Teaming Up for RFID Item-Level Tagging and Validation

April 30, 2009
FLETCHER, NC-Three providers have joined to create an RFID-enabled solution concept to optimize item-level tagging and validation for process-intensive industries, such as electronics manufacturing, retail manufacturing, healthcare and pharmaceuticals and third-party logistics.

As the three describe the new offering, it is UPM Raflatac's UHF Trap tags equipped with Impinj MonzaTM 3 tag chips, Impinj Speedway readers and reader antennas and Zebra Technologies’ short-pitch RZ400 printers, enabling business users to validate the contents of a package prior to shipping and monitor package components even after boxes are sealed.

In pointing out the need for this technology, Mikko Nikkanen, business development director, RFID, UPM Raflatac, notes, “Process-intensive industries achieve a wide array of business benefits from implementing RFID-driven systems to tag and validate manufactured goods. By automating critical inventory management processes such as pick-and-place operations, companies develop real-time data insights they can use to improve production and distribution, while driving down costs due to human handling errors.”

The companies claim with this new item-level tagging and validation solution concept, companies can easily authenticate, verify and control shipments of valuable merchandise while achieving efficiency gains of 20 to 50% in high volume production environments. In addition, the system enables companies to streamline product recalls and handle them earlier in the distribution process, reducing the high costs of recalls borne by both manufacturers and consumers.