Oct 31, 2006Gen 2, Gen 2, Gen 2. Everywhere you turned at last week's RFID Journal LIVE! Europe conference, attendees were singing the praises of the EPCglobal Gen 2 RFID tag. Bill Hardgrave, director of the RFID Research Center at the University of Arkansas (ITRI), hailed the "tremendous" improvements in Gen 2 technology, while DaimlerChrysler said it was helping the automaker manage containers at one of its plants, among other applications.
One of the most convincing statements, backed up by even more convincing data, came from Christian Plenge, head of research and innovation at MGI Metro Group Information Technology, during the first session on Thursday (see Metro Group to Roll Out RFID at up to 150 Sites ). He gave EPC Gen 2 tags credit for making many of Metro Group's RFID tests a success.
Plenge presented an impressive set of read rates with new readers and Gen 2 tags, stating, "All of this is due to the improvements of Gen 2 technology." He added that Gen 2's reach and speed, as well as its sensitivity to materials such as liquids and semi-liquids, have improved.
EPCglobal released the specifications for Gen 2 tags to the market in December 2004, and manufacturers had the first tags ready for market in late 2005. By the beginning of this year, Gen 2 tags had become widely available for implementation and testing.
Metro, an RFID leader in Europe, was one of the first large companies to use the tags in tests. Plenge said the tag and new readers achieved 100 percent read rates for goods on the outside of a pallet, including such products as Charmin toilet paper, Milka chocolate, Ariel laundry detergent, Shauma shampoo and Rexona deodorant sticks. Readings of these products inside the pallet ranged from 75 to 85 percent.
On a mixed pallet of shampoo, detergent, coffee and deodorant, the read rate was 91 percent on the outside and 82 percent on the inside. Plenge told attendees the retailer sees the possibility of deploying Gen 2 tags for mixed pallets on CDs to create smart clothing rails, and for scanning goods with a hand reader.
In another Gen 2-related talk, Antonio Rizzi, founder and head of the RFID Lab at the University of Parma, said the lab has been assessing the performance of Gen 2 tags and readers under different operational conditions, such as distance, orientation and exposure to metal, water and humidity. Rizzi's RFID Lab, which opened several months ago (see Italian RFID Lab to Open in May), is pushing ahead to create more pilots in order to move from a lab to a more operative environment. Eventually, he said he wants to combine a logistics pilot with a department store pilot to create a model of the full supply chain.
GS1, in conjunction with its daughter organization EPCglobal, promotes multi-industry, user-driven standards for the EPC RFID technology. Stephen Pique, the organization's European director, gave attendees an update on GS1's activities at the industry level. In December, he said, EPCglobal will hold a second discussion group meeting with the consumer-electronics industry; in the first quarter of next year, GS1 will continue discussions with the aerospace and chemicals industry; and members of the automotive industry will meet to discuss RFID standards at some point in 2007.
Still, Europe lags behind the United States in UHF RFID implementation since the U.S. market is driven by high-level mandates from the likes of Wal-Mart and the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). In addition, European companies are adverse to risk when it comes to testing the new technology, Pique said.
"In the U.S., from a technical point of view and from the regulation point of view, it is easier to apply [UHF] RFID, and you have a bigger flexibility to apply RFID than we have in Europe right now," he said. "We are still trying to change this, and we are trying to make it easier, and we are [making] good progress. But we are not at this level that we have this high amount of [RF] channels available, like the U.S. has. We are progressing, but we're not at the same level like the U.S.—on UHF."
Pique added that GS1 is now working on high-frequency tags to find out how HF could be used within EPC. "EPC is not only UHF anymore," he said.
Holding Europe back, however, is a lack of adoption of RFID technology by small and midsize enterprises (SMEs). "GS1 is quite strongly trying to facilitate...the groundwork for SMEs so we can really use RFID through the whole supply chain, because it only makes sense to use RFID compared to bar code if you can use it from the source up to the end [of the supply chain]," Pique said. He added, "The SMEs [in Europe] today are not at the IT level to use RFID—they're not at the stage today where they can adopt RFID from one day until the other."
Pique further compared the United States and Europe by noting that "Europe is just different. We have many, many problems because we are many countries—25 now—which have different regulations. We still do not have all the regulations solved. Italy has still not applied to have this harmonization ready. France just applied, and Spain is to come. We still have small issues on the local level to solve. What is for sure is that [European companies] are more conservative in applying RFID. We could do much more, and companies could already start much to investigate and run pilots and make experience with RFID."
Pique added, I personally think that besides all these technical issues, and besides all these mandate differences between the U.S. and Europe, it's quite a psychological issue and a position of the companies to be very conservative and waiting until everything is done." According to Pique, GS1's actions can be thus summarized: "We are very strongly pushing the industry groups to bring end users on board, and to discuss with them what RFID can bring them. We hope that they will help us drive the standards through the chain."
