Sep 30, 2005This article was originally published by RFID Update.
September 30, 2005—RFID inlay manufacturer UPM Rafsec yesterday announced the availability of Gen1 and Gen2 inlays at sub-10 cent pricing in quantities of 50,000 or more. The inlays are manufactured at the company's high-capacity inlay plant in Fletcher, North Carolina. The plant officially began operations last week, well ahead of the late Q4 date for which it was originally scheduled.
RFID Update spoke with Rafsec's Director of Business Development Jan Svoboda about the new inlay pricing. "The key for this announcement is that you have the most affordable, high quality inlays in both wet and dry form factors." He continued, "We've made the threshold significantly low and made it very, very attractive for companies to start using RFID and become adopters of it." He said that the company was "absolutely" expecting new orders to come as a result of the announcement.
Aside from pricing, Svoboda highlighted the quality of the Rafsec inlays, which the company guarantees will achieve yields of 98%. (Yield refers to the percentage of "good" inlays that function properly. Due to the vagaries of inlay production, there are always some "bad" inlays that are dead on arrival.) "We are the only company that has been able to guarantee a 98% yield," he said. While many people often focus simply on the listed unit price of RFID inlays, it is ultimately the applied cost which really matters, he explained. The applied cost includes RFID hardware components as well as associated processing costs like the identification and disposal of bad inlays. "As most people will tell you, it gets very expensive dealing with low quality, low yield material," said Svoboda.
The inlay quality is a result of Rafsec's patent-pending production technique that the company believes gives it a distinct competitive advantage. Not only does their manufacturing process yield low cost, high quality product, according to Svoboda, it also provides the company with flexibility in meeting demand. "Thanks to our innovative manufacturing platform," he said, "we have great flexibility to react to the market's elasticity." The Fletcher plant is scalable up to a capacity of one billion inlays annually.
Read the Rafsec announcement
