Dr. Dobb's | RFID In the News | February 22, 2007

RFID In the News

Radio Frequency IDentification chips are starting to pop up everything -- as if you'd know

February 22, 2007
URL:http://www.drdobbs.com/embedded-systems/rfid-in-the-news/197008111

RFID is starting to pop everywhere, or so it seems. For instance, Schiff Nutrition International, a manufacturer of vitamins and nutritional supplements, has announced a new RFID pilot to better anticipate current and future customer needs and improve efficiency.

For the initial design, testing, and implementation of its RFID infrastructure, Schiff turned to IBM and OATSystems. For the project's middleware software, Schiff is using OATSystems' OATxpress and IBM's WebSphere RFID Premises Server, which forms a flexible yet scalable end-to-end architecture.

To begin, IBM conducted an RFID Solution Development Workshop to educate Schiff's staff on the technology and customize its solution to align with current business processes. To ensure smooth running of Schiff's order-fulfillment operations, IBM will continue to deliver services through 2007. Schiff also had full access to IBM's RFID Lab and Business Partner network to address any issues of physics and to achieve the highest read rates.

At IBM's RFID testing facility in Raleigh, North Carolina, Schiff was able to test out which combinations of tags and readers worked best for its products, and perfected the use of RFID on mixed pallets, while spinning them in a pallet wrapper. This enables the seamless continuation of the supply chain, without slowing it down to read the tags, a critical requirement for Schiff. Schiff is able to read mixed pallets, spinning in a pallet wrapper, 100 percent of the time and gets read rates of 97 percent at the retailer, much higher than the industry average.

Another place where RFID will likely be popping up is in airports, specifically the luggage carolsels -- at least if RFID Ltd has its way. RFID Ltd. is shopping its BagChip system to airlines, claiming it will help airlines reduce the time and money spent returning lost luggage to rightful owners. Delta Airlines has estimated that approximately 800,000 bags per year are misplaced, costings an estimated $100 million a year to return bags to their owners. The RFID chips would contain a traveler's name, address, phone number, and unique ID, and would be scanned using medium-range handheld readers at locations within airports.

RFID Ltd. hopes to implant RFID chips in the Paris Hilton set of designer luggage tags. The tags are being designed to match the colors and grains of luggage offered by Chanel, Dior, Gucci, Prada, and Louis Vuitton.

Not that you would notice, but the world's smallest RFID tags were introduced a few months back by Hitachi. The tiny RFID chips measure just 0.05 x 0.05 millimeters -- smaller in diameter than a human hair. The "powder" RFID chips have a 128-bit ROM for storing a unique 38-digit number. According to reports, the tiny chips can be read from about 10 inches away.