This article was originally published by RFID Update.
March 10, 2006—This week at the annual technology conference CeBIT being held in Germany, IBM and logistics giant DHL announced the beginning of an RFID pilot project that marks a new stage in DHL’s adoption of the technology. RFID Update spoke with Scott Burroughs, solutions executive at IBM’s Sensor and Actuator Solutions, about Big Blue’s work with DHL.
According to Burroughs, DHL has ended what he calls the “evaluation stage” of RFID. The company is fully committed to the technology, and is beginning a new chapter in which the company will figure out exactly how to apply it to its business. DHL has recognized that RFID has huge potential, said Burroughs. “How they adopt it in pilots is the next step,” a step in which IBM will be actively involved. “We’ve been working with them for some time,” he noted, saying this new chapter is a continuation of an existing close relationship between IBM and DHL centered around working with and applying RFID.
DHL has not specified applications that it will target with RFID, although last year the company announced plans to tag 100% of the packages it handles by 2015. Such a grand vision doesn’t happen all at once, of course, and this week’s announcement with IBM is a way of the company highlighting its first steps.
Read the announcement from DHL