the company adds, such as those from Zebra Technologies, and has been tested and validated for the past few months by existing customers for their applications, such as asset management, product authentication, IT asset tracking and financial services. The Mercury Metal Skin is currently being phased out, Xerafy reports, and customers are encouraged to transition to the upgraded Gen1+ version.
Round Rock Signs Sign Licensing Agreements With Impinj, Tyco, Technology Solutions UK Ltd.
Round Rock Research has entered into licensing agreements with Impinj, Tyco Retail Solutions and Technology Solutions UK Ltd. (TSL). The settlements follows last year's flurry of agreements between Round Rock and a variety of RFID vendors (see Round Rock Completes Licensing Deals With Majority of RFID Vendors). Altogether, 12 RFID technology vendors and six end users have now licensing agreements with Round Rock. Jim Donaldson, Impinj's senior director of corporate communications, says Impinj had signed a reader licensing agreement with Round Rock, adding that "along with other licensees, we look forward to the acceleration of UHF RFID adoption as a consequence of this cloud being lifted from the industry." For its part, Tyco Retail Solutions' royalty-bearing agreement provides a worldwide license to Round Rock's RFID patents, allowing Tyco and its customers, to continue deploying innovative RFID solutions. That agreement covers Tyco's complete RFID portfolio of products, providing a mechanism for customers to deploy RFID solutions free of the Round Rock patent assertions. Tyco's RFID-based Inventory Intelligence solutions feature the company's Sensormatic RFID readers, antennas and tags, and TrueVUE software. The agreement, Tyco reports, allows its customers to use readers purchased from Tyco with tags purchased from Tyco or another licensed supplier. "For nearly 50 years, retailers have depended on Tyco products," said Nancy Chisholm, Tyco Retail Solutions' VP and general manager, in a prepared statement. "This agreement with Round Rock offers our retail customers a clear path to deploying our new RFID-based solutions, free of Round Rock patent assertions and without business interruption from potential litigation."
U.S. Department of Defense Phases Out Legacy Active Tags
Beginning this month, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) has switched completely to active RFID tags based on the Joint Defense Total Asset Visibility (JDTAV) v2.5 format and complying with the ISO 18000-7 standard. Consequently, the DOD has retired all 433 MHz active tags based on the legacy JDTAV v2.0 format based on the ANSI/INCITS 256 standard. "ANSI and ISO tags have both been in the system since 2010, but the ANSI tags will no longer be used on shipments after January 1," said Andy Monday, the chief of U.S. Transportation Command's Logistics Enabling Support Division, in a prepared statement. According to the DOD, the change is expected to save the Defense Department at least $5 million annually in transportation and distribution costs. The limitations of the legacy format became apparent after more than a decade of war, the DOD explains. "Frankly, we were running out of tags since the ANSI standard has a limited number of unique tag ID numbers," Monday said. "Even though we emphasize tag reuse, many times the tags were lost or damaged after delivery." In contrast, he added, the ISO standard being introduced "provides virtually unlimited unique tag ID numbers, essential for maintaining in-transit visibility of shipments." Other benefits, Monday said in the statement, include the fact that the ISO 18000-7 standard has become a global commercial active RFID standard, and that the tags themselves are one-third the cost of the legacy ANSI tags. Using the ISO standard, according to the DOD, enables many RFID vendors to compete for DOD contracts, which leads to lower costs for customers—and, ultimately, for U.S. taxpayers. The DOD, TRANSCOM, the military services, the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), the General Services Administration (GSA), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), coalition partners and others have been planning the transition, the DOD reports, and have been making the necessary hardware and software changes during the past five years in order to make the switch possible.
More Than 150 Grocery Stores to Deploy inMarket Bluetooth Beacons
inMarket, a mobile in-store marketing solution, has announced the launch of its multi-retailer iBeacon platform. The platform leverages the inMarket iBeacon—a small (about the size of a quarter) battery-powered RFID tag that transmits a Bluetooth low-energy (BLE) 2.4 GHz signal and functions as a micro-location device to enable mobile application with higher accuracy than GPS. BLE technology has been tested in several pilots (see Macy's Tests Shopkick's ShopBeacon at New York, San Francisco Stores and Companies Deliver New Apps for Bluetooth Beacons). According to inMarket, the Mobile to Mortar network is a retailer-agnostic iBeacon platform designed to augment the shopping experience for consumers across the United States. The initial rollout will take place at more than 150 grocery stores in Seattle, San Francisco and Cleveland, and will include Safeway and Giant Eagle supermarkets, with additional retailers and markets launching during the coming months. As inMarket rolls out its iBeacon network, the company reports, it will provide shoppers with a wide range of benefits, such as custom coupons, loyalty rewards, and grocery list reminders while they are in the store. For example, a shopper who opts in can be reminded of items that his or her spouse just placed on their shared list. That customer can also earn loyalty rewards, or be directed to a custom special offer.
