April 10, 2015 – The Swiftsure Group will be among more than 38,000 healthcare IT professionals, clinicians, executives and vendors convening in Chicago April 12-16 for the HIMSS15 exhibition, the world’s largest and most important healthcare IT trade show.

Swiftsure, a systems integrator specializing in RFID automatic data capture and advanced asset management, has joined with partner Verephi to provide healthcare risk mitigation services and solutions. Its mobile automatic data collection system, equipment maintenance platform and ePHI security audits help organizations comply with HIPAA and JCAHO regulations. That means increased efficiency and security, reduced risk and cost, and improved patient care.

HIMSS, the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, is a global not-for-profit organization focused on better health through information technology. Its annual exhibition showcases the newest health IT technologies, trends and solutions. Learn more about HIMSS15.

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Antennas and readers capture data about UTA’s RFID-tagged light rail cars and equipment

March 3, 2015 – The Utah Transit Authority (UTA) has completed a successful predictive maintenance pilot project for its TRAX light rail system using an RFID-based automated asset management solution. It allows UTA to establish a maintenance schedule based on actual use instead of preset times that unnecessarily remove equipment from revenue service.

The system, deployed at UTA’s Jordan River Service Center in Salt Lake City, also helps UTA meet federal mandates to monitor the condition of and make timely repairs to railcars and equipment components, reducing breakdowns and ensuring efficient, safe operations.

Within two months the pilot proved that passive RFID tags attached to equipment had a 100% read rate as they traveled at 15 mph through a read zone with an array of RFID antennas and readers. Data collected at each read zone is transmitted to a dedicated UTA server hosting resource management software, where the information is recorded and linked to event notification modules for predictive maintenance.

The pilot program also showed the system boosted accuracy of asset auditing, with an error rate of less than .05% compared to 29% when conducted manually. The automated process reduced man hours, lowering labor costs and freeing staff for other tasks. In addition, the system lets UTA optimize spare parts stocking by eliminating the need to overstock for unexpected repair and maintenance, and allowing parts to be ordered as needs are anticipated.

Bruno Riegl, chief executive of the Swiftsure Group, project managed the program, which uses a system of portals, antennas, readers and RID-based asset management software. Data collected at each read zone is transmitted to a dedicated UTA server hosting the resource management software, which records and links the information to event notification modules.

Kyle Stockley, UTA’s Transit Asset Administrator

Kyle Stockley, UTA’s Transit Asset Administrator, led the cross-functional team that oversaw system selection, design and implementation. “UTA has broken new ground in the public transit industry by linking asset management and maintenance over the life of its assets,” Stockley said. “Tracking major components installed on light rail vehicles will lead to predictive maintenance activities and more accurate useful life projections, which will lower overall cost of ownership for our agency, in turn providing better value to the community we serve.”

UTA installed RFID read zones at the entrance to its main railcar service facility so the authority could identify specific vehicles and critical components to track usage cycles for maintenance. Each zone has a set of RFID antennas installed on a signal gantry to read roof mounted equipment, and a set of between-the-rail antennas reading tags on equipment installed on the underside of vehicles. Data collected at each read zone is transmitted to a dedicated UTA server hosting resource management software, which records and links the information to event notification modules.

The solution provides UTA a platform to track the health of components by associating life miles, life hours and rebuild history throughout the useful life of equipment. By incorporating this previously unavailable data into its asset management model, UTA can perform predictive maintenance and asset lifecycle analytics.

UTA, which runs more than 225 rail cars and engines and 1,000 surface vehicles, was recognized as the outstanding large city transit system in 2014 by the American Public Transportation Association System.

Since 1998 the Swiftsure Group has provided an independent perspective on planning and implementation of operations process improvement. Its consultants are RFID and system integration experts who combine best practices in inventory, asset and resource management to improve asset lifecycle and inventory management for clients worldwide.

Nov. 21, 2014 – Impinj announced the full commercial availability of its xArray gateway, which the Seattle-based RFID company says ushers in a new era of always-on, real-time, fixed infrastructure RFID reader technology. The xArray gateway is designed for large-scale, item-level applications in retail, healthcare and manufacturing.

Real time location systems (RTLS) have previously relied on expensive, battery-powered active tags, proprietary protocols and multiple readers to locate, identify and authenticate UHF-tagged items and people.

