Aug 24, 2005This article was originally published by RFID Update.
August 24, 2005—Savi Technology has landed a US $10.1 million contract to supply Australia's military, the Australian Defence Force (ADF), with RFID technology to better the organization's supply chain operations. Savi Technology Australia Pty Ltd., Savi's wholly-owned Australian subsidiary, will provide the ADF with the Savi SmartChain Consignment Management Solution, a software system that will tie in with Savi RFID hardware including ST-654 active tags, SR-650 fixed readers, and Savi Mobile Readers that attach to handheld computers or PDAs. The ADF expects the system to improve its supply chain visibility both within Australian borders and in military deployments abroad.
The first implementation of the system will occur in Iraq, where the military is actively engaged and wants its supply chain systems to interoperate with those of the U.S. and U.K. ADF Director-General for Materials Systems, Brigadier David McGahey, said, "We currently have poor visibility of hundreds of millions of items, and we need greater collaborative visibility with our allies. We expect this system will help us to be more flexible and agile in responding to changing redeployments."
The Savi solution complies with the recently approved NATO Standardization Agreement for RFID, which is "an agreement between nations to use a standardized RFID for tracking of consignments and assets between nations." It will also allow the ADF to interoperate with the In-Transit Visibility networks in use by the U.S. DoD and the U.K. and Danish Ministries of Defence. Within Australia, Savi readers will initially be installed at about 30 locations related to transportation and distribution.
The solution will also allow interoperability with private commercial systems worldwide that fall outside the jurisdiction of any military, a capability advocated by the U.S. DoD in its RFID mandate: "In order to take advantage of global RFID infrastructure not already in DoD’s control, the DoD Logistics Automatic Identification Technology Office will assess the ability to leverage any compatible active RFID commercial infrastructure that commercial entities may establish."