Midsize Retailers Most Likely to See Value in Item-Level Tagging, RSR Study Shows
A new report from Retail Systems Research (RSR) finds that while enterprise-wide visibility is top-of-mind for many retailers, and that many are spending money on technology to achieve this goal, RFID technology adoption is still lagging in the retail sector. The research firm attributes RFID's slow adoption rates to the hype in the mid-2000s associated with case and pallet tagging. Item-level RFID tagging may be changing that, however. According to the study, 28 percent of respondents believe item-level RFID holds a lot of value, while 6 percent are implementing and/or using item-level tagging. As noted by the study's authors, RSR managing partners Nikki Baird and Brian Kilcourse, RFID technology "seems to be an almost perfect fit for omni-channel if it's directed toward in-store accuracy, and it is showing great promise in apparel. But other priorities come first." Interestingly, 50 percent of midsize retailers (those reporting revenues ranging from $250 million to $1 billion) see value in item-level RFID tagging, according to the study, compared with only 25 percent of larger retailers and 22 percent of smaller companies. Other key findings of the study include that the largest retailers are looking to big technology investments to assist their supply chain transformations, but their smaller counterparts are underestimating what technology—particularly in a cloud-enabled, third-party environment—can do for them.
Tags Comprise Half of Global RFID Market, TechNavio Says
According to the latest research findings by independent London-based global research firm TechNavio, RFID tags are expected to account for a bit more than 50 percent of the revenue in the global RFID market, which also includes readers and services. According to the firm, the global RFID market this year is expected to be in the range of $9 billion to $11 billion, and this figure is expected to double by 2018. Numerous factors, the firm reports—including the possible lowering cost of RFID systems and tags, as well as various initiatives by retail establishments to have RFID tagging as part of their logistical support—are expected to drive this growth in the RFID market. Of this total market size, RFID tags are expected to contribute to a little more than half the value of the RFID market in 2014, and a significantly reduced amount by 2018. The report covers the forecast period of 2014 to 2018, and analysis of that period indicates that the RFID tags market will grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.7 percent during the forecast period, with the software and services segment following closely and growing at a CAGR of 22.9 percent, followed by the readers segment, growing at a CAGR of 20.9 percent. As of 2013, TechNavio indicates, the Americas was still the leading contributor to the global RFID market accounting for close to half the global revenue, followed by Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and the Asia-Pacific region. The Americas (particularly the United States) was one of the early and highest adopters of RFID. In terms of growth, however, the Asia-Pacific region exhibits the highest potential throughout the next 10 years, during which period numerous projects will be implemented in this region by private and government enterprises. The study also found that RFID started primarily as tool for tracking within a confined area, but that this has changed over the years, with the technology becoming an important tool for business-planning purposes, wherein data obtained from RFID tags is being used to determine what measures need to be taken within an organization. For example, the firm reports, employing RFID to track the quantity of containers being loaded onto a truck can help a company decide how many vehicles it requires, and to identify a trend, thereby enabling it to plan ahead. "In the coming years," says Arijit Rakshit, a TechNavio spokesman, "we expect RFID to be more visible in terms of the number of deployments, and in the number of applications for which they can be used. We also expect lower costs of active tags that will help in the above scenario to take place in the coming years."
Cold Temperatures Can Cause RFID Cattle Tags to Break, Researchers Warn
The Polar Vortex has reminded everyone of the negative effects that freezing and below-freezing temperatures can have on a variety of objects. RFID technology is no exception, according to researchers at Canada's Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute (PAMI), especially with regard to RFID tags designed to track individual cows from birth to slaughter, and their use on Canadian cattle as mandated by the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency (CCIA). A number of tag options have been approved by the CCIA for use in the Cattle Identification Program, since they met the program's criteria for retention, readability and the ability to withstand tampering. However, producers are still having problems getting the small, round, yellow tags to stay in place on an animal's ear, which is why PAMI researchers have been investigating reasons for the retention problems and what can be done to fix them. They tested six types of RFID tags, following best practices for their application (which included using fronts and backs from the same manufacturer, as well as the correct applicator for each brand of tag). The team then measured the amount of force required to break the tags apart in different ways, and looked at each brand of tag to determine which were the least variable in terms of performance, which were stronger, and which were the easiest to insert. They also tried inserting the tags at various temperatures. What they found, according to PAMI, was that while all met the basic strength requirements set out by the CCIA, temperature has a profound effect on the tags. "We recognize there is frustration among producers related to tag retention, and we wanted to address it," said Dr. Joy Agnew, a member of the PAMI research team, in a prepared statement. "Inserting the tags in the cold and comparing their strength with warm-applied tags was something about the tags that we believe no one else has tested. The whole effect of temperature on tag retention was a question mark." During the PAMI test, both tag and applicator were brought down to -30 degree Celsius (-22 degrees Fahrenheit). The tag was then inserted, and was brought back up to an ambient temperature before its strength was tested. The researchers found that if the tags were inserted cold, they were much weaker than those inserted at room temperature. In addition, tags were more difficult to insert when they were cold, and broke apart far more easily, even when back at room temperature. These results, according to PAMI, indicate that it is best to avoid tagging animals in extremely cold temperatures. If it cannot be helped, PAMI recommends, producers should keep both applicator and tags warm while the tagging process is taking place. PAMI researchers are continuing their study of RFID tag retention this year. One goal of their investigation is to determine the amount of force required to pull the tag through a cow's ear, as this is a common cause of tag loss. They also plan to assess the performance of pneumatic applicators as opposed to hand-operated devices, in order to ascertain if a constant application force improves tag strength and reduces variability of strength. There is also the possibility of conducting some cold breakage testing as part of the study as well.