A single ceiling-mounted xArray reader, with an integrated antenna and software, can visualize 1,500 sq. ft. of floor space to automatically collect inventory data. “That’s a mammoth footprint,” said Bruno Riegl, chief executive of the Swiftsure Group, an Impinj channel partner. “The ability to use this relatively inexpensive passive RFID gateway to accomplish virtual RTLS is a great leap forward for resource and workflow management. We look forward to integrating the xArray in a variety of deployments in many environments.”

A select group of organizations has already implemented the xArray system. (In February Swiftsure posted about Impinj’s lab, where xArray was still in testing.) Impinj now has more than 30 certified partners around the world.

Read Impinj’s press release.

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Nov. 17, 2014 – A new study shows that hospital workers wash their hands less frequently as their workday progresses, a finding that underscores the need for RFID-based monitoring to  boost compliance, reduce infections and saves lives while lowering costs.

The study, conducted by the Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, analyzed three years of hand-washing data from 4,157 caregivers in 35 U.S. hospitals. Researchers found that hand-washing compliance rates dropped an average of 8.7 percentage points from the beginning to the end of a typical 12-hour shift. The decline in compliance was magnified by increased work load.

“Just as the repeated exercise of muscles leads to physical fatigue, repeated use of executive resources (cognitive resources that allow people to control their behaviors, desires and emotions) produces a decline in an individual’s self-regulatory capacity,” researchers found.

“Demanding jobs have the potential to energize employees, but the pressure may make them focus more on maintaining performance on their primary tasks (e.g., patient assessment, medication distribution), particularly when they are fatigued,” lead researcher Hengchen Dail noted. “For hospital caregivers, hand washing may be viewed as a lower-priority task and thus it appears compliance with hand hygiene guidelines suffers as the workday progresses.”

Hand washing in hospitals and clinics reduces infections, including from multidrug-resistant organisms such as E. coli, pneumonia and MRSA, and saves money. A 2000 study of Swiss hospitals found that a 1 percentage point increase in hand-washing compliance reduced the number of infections by 3.9 per 1,000 patients. Another 2009 study estimated that the cost per patient with a health care-acquired infection is $20,549.

Extrapolating their findings to all 5,723 US hospitals, Dail and her team estimated there would be an additional 600,000 infections per year at a cost of approximately $12.5 billion.

RFID-based hand hygiene solutions monitor whether health care workers adhere to protocols by washing/sanitizing their hands within specified time limits when entering or leaving patients’  rooms. Some systems use devices attached to hand soap and sanitizer dispensers that read caregivers’ RFID badges, collecting data about each hand-washing event – the dispenser location, length of action, type of sanitizer – to a software application that ties into a facility’s broader infrastructure of servers and databases. Each event is associated with a unit, floor or individual so that administrators and personnel can view compliance reports and dashboards.

An RFID hand-hygiene solution can be a standalone system or part of a real-time location system (RTLS) to track assets and monitor patients. It can be deployed throughout a hospital or one unit at a time depending on a facility’s infrastructure, taking into consideration interference, data storage capacity and budget.

A trial of RFID-enabled hand-washing stations has allowed supervisors at OhioHealth’s Riverside Methodist Hospital to view usage and take steps to promote compliance, while personnel can view their own performance as well as their colleagues’. The hospital will be a presenter at RFID in Health Care, an exhibit sponsored by RFID Journal on Thursday, Nov. 20.

Riverside Methodist’s system enables nurse managers to identify whether a worker has complied with hand-hygiene requirements. To encourage compliance, the hospital posts the rates at which health-care personnel washed their hands as expected, enabling them to compare their own compliance rates against those of their colleagues.

Read more about the study, which suggested that longer breaks might help healthcare workers increase their hand hygiene compliance.

——–

The Swiftsure Group offers integrated solutions for regulatory compliance, operational efficiency, enhanced security and audit support across many sectors, including healthcare, financial services, education and transportation.

Nov. 10, 2014 – Railroads have used RFID to track cars and equipment for decades. Now rail operators, from Class 1 to regional light rail, can use advanced RFID solutions to track equipment usage and condition for predictive maintenance by automating information capture related to critical components.

The Swiftsure Group, a systems integrator specializing in RFID-based resource management, has found that this predictive approach improves service reliability by avoiding unscheduled stoppages and delays from equipment malfunctions and breakdowns.

