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RFID market to reach $9.2 billion in 2014, triple in next decade

Modern Materials Handling (www.mmh.com) reports on the expanding RFID market.

RFID market to reach $9.2 billion in 2014 and more than triple in next decade

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By Modern Materials Handling Staff

March 31, 2014

IDTechEx, a market research and consulting firm, has released research suggesting the RFID market – including tags, readers, software and services, for passive and active RFID – will grow from $7.88 billion in 2013 to $9.2 billion in 2014.

That figure is up nearly 32% from $6.98 billion in 2012. Most growth is due to active RFID and real-time locating systems (RTLS) systems, the report indicated, followed by interrogators and then tags in terms of total money spent.

“We are entering a period of very strong growth in RFID overall,” said Raghu Das, CEO of IDTechEx, in a recent interview. “By the beginning of 2014, 26 billion RFID tags had been sold and of that six billion alone were sold in 2013.”

In supply chain and logistics, Das said RFID is used for tracking assets such as roll cages, unit load devices (ULD), totes and tools. Because RFID is for relatively short ranges, from between sub-meter to a few meters, it is complimentary to GPS (global positioning system) technology for both asset and product tracking. For instance, Das continued, a container might be fitted with GPS and an RFID reader and as an RFID-tagged case is put on the container the two might be associated in software.

When paired with RFID technology, sensors and data loggers can monitor conditions like temperature and impacts. Das said these are widely used in the food traceability industry, mainly to meet insurance requirements. “These are often more expensive because they have a power source,” he said, “but the cost is falling. Additionally, those in charge of quality control are piloting solutions for brand differentiation, not just meeting insurance requirements.”

Passive ultra-high frequency (UHF) tags have seen rapid growth, the report continued, from a total of just more than three billion tags in 2013 to 3.9 billion tags in 2014. IDTechEx finds that 2.48 billion passive HF tags will be sold in 2014, although at an average price of almost 10 times that of passive UHF tags. The highest volume sector for passive UHF systems is retail apparel, which the report suggests still has some way to go with RFID penetrating only about 7% of the total addressable market for apparel in 2014.

After extensive interviews with suppliers, IDTechEx finds that there are now emerging or established leaders in most positions of the value chain across the different technologies – yet still very few companies have sales of more than $100 million.

IDTechEx expects the RFID market will reach $30.2 billion in 2024. This research was conducted for the report RFID Forecasts, Players and Opportunities 2014-2024 which provides data and analysis in all the main applications. With more than 90 tables, the report provides granular insight into the sector.

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Swiftsure expert offers insight about Qatar University asset management implementation

Swiftsure’s Bruno Riegl discussed with RFID Journal the planning and implementation of Qatar University’s RFID-based asset tracking and management system. Read below about the challenges and successes in meeting the university’s ever-growing resource management needs:

By Claire Swedberg

Nov 06, 2013—

Qatar University is already employing passive EPC Gen 2 ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) tags and readers to track 30,000 assets across most of the 40 buildings comprising its campus in Doha. This fall, the university plans to extend its use of the technology to track individuals and mail deliveries.

The RFID deployment includes the installation of Impinj xPortal readers on stairways and doorways.

Initially, the school purchased the system—supplied and installed in 2011 by Verasset, a U.S.-based RFID solutions provider—to identify such assets as computer equipment and furnishings during audits. The solution not only ensures that the university maintains an accurate record of which assets are located in which areas, but also reduces the amount of time required to carry out an audit process, from several months down to approximately one week. The college’s business operations department will also use the solution to manage the equipment’s maintenance schedules.

Now the school hopes to utilize the technology to ensure that the proper mail is delivered quickly, and to provide location data regarding personnel passing through portals for safety purposes. In that way, the university will be able to track which individual takes which asset into or out of a particular building, as well as warn a person before he or she inadvertently enters a segregated area occupied by members of the opposite sex.

The asset-tracking deployment includes 920 Impinj xPortalsRFID portals made with Speedway R420 RFID readers and integrated Impinj dual linear phased-array antennas (see Impinj Releases Compact High-Performance EPC RFID Portal), as well as 50 Jamison RFID portals equipped with Impinj R220 readers and Laird antennas. The portals are installed at building entrances and exits, as well as at the doorways to each floor and dwelling area. The deployment also includes 10 Convergence Systems Ltd. (CSL) CS101 handheld readers, provided to staff members for auditing processes.

