RFID Journal has unveiled the finalists for the 2009 RFID Journal Awards. The winners will be announced at RFID Journal LIVE!, which will be held in Orlando, Fla., on April 27-29.
“We had some very interesting submissions in each category again this year, and the judging was closer than ever before, indicating the quality of the submissions was consistently high,” says Mark Roberti, founder and editor of RFID Journal. “Attendees at RFID Journal LIVE! are in for a real treat when they hear the winners present their stories live on stage.”
End-user companies were nominated in three categories:
Best RFID Implementation
• American Apparel: The retailer was selected for the RFID-based item-level tracking it employs to improve the visibility of the merchandise stocked on its store floor and in its stockroom, and to allow staff members to count and replenish inventory on a consistent basis while reducing the amount of labor required for this process.
• Charles Vögele Group: The European fashion retailer was picked for its use of one of the world’s first end-to-end supply chain tracking solutions at the item level.
• State of Hawaii Department of Agriculture (DOA): The DOA was chosen for developing a system to identify and pull contaminated products before they reach consumers.
Best Use of RFID In a Product or Service
• SPA Grand Prix: The Belgian race organizer was picked for a system that enables it to reduce errors when it mails Grand Prix tickets to fans, while combating counterfeiting and improving attendees’ experience at the race.
• Parkway Corp.: The parking management company was selected for its vehicle identification system, which automated the process of managing vehicle access to Philadelphia International Airport, thereby reducing errors and improving revenue collection.
• Vail Resorts: The leading North American ski resort operator was chosen for an RFID system that enhances the guest experience across its many resorts, reduces pass fraud and enables it to passively gather and aggregate behavioral information for improved customer segmentation.
Most Innovative Use of RFID
• Celebrity Big Brother: The U.K. reality TV show was selected for an innovative system of tracking the movements of participants within the house where the show is filmed, to gather statistical information that could be used in the analysis of the housemates’ movements, behavior and relationships, in order to add an extra dimension to the TV show experience, as well as to fill airtime.
• FOCUS Magazine: The German publisher was chosen for an RFID system that enables the passive evaluation of the behavior of its readership, without the need for consumers to perform any conscious action.
• Tomorrow’s Mother: The maternity apparel company was picked for a system that enables it to monitor inventory on standalone displays, without requiring electrical power or an Ethernet connection.
In addition, 10 technology providers were nominated for the Best in Show award, which will be given to the best new product being exhibited at RFID Journal LIVE! 2009. The finalists are:
• AgileTag: For its system that combines active and passive technologies for easy, low-cost deployments.
• Alcatel-Lucent: For its Touchatag system, designed to connect the real and virtual worlds for interactive advertising and other applications.
• American RFID Solutions: For its iStar solution, which enables the user of an iPhone to locate a tagged object by serial number, by proximity, within a user-defined area or by some other meaningful filtering criteria.
• Franwell: For a new wearable RFID reader designed to be easier to use and less disruptive to employees carrying out routine tasks.
• Intelligent InSites: For its Enterprise Visibility Platform, which promotes an efficient, lean environment by providing organizations with a single system capable of locating individuals, equipment, inventoried supplies and more.
• ODIN Technologies: For its Blackbird SMART container, a self-inventorying system that gives standard shipping containers the ability to automatically capture passive RFID tag data on a scheduled basis, upon door closure or in response to a user command.
• Q-Track Corp. : For the company’s near-field electromagnetic ranging (NFER) low-frequency (1 MHz), narrowband (less than 500 Hz) real-time location system.
• Tego For its TegoTag XM 32-kilobyte tag and TegoView reader software, which allow end users to read and write more data on a tag, and to secure that information.
• UPM Raflatac and Blue Spark Technologies: For their jointly developed battery-assisted passive EPC Gen 2-compliant inlay, which is capable of battery-assisted read ranges of up to 50 meters (154 feet) and features 1024 bits of non-volatile memory, along with a low-battery alarm.
• Zebra Technologies: For its RP4T mobile RFID label printer-encoder, the world’s first mobile thermal-transfer RFID printing solution.
The RFID Journal Awards are given in recognition of excellence in the area of radio frequency identification. “Each year, we see more and more great implementations and exciting new products,” Roberti says. “I’m pleased we are able to shine a light on some of the great things being achieved in the RFID industry.”
RFID Journal LIVE! 2009, the seventh annual event produced by RFID Journal, will be held on Apr. 27-29, 2009, at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin in Orlando. This year’s event will feature eight industry-specific and how-to conference tracks, nine in-depth preconference seminars, fast-track CompTIA RFID+ training and certification, and numerous technology exhibits and demonstrations conducted by leading technology firms. In addition, four colocated events have been designed to provide added value by enabling attendees to access additional education sessions.