Light rail gets on board with RFID for predictive maintenance

“It’s crucial for transportation companies to maintain efficient operations and maximize uptime,” said Swiftsure’s Bruno Riegl. “Protecting revenue streams by preventing service interruption is of paramount importance to commuter and light rail passenger service operators.”

Successful preventative maintenance requires diligent planning and implementation procedures. Historically, it has been achieved through scheduling regular equipment inspections and maintaining surplus spares and replacement parts – practices that can be expensive in terms of labor and idle capital. Inspecting equipment on a fixed schedule also doesn’t address how frequently equipment is used and whether it is subjected to accelerated depreciation or wear and tear.

Getting up to speed with RFID

Though using RFID-based automatic equipment identification (AEI) has become standard practice, RFID is generally underutilized by railcar operators in the broader management of resources, spare parts and ancillary equipment.

Automating the identification of equipment that is due for service or replacement, coupled with event management and notification software, can improve operational reliability while reducing labor costs associated with employees having to manually locate and identify equipment within service yards. At the same time, integrated equipment identification and notification solutions enable rail operators to carry fewer spares and link parts reorder to anticipated equipment replacement and refurbishment cycles.

Predictive maintenance helps build ridership and revenues

For light rail and regional commuter train operators with relatively small fleets and compact service facilities, RFID is an affordable, efficiency-enhancing technology that yields a quick ROI with relatively easy implementation.

RFID identification equipment can be placed at choke points such as service yard entrances, where RFID tagged railcars and attached equipment can be automatically identified as they pass RFID readers. The information is then sent either wirelessly or via Ethernet links to backend information management systems. Equipment usage can be tracked and associated with activities such as miles travelled and frequency of equipment in-service time. In response to this information, the railcar operator can establish service scheduling, parts replacement and refurbishment according to actual usage instead of to fixed time schedules that may not reflect actual equipment service needs.

Real-time resource management for rail

Building intelligent operations systems incorporating RFID therefore enhances rail operators’ performance by ensuring that equipment servicing is done only when necessary based on predictive needs, lowers labor costs by automating equipment location and improves operating efficiencies by lessening the chances of equipment failure during normal operations.

Conditions-based monitoring systems provide railcar operators with real-time intelligence and analysis of the health of their rolling stock, and can be extended to other operational functions such as optimizing the level of spare parts and consumable inventory by linking actual equipment usage to predictive replacement schedules based on analysis of real-time equipment usage cycles.

Railroads worldwide have been at the forefront in harnessing the potential of RFID for fleet management to track rail cars and motive power. In the US, the Burlington Northern conducted the first serious testing of RFID applications for railroads in 1986, which showed 99.99% accuracy of railcar tracking over an extended trial period. Subsequent testing by other railroads such as Union Pacific, CSX, Norfolk Southern and Canadian National led to the adoption of AEI standards by the American Association of Railroads in the early nineties.

Oct. 8, 2014 – RAIN, an alliance promoting UHF RFID, hosted 50 attendees at its first members meeting. The September event featured presentations by international industry leaders, including several Swiftsure Group partners. Among speakers were Steve Schattmaier with Tyco, Impinj’s Chris Diorio and several Intel innovators.

“Smart tags can do much more than provide inventory control,” said Dr. Frank Honoré, of Google X. “A rapidly growing use of UHF RFID is as a platform for embedded sensors. Some examples are bio-medical sensing, infrastructure monitoring, agriculture and environmental tracking and detection. Cloud infrastructure will enable rapid development and deployment of large scale applications. An ecosystem of consumers interacting with tags in their environment will drive innovative new uses for UHF RFID.”

Learn what other presenters had to say.

RAIN was formed by Google, Intel, Impinj, and Smartrac in April to promote awareness, education, and initiatives to accelerate UHF RFID adoption in business and consumer applications.

Sept. 24, 2014 – Registration Now Open for the World’s Largest RFID Event–RFID Journal LIVE!

RFID Journal’s thirteenth annual LIVE! event will be held on April 15-17, 2015, in San Diego, California, and will feature more than 50 case studies presented by leading end users, as well as solutions from more than 175 technology companies.

NEW YORK, Sept. 23, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — RFID Journal announced today that registration is now open for RFID Journal LIVE! 2015 (www.rfidjournalevents.com/live), the world’s premier conference and exhibition focused on radio frequency identification (RFID) and its many business applications. Motorola will be the cornerstone and registration sponsor for this year’s event, which is celebrating its thirteenth year as the industry’s flagship convention.

