Mar 14, 2016RFID Journal, the leading source of news and in-depth information regarding radio frequency identification and its many business applications, has unveiled the finalists for its 2016 RFID Journal Awards. The winners will be announced at RFID Journal LIVE! 2016, the company's 14th annual conference and exhibition, to be held at the Orange County Convention Center, in Orlando, Fla., on May 3-5. All finalists in the end-user categories will be invited to speak at the event, and the winners, along with the other end-user finalists, will receive a prestigious crystal award.
"All of the judges were impressed with the quality and scale of the submissions this year," says Mark Roberti, RFID Journal's founder and editor. "These projects show how far RFID has come in delivering enterprise-wide benefits. Attendees at this year's event will benefit from hearing about these deployments, and will view the hardware, software and solutions featured in our Best New Product category."
Companies were nominated in six categories:
Best RFID Implementation
• Decathlon—for its use of RFID tags on 90 percent of the products it sells, and for adopting RFID technology at every one of its 43 DCs and 1,030 stores to improve on-shelf availability and reduce shrinkage (see Decathlon Sees Sales Rise and Shrinkage Drop, Aided by RFID)
• Delta Air Lines—for its pioneering use of RFID to streamline aircraft maintenance and reduce the amount of time required to ensure that every seat on every airplane has an oxygen canister, and that none have reached their expiration dates (see RFID Reduces Oxygen-Generator Waste for Delta Air Lines)
• Shimane University Hospital—for its use of RFID to reduce the cost of managing 20,000 surgical instruments (see Shimane University Hospital Tags Surgical Tools, Cuts Costs)
Best Use of RFID to Enhance a Product or Service
• Agilent—for its Cross Lab Inventory Management Service, which helps its employees track and manage its customers' lab equipment (see Agilent Launches RFID-enabled Lab-Equipment Inventory Service)
• Innovative Timing Systems—for an RFID race-timing solution that is integrated with high-definition video and television broadcast systems to ensure accurate race results and enable the sharing of data with a large audience
• TrackCore—for its use of RFID to enable customers to manage tissue samples and implants
Most Innovative Use of RFID
• Berntsen International—for its innovative InfraMarker System, which integrates ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID, precision GPS and magnetic locating technologies with smartphone-based asset-management software for tracking buried assets (see InfraMarker Adds GPS, Cloud Services to Manage Buried Assets)
• Florida Hospital—for its use of data from its real-time location system to improve its processes, including the reduction of a surgical patient's time in recovery by 10 to 24 minutes
• Reichhold—for its use of RFID temperature sensors to enable customers to reduce the amount of time and energy required to cure products made with Reichhold resins (see Resin Supplier Uses RFID to Perfect the Curing Process)
RFID Green Award
• Anilhas Capri—for the RFID solution it developed to reduce the trafficking of wild birds in Brazil
• Golden Environmental Mat Services—for its use of RFID to manage construction mats, and to track the sterilization of contaminated mats to reduce environmental impact before deploying them back into the field
• Zempléni Z.H.K.—for its use of RFID technology to track 35,000 waste bins and promote recycling within Hungary
Best NFC Deployment
• CBRE—for its use of Near Field Communication (NFC) technology in London's CityPoint office building to track keys, monitor security patrols, and secure entrances and exits to the building
• Evenko—for its use of NFC to create a heightened, connected, interactive and social-media-worthy experience for patrons during Canada's largest music festival (see Osheaga Music Festival to Include New NFC-enabled Features)
• Target—for its use of NFC at its Target Wonderland popup store to transform the in-store shopping experience (see RFID Helps Target Transform Holiday Shopping Experience)
Best IoT Deployment
• Hospital de la Vega Lorenzo Guirao—for its use of Bluetooth Low Energy beacons and an Internet of Things platform to track the locations of patients, personnel and assets, and to share that data with hospital administrators and relatives
• The Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant—for its use of passive UHF RFID to track more than 7,000 workers and ensure their safe evacuation in the event of an emergency (see Chinese Nuclear Plant Tracks Workers With RFID)
• LAMSAC—for its use of RFID technology to track traffic congestion and share it in real time with drivers
The judges also selected 10 technology providers as finalists for the Best New Product exhibited at this year's LIVE! event:
• EM Microelectronic—for is EM4423 Dual Frequency RFID Chip, which combines passive high-frequency (HF) and UHF technologies (see Inlay Companies Testing EM Micro's Dual NFC and EPC Chip)
• Graphene Security—for its Graphene Security Light system, which includes passive UHF tags with printed antennas made of graphene ink, and reader antennas that can be printed on paper to fit any geometry, and be embedded into commercial LED light panels
• MetraLabs—for its TORY fully automated mobile inventory robot, which can navigate a store and take inventory counts more reliably than store associates (see German Clothing Retailer Adler Gives RFID Robots a Spin)
• MonsoonRF—for its Lantern RFID reader system, which aims to make reader installation as easy as replacing a light bulb (see MonsoonRF Shines a Light on RFID)
• Phase IV Engineering—for it RFID Sensor Reader, which is designed to collect accurate data from passive UHF EPC Gen 2 RFID sensor tags
• Smartrac—for its Sensor Tadpole, a passive UHF sensor that can detect the presence of moisture and send that information to an ordinary RFID reader (se RFID News Roundup: Smartrac's Sensor Tadpole Tag Can Detect Water Leaks in Cars, Ships, Planes)
• SML—for its Clarity 3.x retail software platform, which is designed to be flexible and scalable, and to cover virtually all retail business processes (see SML Upgrades Clarity Retail Inventory-Management Software)
• Tyco Retail Solutions—for its Sensormatic Synergy Series, an intelligent, modular, network-enabled loss-prevention system that combines acousto-magnetic (AM) and RFID detection with video (see Tyco Retail Solutions Announces Sensormatic Synergy Series of Security Pedestals)
• View Technologies—for its View Echo Smart Antennas and Platform, which can read tags from up to 150 feet away and locate tagged items within a three-dimensional space
• Zebra Technologies—for its RFD8500 Handheld Sled Reader, which can be linked to almost any smartphone, enabling quick and easy cycle counting (see Zebra's Sled Reader Enables UHF RFID Tag Reads Via Smartphone)
In addition, RFID Journal's editors will present the 2016 RFID Special Achievement Award to Pam Sweeney, Macy's senior VP of logistics systems, for her leadership of that company's RFID efforts and her tireless work to promote standard practices for the use of passive UHF RFID throughout the retail supply chain.
LIVE! 2016 will feature eight conference tracks, seven in-depth preconference seminars and workshops, four post-conference seminars, three co-located events (IEEE RFID 2016, the Internet of Things Conference and the Last Mile Consortia Forum), fast-track training presented by RFID4U, RFID Professional Institute certification and more than 200 exhibitors showcasing the latest RFID products and solutions.