Initially, the school brought Verasset a list of assets to that included about 100,000 items, according to Adam Vinecombe, Verasset’s director of service delivery. The firm then worked with the university to reduce that number to 30,000 of the highest-value items, including heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) units, in addition to laptops and other computers. A variety of EPC Gen 2 UHF RFID tags—provided by such vendors as ConfidexOmni-ID and Emerson and Cuming (a Laird Technologies company)—were required, depending on each asset’s material (such as steel or plastic) and location. For example, HVAC units on the buildings’ roofs (which are tracked for maintenance services) could experience temperatures above 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54 degrees Celsius), which meant a more ruggedized Emerson and Cuming Metaltag Flex tag was necessary, as well as special epoxy to adhere it to the asset (other adhesives would simply not hold up in extreme temperatures). Due to the locations of some buildings and the portals mounted within, Verasset also installed TRENDnet Wi-Fi routers so that portals could transmit read data to the back-end database, while some portals were cabled via an Ethernet cable for a Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) connection.

The school supplied its own Oracle-based software to manage inventory read data, with Microsoft BizTalk to link RFID read data to the inventory software.

The xPortal contains an RFID reader and antennas integrated in a compact unit measuring 30.5 inches by 8.75 inches by 2 inches.

Verasset sent 10 of its employees to apply the tags onsite—a process that lasted four weeks—and record each tagged asset into the university’s software. With that task completed, each time an asset passed through one of the portals, the software is updated to indicate where that item was last recorded as being.

Because the university is growing quickly (its student population increased by 20 percent during the past year), it is now considering other ways in which the system can be used to boost efficiency and better manage its operations, explains Bruno Riegl, senior project manager.

Verasset has now provided the school with evaluation tags for badges that personnel can wear while moving around the campus. Each badge has a built-in UHF RFID inlay (for the purpose of location tracking) and high-frequency (HF) RFID inlays (for use in access control), and incorporates an HID Global DESFire EV1 card containing a UHF inlay made with an Impinj Monza 4QT RFID chip, with a unique ID number encoded on it that could correspond to that specific employee.

As the staff member passes through a UHF RFID portal, the software residing on the college’s database links that ID to the individual and stores a record of that movement. In that way, the university can collect data that could be accessed in the event of an emergency—such as identifying which people are within a given building if a fire or other catastrophe occurs. In addition, the readers could be linked to audible or visual alerts that could be triggered at the portal for an individual entering a restricted area. One concern for the university is ensuring that staff members do not inadvertently enter a restricted area containing those of the opposite sex, as buildings and classes are segregated. For example, the library has separate wings for females and males, in which students and faculty members conduct research. If a male individual attempts to walk into an area designated for females, he could view an alert on a monitor at the portal correcting his mistake.

In addition, the school is testing passive UHF RFID tags on plastic mail-sorting trays in which mail is transported from a mailroom to recipients. The unique ID number encoded on the tray’s tag could be linked to building 2A, for instance, and the mailroom staff would fill that box with letters destined only for that building. As a mail deliverer arrived at the building, the existing RFID reader portal would capture the tray tag‘s ID number and confirm that the box was dedicated to that building, and then either update the electronic record to indicate the mail was received at that time, or issue an alert (either audible or visual) to the mail staff at the portal, indicating that the box was being delivered to the wrong building.

Tagging is currently underway as the university continues to construct new buildings, Riegl reports. Items such as chemicals or equipment for the new research-and-development and biohazard laboratories are still being fitted with passive UHF tags. If employees carry badges, the school will be able to link specific individuals with the assets being removed.

Bruno Riegl, Senior Project Manager

In the future, Riegl says, the university may opt to use the asset-tracking solution to monitor maintenance as well, by allowing the maintenance staff to locate an asset using a handheld reader, and then enter data indicating which services are being provided related to that item. If a worker removes the asset from the building, that event would also be stored, based on a read from one of the portals.

According to Riegl, Verasset faced a variety of challenges related to this installation, including navigating the documentation requirements for customs and other agencies to bring equipment into Qatar. Having successfully acquired all of the necessary paperwork, inspections and certifications from multiple agencies, he says, Verasset has become an expert in dealing with the process of implementing a technology solution in a country such as Qatar.

Additional challenges were created by the widespread nature of the installation in buildings that are, in some cases, located in remote areas of the campus, as well as by the harsh weather, Riegl says. The university thus worked with Verasset to improve its own Wi-Fi network, to ensure that data culled from wireless readers could be received by software on its database.

 

Peek inside Impinj Design Labs

GeekWire magazine looks at the Seattle-based company’s tech testing grounds, located in – of all things – an old grocery store. Learn about the lab and Impinj’s new RFID xArray tracking product:

Impinj bounces back as RFID heats up, expands in old Seattle grocery store

by  on 
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Executives at Impinj (from left to right, William Colleran, Evan Fein and Alberto Pesavento) show off how their xArray reader pinpoints the location of multi-colored blocks at the company’s new Design Lab in the old PCC in Fremont.