LIVE! 2015 will be held on April 15-17, at the San Diego Convention Center, located in San Diego, California. The event will feature four industry-specific and four level-of-expertise conference tracks, as well as eight in-depth preconference seminars and workshops, fast-track training presented by RFID4U, the RFID Journal Awards and two co-located events—the Internet of Things Conference and IEEE RFID 2015. In addition, the conference will offer exhibits and demonstrations conducted by the industry’s leading technology firms.

The conference tracks will cover defense and aerospace, health care and pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, retail and apparel and technology and infrastructure, as well as new and innovative uses of RFID, how to enhance visibility and traceability and how to improve supply chain and logistics. The preconference seminars will provide in-depth education in such areas as RFID in energy, mining and construction, RFID for IT professionals, RFID for warehouse and inventory management and RFID-enabled smart products, and will also include RFID Journal University, the company’s most popular preconference. Additional preconferences will focus on innovating with Near Field Communication (NFC), item-level retail and apparel and experiential marketing with RFID.

“RFID technology has matured to the point at which it is being used in every industry and in every country around the world,” said Mark Roberti, RFID Journal’s founder and editor. “If you have a problem tracking and managing anything—from frozen tissue samples to hot rolled steel—you will likely find an RFID solution at LIVE! 2015.”

Attendees registering early will have the opportunity to save more than $500 off regular rates for the RFID industry’s most important conference and exhibition. For additional information regarding LIVE! 2015, please visit www.rfidjournalevents.com/live.

About RFID Journal
RFID Journal is the leading source of news and information regarding radio frequency identification (RFID) and its many business applications. Business executives and implementers depend on RFID Journal for up-to-the-minute RFID news, in-depth case studies, best practices, strategic insights and information about vendor solutions. This has made RFID Journal the most relied-upon and respected RFID information resource, serving the largest audience of RFID decision makers worldwide—online and at face-to-face events. For more information, visit www.rfidjournal.com.

For more information, contact:
Sonja Valenta
VP of Marketing
RFID Journal
(212) 584-9400
Email

SOURCE RFID Journal

July 1, 2014 – June 26 was barcode’s big day. Forty years ago an Ohio grocery store scanned a tagged pack of Wrigley’s gum, making it the first time a barcode using modern UPC standards was used in a retail transaction. In 1974 that barcode cost more than the pack of Juicy Fruit.

Barcode and asset tracking have come a long way since then, with RFID enabling affordable, sophisticated automated data capture solutions used for everything from conducting inventory and tracking supplies and equipment to providing access control for people and vehicles.

Automated data capture and asset management technologies increase accuracy and efficiency as well as reduce costs at libraries, hospitals, airports, universities, manufacturers, event venues and public and private organizations. Unlike barcodes, RFID tags can be “seen” out of line-of-sight, and hundreds of items can be read at the same time using fixed location or handheld readers.

“RFID in the supply chain provides many opportunities for improving supply chain operations,” Pedro Reyes, an RFID expert and author, said on Baylor University’s Web site. “Visibility of inventory throughout the channel is improved and processes are performed faster. Thus, there’s great potential for lead time reduction and reduction in uncertainty.” Reyes is associate professor of operations and supply chain management in Baylor’s Hankamer School of Business and director of the Center for Excellence in Supply Chain Management.

What’s ahead for barcode and RFID technology? “When we look to the future, the future is really limitless,” Ryan Eickmeier, senior director of marketing, communications and government relations at GS1, told the CBC News Network. GS1 is the nonprofit group that designs and manages global supply chain standards.

Happy anniversary, barcode!

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June 24, 2014 – Swiftsure’s partner Impinj has joined with Intel and others to create a solution that could help track and monitor equipment, and disable stolen or lost laptops. Tech news media and blogging sites have headlined the “kill switch” feature that could discourage laptop thieves. (Or, some fear, take control of their computers.) But the system might have broader benefits for those who manage assets.

According to Swiftsure’s Bruno Riegl, this type of solution would mean that instead of event management control being on the backend, it would be embedded in the chip inside a device. “The benefit is that the device has a degree of intelligence independent of a backend information management system. Pre-chipping items can also help with inventory verification.”

