You know the old joke about standards being great? “That’s why there are so many of them.”
GS1, the European Council for Standardization (CEN) and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) have formed the Global RFID Interoperability Forum for Standards (GRIFS). The forum is part of a two-year effort to maximize the global consistency of RFID standards worldwide.
The main objective of GRIFS is to put in place, at a global level, a means for organizations involved in creating RFID standards to coordinate their work. The group hopes this will lead to greater efficiency in the development of RFID standards, as well as an improved consistency of the standards available globally.
Since the launching of the project in January 2008, the GRIFS team has organized four preparatory workshops to get feedback and comments on the project, and to develop a Memorandum of Understanding as a basis for organizing a forum to facilitate collaboration. This year, the group will hold four forum meetings, together with public information sessions. These meetings will begin to address issues raised through the workshop process, and also address any outstanding organizational issues—particularly how the forum will operate once the GRIFS project ceases at the end of 2009.
The group’s Kickoff Forum meeting will take place in Washington, D.C., on June 30 and July 1. The first day will be a public event presenting the project’s progress, as well as the perspectives of several major RFID standardization bodies regarding the need for collaboration. Speakers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), AIM Global and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will also identify specific areas where the collaboration is particularly needed. In addition, I will host a panel at the event.
The presentations will lay the groundwork for the first official meeting of forum participants, to be held on day two. For those interested in attending, an updated agenda and a registration form for the event are available at www.grifs-project.eu/index.php/events/en/
Mark Roberti is the founder and editor of RFID Journal. If you would like to comment on this article, click on the link below. To read more of Mark’s opinions, visit the RFID Journal Blog or click here.