Over the past 14 years, Impinj has weathered two economic recessions, not to mention a slow-to-develop market for its radio frequency identification products.

William Colleran shows off a test version of its xArray RFID reader.

Impinj CEO William Colleran shows off a test unit of its xArray RFID reader.

Under normal circumstances, that combination would have killed most companies. But Impinj, founded in May 2000 by leading scientists Dr. Carver Mead and Dr. Chris Diorio and backed with more than $110 million in venture funding, is not only still standing —  but starting to thrive again.

CEO William Colleran admits that the path to success has taken longer than anyone would have imagined. But Impinj, backed by Madrona Venture Group, Arch Venture Partners, UPS and others, is on an upward swing.

A Record Year

Last year, the 140-person company achieved revenue growth of 30 percent, all while hitting other key financial milestones. The profitable company is done raising venture capital for now, and it is not quite ready to file for an initial public offering again as it did in 2011. However, if things continue to accelerate, executives say a public offering could be in the cards down the road.

“(2013) was by far our best year, and there is no reason to think that won’t be repeated this year,” said Chief Financial Officer Evan Fein, adding that they are investing heavily in innovative new RFID products.

The old PCC building is now how to Impinj

The old PCC grocery in Fremont is now home to Impinj Design Labs

Coming off that record year, Impinj is now expanding its footprint in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood where it has long called home.

But the space, located across the street from the company’s headquarters, is not your typical tech office layout.

Impinj recently moved into 11,000 square feet in the former PCC grocery store for a new effort called Impinj Design Labs, a unique laboratory of sorts where the company can test an array of RFID readers and other cutting-edge technologies.

It marks the second creative real estate transaction for a tech company in Seattle’s burgeoning Fremont area following news earlier this month that Tableau was taking over the Sound Mind & Body gym, reformatting it to accommodate its growing workforce.

A New Way To Track

When I stopped by the Impinj Design Labs last week, researchers at the company were testing an installation of its experimental Speedway xArray Reader System.

The xArray attaches to a ceiling and pinpoints where products are located that have RFID tags.

The xArray attaches to a ceiling and pinpoints where products are located that have RFID tags.

A hardware unit about the size of a medium pizza box, the xArray reader is designed to affix to a ceiling in a retail or warehouse environment. It then uses 52 antenna beams to pick up location information of RFID tags across a 40-foot diameter, tracking the whereabouts of products.

For example, a retailer like Nordstrom could use the system to visually track shoes, making sure sales representatives could easily find a matching boot or sandal that may have gone astray. The product, which is set to go on the market later this year, won Best in Show at the RFID Journal awards last year.

Impinj believes the xArray could transform inventory tracking as we know it. Today, RFID tags are typically scanned by someone who walks through a store carrying a hand-held reader, a time consuming and inefficient process.

“That’s not a very scalable model,” says Fein. “And it prevents retailers from adopting RFID because you have to train your employees and you have to have enough devices.”

With xArray, Fein said the model gets flipped on its head, automatically tracking items from above 24-hours per day, seven days per week. It also gives retailers new data, like location of items, so they can pull even more information out of the goods on the retail floor.

A Crossroads of Tech Trends

In many ways, the xArray represents Impinj’s future. If it can help companies more easily track location information of inventory, those insights can be used to boost sales and profits.

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Evan Fein showing off RFID-tagged garments.

“When you know your store floor inventory, you get an increase in sales because you don’t have out-of-stocks or items that are missing, so you know what people want and you can put it out there,” said Fein, adding that the smart inventory management can lift sales five to ten percent.

That’s part of why Impinj is at an interesting crossroads right now, sitting at the nexus of some important technology trends such as the rise of sensors, location analytics and big data.

That a represents a complex Web of hardware, software and data — one of the reasons why it has taken so long for the company to gain traction. RFID systems are inherently complex, since they involve nearly every piece of a company’s business, from manufacturing (RFID tags must be affixed to products) to integration with complex point-of-sale systems. Those layers of complexity have slowed adoption, but Fein believes the tide has now turned in part because retailers discovered a “killer app” in terms of how they use RFID to track items in a store.

Old Grocery Store Makes Great Test Bed

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That’s part of the reason why the new Impinj location is so important. An old grocery store makes for a perfect place to test implementations of the technology, including high ceilings, stocking areas, a point-of-sale counter and more. Colleran said that they can mock-up various retail scenarios, testing whether the xArray can perform in each of those. A big open floor plan was needed.