Riegl added that the threat of outsiders taking control of computers is overblown since the level of encryption and security handshake between devices is unlikely to be less than currently exists on both wireline and wireless networks.

Still in development, the Intel solution would use embedded chips to monitor, track, locate and manage provisioning of equipment, including in hospitals and other organizations, as well as tracing movement of such devices as computers during shipment.

At the heart of the project is the Wireless Credential Exchange (WCE). It uses Impinj’s Monza RFID chips, Technology Solution UK’s (TSL) RFID readers and Burnside Digital‘s cloud-based data repository and dashboard.  The WCE system enables Intel’s System on Chip (SoC) to read and write data to the Monza RFID chip. The chip can also be read and be written to using an external TSL RFID reader. Data – from unique IDs and error logs and permissions to device configurations – can be written to the Monza chip and then read back to the Intel processor.

Burnside Digital designed custom Windows, iOS, and Android applications to communicate with a TSL reader using Bluetooth technology. The applications can also communicate with a cloud-based database that Burnside Digital created.

The WCE system can disable a device prior to shipping and then reactivate it when it reaches its final destination, making it useless if it were lost or stolen during shipment.

Burnside’s Website states: “By embedding Impinj Monza RFID chips inside Intel SoC-powered devices, they can be tracked, provisioned, shipped, deployed, and monitored using industry standard RFID readers such as those developed by TSL. Burnside Digital developed the software called IPTrak that ties all these components together.”

June 11, 2014 – Delhi’s government hopes that RFID and GPS technology will ensure that food intended for needy families is not diverted, reports the Economic Times.

GPS to be used to track trucks carrying PDS food grains –

NEW DELHI: Delhi government will track the trucks carrying food grains with the help of Global Positioning System ( GPS) and Radio-frequency identification (RFID) devices to curb the menace of diversion of rations meant for families below the poverty line. The Department of Food, Supplies and Consumer Affairs has started work on the setting up of a comprehensive web based, real time tracking system for effective implementation of the Public Distribution System.

“The objective is to continuously track the movement of vehicles to ensure that the ration commodities are properly and timely delivered to the FPS and are not diverted to the open market,” said SS Yadav, Food Supply and Weights and Measures Commissioner today.

It will be implemented by the Delhi State Civil Supplies Corporation (DSCSC) Limited which is responsible for supplying foodgrains from the six Food Corporation of India (FCI) godowns in Delhi to about 2,500 Fair Price Shops (FPS) across the city, informed Yadav.

The move is significant in the wake of the department receiving complaints about diversion of food grains.

Moreover, the department conducted a series of raids in the last two months to detect and prevent diversion, and more than 30 cases have been registered in various police stations.

“3.8 lakh quintals of wheat and rice are supplied from FCI godowns to the FPS and DSCSC also transports 20,000 quintals of sugar from its two godowns to the FPS every month.

“For the transportation, DSCSC deploys 300 trucks every month. There have been a number of complaints about diversion of these items. But leveraging information technology can provide a permanent solution to curb the menace of diversion of foodgrains by real time tracking of vehicles,” Yadav said.

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June 5, 2014 – RAIN, a recently formed alliance promoting UHF RFID, hopes to increase membership by hosting a July webinar and offering a discount to those joining before Sept. 8.

June 4, 2014 – Engineering.com offers a quick overview of RFID for access control, ensuring people and vehicles are only where they need to be, and when.

There are a number of applications for RFID being developed for access control.  The fastest growing are for personnel access, gate control, and parking facilities.  Here’s a brief look at each of these applications.

Personnel Access

In its most common form, RFID access for personnel may simply be the inclusion of an RFID tag in the identification badge of the worker.  RFID has made inroads into this area that was originally dominated by the magnetic stripe badge.  RFID applications for personnel access typically uses low frequency, 135 KHz, systems for the badge detection.

RFID badges can be used to control access to particular areas, for time keeping, or other applications.  For example, there are two popular medical applications that move into the higher frequency domain where the application is used to determine the location of either medical staff or wandering patients.

