Apr 20, 2006Alien Technology, a Morgan Hill, Calif., provider of UHF radio frequency technology products, and several of its alliance partners will demonstrate a variety of RFID applications for specific industries live in the 50,000-square-foot exhibit hall at RFID Journal LIVE! 2006, which is being held in Las Vegas, May 1-3.
"We're very pleased to be able to show, along with our partners, how companies can put RFID to work in different industries," says Susan Pearson, VP for alliances for Alien Technology. "This shows RFID has moved to the stage where it helps solve real business problems."
Demonstrations will be scheduled throughout the day on May 2 and May 3. They will address the following issues:
Automatic Reading and Programming of Gen 2 Tags
For companies focused on achieving compliance or just tracking goods within their own supply chain, a representative from Alien Technology's RFID Solution Center—a facility devoted to the application of RFID technology—reviews key considerations to enable successful deployment. This presentation includes a demonstration of automated reading and programming of Gen 2 RFID tags with a Gen 2 reader, as well as commissioning of tags, information on I/O considerations, integration, options for antennas and tips on reading difficult products. It will cover basic checklist items needed to ramp up an RFID initiative, with tips based on the real-world experiences of Alien Technology customers.
EPC-based Electronic Pedigree Solution Across a Supply Chain
Representatives from IBM and Alien Technology demonstrate how a UHF-based RFID system is being used to facilitate supply chain collaboration between a large pharmaceutical manufacturer and a large pharmaceutical distributor. Representatives from the companies discuss lessons learned and best practices for building a large-scale, mission-critical, secure RFID data-capturing and information-sharing infrastructure.
Transportation and Logistics Solutions
Representatives from Alien Technology, Intel and Oracle will run three demonstrations:
1. Mobile-Asset Visibility: Representatives will demonstrate how assets can be tracked in real time as they move through the global supply chain. By providing enhanced asset visibility and improved event-management capabilities, the solution enables companies to make better decisions related to products and vehicles in transit.
2. Airline Baggage Tracking Solution: This demonstration will show how RFID, XML and event-management technologies can be combined to track airline baggage as it moves through airports, among airlines and across multiple legs of a passenger's trip. Business rules identify routing errors and lost baggage in real time. This improves the baggage's visibility, reduces the airlines' cost of baggage reconciliation and enhances the passenger's travel experience.
3. Managing Reusable Containers in an Open Supply Chain: Representatives from the three companies will demonstrate a solution combining RFID, Web services and event-management technology to track reusable containers in real time in an open, multiparty supply chain. They will show how intelligent business rules can be used to monitor the execution of business processes and identify meaningful events, such as approaching expiration dates for perishable content and lost or misdirected containers. The solution leverages Oracle's Sensor Edge Server and an Event-Condition-Action (ECA) rules engine—an integral part of Oracle's Database 10g—to put RFID sensor data into the context of the business process and provide real-time visibility and event management.
Retail Solution for Supply Chain Visibility
Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and Alien Technology will demonstrate a solution that simplifies the capture and analysis of supply and demand data, enabling a company, its supply chain partners and its customers to collaborate more effectively, improve processes and meet changing business requirements. The solution spans all supply chain functions—including procurement, planning, logistics, order management and replenishment—and is used by all layers within an organization. Operational teams benefit from timely statistics and reporting through supply chain dashboards. Supply chain managers can detect trends and conduct predictive analysis for business planning with supply chain scorecards, while senior executives can use up-to-date business performance scorecards to instruct strategic course corrections.
RFID Journal LIVE! 2006 is RFID Journal's fourth annual conference and exhibition.