“We instrumented up this whole area, and as we change attributes of the xArray and the algorithms, we can see how well they work at inventorying this area, how accurate they can get location,” he said. “As we move on, we will add more and more retail scenarios … and it will look more and more like a store as we play out some of those scenarios with our technology.”

In fact, the new location even includes a warehouse that Impinj plans to use to store its own hardware products, tagging each with a RFID tag and then allowing the xArray to track the movement of the products.

“We can eat our own dog food,” Colleran says with a laugh.

Colleran thinks the company is well poised to take advantage of some big trends in technology in part because it was able to ride (and survive) the roller coaster of the past 15 years. Things didn’t happen quite as fast as what Colleran had hoped, but as venture capitalist Tom Huseby once noted“If you get a good company with a good idea and you hang around long enough, you will probably have a win.”

That old adage certainly seems to apply to Impinj, whose RFID tags are now used to track products at retailers such as Wal-Mart, Macy’s, Zara and Marks & Spencer.

“Slowly, but surely it is becoming commonplace,” said Colleran. “We are not where we want to be, but we are starting to get there.”

 

Motorola Solutions acquires Twisted Pair communications company

Motorola Solutions recently acquired Twisted Pair Solutions, whose founding CEO was Bruno Riegl, Swifture’s chief executive. He guided the VOiP-based interoperable communications software company from early-stage startup, through initial funding rounds into a position as a global leader in real-time, push-to-talk technology.  Learn more about it in Motorola’s press release:

Motorola Solutions Acquires Twisted Pair Solutions

Transaction accelerates push-to-talk over broadband interoperability with land mobile radios

SCHAUMBURG, Ill. and SEATTLE – Jan. 2, 2014 – Motorola Solutions, Inc. (NYSE: MSI) today announced that it has acquired Twisted Pair Solutions, a recognized leader in push-to-talk over broadband applications for secure, real-time communication anywhere, on any device. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Twisted Pair is a privately held software communications company whose WAVE® software transforms smartphones, tablets and PCs into powerful, secure communication solutions that provide integrated voice, text messaging, location and presence in one application that serves global public and private sector customers. Twisted Pair’s WAVE Desktop, Dispatch and Web applications provide customers choices in their dispatch communications and unify communications among teams of workers, whether in their office or mobile. The WAVE communications platform provides interoperability to extend land mobile radios, PBXs and other communication systems, allowing teams of employees, whether mobile or in their offices, to effectively communicate through voice, text and data – securely, reliably and in real time – regardless of network, carrier, protocol or device.

“Motorola Solutions is committed to continuing to provide its customers and partners with leading, best-in-class push-to-talk solutions. We recognize that our customers have multiple communications technology options for connecting land mobile radios, wireless broadband networks and smart devices. The acquisition of Twisted Pair enables Motorola Solutions to address all of those choices and accelerate push-to-talk expansion across multiple technologies,” said Bob Schassler, senior vice president, Government Solutions, Motorola Solutions. “We are excited to expand Motorola Solutions’ thought leadership in this space with Twisted Pair’s industry-proven technology and talent who know how to effectively extend the boundaries of land mobile radio.”

“Twisted Pair complements Motorola Solutions’ business, and we look forward to working with the Motorola team to leverage its strengths as a global industry leader to continue to enhance push-to-talk over broadband,” said Tom Guthrie, president and CEO of Twisted Pair.

Twisted Pair now is a wholly owned subsidiary of Motorola Solutions and will be integrated into Motorola Solutions’ Government Solutions business.

About Twisted Pair
Twisted Pair Solutions is the recognized leader in push-to-talk over broadband solutions for secure, real-time collaboration on any device over any network in any location. The company integrates to LMR and provides instant voice communications with text messaging, location, presence and other data so that essentially all devices – smartphones, tablets, desktop PCs and two-way radios – can talk to each other seamlessly. Twisted Pair’s software is the standard communications platform used in critical situations by military, government and commercial organizations worldwide where serious, secure communications truly matter. Its communication and collaboration capabilities can be deployed as an on-premise enterprise solution or as a private managed cloud solution providing deployment choices to our customers and partners.

About Motorola Solutions 
Motorola Solutions is a leading provider of mission-critical communication solutions and services for enterprise and government customers. Through leading-edge innovation and communications technology, it is a global leader that enables its customers to be their best in the moments that matter. Motorola Solutions trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker “MSI.” To learn more, visit www.motorolasolutions.com. For ongoing news, please visit our newsroom or subscribe to our news feed.