Source – Wikipedia

 

Gate Control 

There are two primary areas where RFID is used in gate control: gated communities, and industrial facility access.  In both applications the RFID system is frequently used in conjunction with electronic loop detectors to control the time the gate is open or to control the closing of the gate once the vehicle has cleared.Many gated communities have exchanged the cost of the 24-hour gate keeper for an automated system employing RFID.   This way the gated community has only the expense of the reader and loops to implement RFID technology.Switching to RFID is more popular in areas that have toll roads or other systems that employ tags already.  Even in more isolated communities, the implementation of the RFID may be cost justified.  The more common systems are implemented using either windshield tags or license plate tags for the vehicles.For industrial facility access, visitors or commercial vehicles will typically employ a telephone that may be used to request entry.  Depending on the style and number of gates (one or two) vehicles exiting the community may not require RFID tags to energize the exit gate, simply loop control.Some trucking companies are also implementing RFID as a gate control method.  In many of these installations the RFID is also used to verify load matches, tractor to trailer or tractor to container.  As noted in this article about RFID in transportation, otherinformationmay be captured by the RFID system, such as fuel level, odometer reading, etc., depending on the type of tags being employed.

Source – Wikipedia

 

Parking Facilities 
In areas or businesses that have other applications for the use of RFID, parking facilities may be able to take advantage of the RFID infrastructure to improve customer service.  Airport administrators, for example, have found that when implementing RFID for curb space tracking and control, the application may be extended into their parking facilities through the installation of card readers at the entrance and exit points.  Such implementation provides the customer faster ingress and egress from the facility.

Even when the parking facility is not associated with a business such as an airport, the investment for tags can be a worthwhile investment to improve customer satisfaction.

Uruguay – the first nation to fully legalize marijuana – has found that regulating the controversial substance and industry is a challenge. According to the International Business Times, its government plans a sophisticated system to track the product, from seed to sale, using RFID.

Marijuana activist and home grower Juan Vaz checks on instructions to cultivate marijuana in his indoor cultivation in Montevideo, December 6, 2013. Uruguay’s senate will vote on December 10 to create a government body to control the cultivation and sale of marijuana and allow residents to grow it at home or as part of smoking clubs. The use of marijuana is already legal in the South American nation, but sale and cultivation is not. The Senate is expected to vote on the measure, which is backed by leftist President Jose Mujica. Picture taken December 6, 2013. REUTERS/Andres Stapff

The head of Uruguay’s National Drug Board says the government will track every legal marijuana plant in the country using radio frequency tags, among other rigorous standards planned for the country’s legal marijuana industry.

Julio Caldeza says all government-grown plants will also be cloned with genetic markers to allow authorities to identify any plant grown legally. Proponents of the tracking and identification systems hope these measures will help them reduce illegal trafficking and production in the country and keep track of abusers that need help.

In December 2013, Uruguay became the first country in the world to fully legalize the consumption, cultivation and distribution of marijuana. Anyone over the age of 18 and registered in Uruguay’s countrywide database is allowed to purchase marijuana over the counter. There are limits to how much an individual or group can grow and buy every month.

The tracking technology is the same used by the South American country to track its beef. An official could scan any plant with something similar to a barcode scanner and get the plant’s complete history from “seed-to-sale.”

Uruguay’s government-grown pot won’t be available until the end of 2014, so the genetically marked plants won’t be on the market when the government releases its official rules and regulations for the legal industry at the end of April. They’ll allow growers to have “illegal” plants as long as they’re registered with the national database.

Uruguay’s track and regulation systems are far more comprehensive than either Washington or Colorado, the only two U.S. states to legalize recreational marijuana. Granted, Uruguay’s legal marijuana system as a whole is more comprehensive. Colorado currently has a similar radio-frequency tracking system for its commercial marijuana, and Washington plans for a system that tracks it from seed-to-sale.

Neither Washington nor Colorado requires home growers to register their marijuana though, and Uruguay is the only authority that wants to ensure its citizens are smoking only legal marijuana. Colorado and Washington stop tracking at sale, but Uruguay’s genetically marked marijuana would make it possible to determine if any sample of marijuana originated from legal marketplaces.

The system may be reassuring to the significant majority of Uruguayans who don’t support the legalization of marijuana. A 2013 poll taken not long before the government passed the legalization legislation to President Jose Mujica in December showed 58 percent of its participants opposed legalization.

Research confirms that a lifecycle approach to managing asset information helps organizations improve business processes and avoid costly pitfalls.

