Jun 24, 2015At the end of the RFID Journal Awards ceremony at RFID Journal LIVE! in April, we gathered many of the winners and finalists on stage, where they held up their trophies and let out a cheer. It was a great moment. They were all proud of what they had accomplished for their companies and pleased to be recognized for their efforts.
I was thrilled to celebrate with them, of course, but for me, the awards are about more than the individual achievements or the successes of the RFID teams involved. RFID Journal recognizes these projects so other companies can learn from them.
Bruce Hellen, Interstate Batteries' director of business practices, gave a keynote address in which he discussed the deployment that won our Best RFID Implementation Award. After his presentation, an executive from a health-care company said he'd like to use Interstate as a model for inventory management in hospitals.
Kuehne + Nagel, winner for Best Use of RFID to Enhance a Product or Service, is using RFID sensors to monitor shipments of temperature-sensitive pharmaceuticals. The solution could benefit produce companies or makers of avionics and other temperature-sensitive products.
The RFID Green Award went to Detroit Diesel, for its use of visual RFID tags, which improve efficiencies and save more than seven million sheets of paper annually. The deployment could pave the way for other manufacturers to automate processes and eliminate paper documentation that windsup in landfills.
Similarly, various companies can learn from Skoubee, which developed a pet-tracking solution, how to use Near-Field Communication technology to enable customers to interact with products. And Zebra Technologies' "next-gen stats" solution has applications way beyond sports. Boeing is already using it in its airplane-painting hangars to prevent accidents.
So in my mind, the real winner is your company, because you can follow the path these leaders blazed to achieve greater efficiencies and profitability. You can read more about these projects at this page and view the finalists' and winners' presentations from our LIVE! event in our video library.
Mark Roberti is the founder and editor of RFID Journal. If you would like to comment on this article, click on the link below. To read more of Mark's opinions, visit the RFID Journal Blog, the Editor's Note archive or RFID Connect.