A lifecycle approach to asset information management can deliver big benefits –

By Ovum StraightTalk

29 April 2014, 11:11 a.m.

Warren Wilson, Lead Analyst, Energy – Oil & Gas Technology

Enterprises in asset-intensive industries such as utilities and oil and gas have many billions of dollars invested in aging assets. These assets cost billions more to keep in good working order, meet regulatory compliance, and modify as requirements change. In a recent survey, Ovum found that an emerging software category, asset lifecycle information management (ALIM), can provide significant business benefits.

To date, relatively few companies have deployed such applications, but they are growing in capability and falling in price. We believe that current business conditions make the ALIM approach a sensible, even necessary, one for asset-intensive companies. Those that adopt ALIM stand to reap gains in service levels, business continuity, cost control, and compliance. Those that do not may face consequences such as greater risk, higher costs, and loss of competitiveness.

Asset management is a longstanding and expensive problem in asset-intensive industries

Utilities worldwide spend billions of dollars on power stations and energy transmission/distribution networks. Oil and gas producers and processors spend massively on drilling platforms, fracking equipment, refining and gas processing equipment, and much more.

These industries have long relied on paper-based asset management systems that are prone to incorrect or incomplete information. Where these systems have been digitized, the data often resides in isolated silos and in multiple conflicting versions. This makes it difficult for the business to achieve accurate and comprehensive visibility and takes a toll on service quality, cost, business continuity, and overall competitiveness.

A lifecycle approach to asset data can minimize costs, maximize asset value, and improve service

Software that can accurately manage all relevant data across the asset lifecycle – from concept and design, through an asset’s operating life, to eventual decommissioning and disposal – can pay dividends by optimizing asset performance while controlling service and repair costs. Such systems have been expensive and difficult to deploy and maintain, and as a result they have achieved much less market penetration than other, narrower forms of asset information and performance management.

In Ovum’s recent survey, 11% of respondents said they have fully deployed an ALIM system, while another 7% said they are trialing one. Applications that focus on asset and project information and performance management but do not take a lifecycle approach have achieved penetration rates of around 60%.

But our survey, which covered seven software categories in all, found that ALIM can be highly effective. Measured by the number of respondents who were completely or mostly satisfied with the solution they had deployed, ALIM applications scored highest in terms of increasing overall asset value and reducing asset costs. ALIM applications outscored five of the six other categories in terms of reduced times and costs for service and repair, and they scored higher than any other category in terms of ease of deployment.

The survey data are discussed in more detail in two recent Ovum reports: Managing Assets for Maximum Performance and Value and Modern Asset Management Critical in Heavy Industries.

Companies that do not embrace a lifecycle approach to asset management risk significant consequences

Compared to narrower approaches, ALIM applications offer better visibility into asset performance and provide the strongest foundation for analytics tools. Such applications are increasing in capability, becoming easier to deploy, and declining in price. We believe that today’s business conditions – including high asset costs, market volatility, increasing business and technical complexity, and tougher competition – make this model a sensible, even necessary, one.

Companies that do not pursue a lifecycle strategy face a number of consequences, including greater regulatory risk, higher costs, project delays, and reduced process stability, all of which erode the company’s competitive position.

Companies in asset-intensive industries should carefully consider the ALIM model. Those that embrace it will reap the benefits, while those that do not risk being left behind.

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A bottleneck could be ahead for the Cloud, with billions of objects generating overwhelming amounts of unfiltered data. According to Supply Chain Digest, some experts think the answer lies closer to the ground – in the Fog.

From SCDigest’s OnTarget e-Magazine – May 20, 2014 – RFID and AIDC News: Perhaps the Internet of Thing Should be a Little Less Chatty Do We Really Want All that Data Pushed Into the Cloud? Cisco Pushes a Fog Alterative; How Often Should Pallets Really Communicate? SCDigest Editorial Staff The Internet of Things (IoT) seems to be becoming a reality. Earlier this year, for example, the analysts at Gartner predicted that there would be some 26 billion things connected to the Internet by 2020. (See As Internet of Things becomes Real, New Opportunities for Supply Chain.) What kind of things? Pallets of inventory, machines on factory floors, automobiles, you name it, many certainly with supply chain implications. Gartner, in fact, believes operations staff and the IT team need to start conversations right now to begin planning for the IoT future that will soon be here, looking at what information might be available, and how it might be leveraged. A key point relative to the Internet of Things is that to date, nearly all of the information on the Internet has been put there by human beings, whether it’s a blog post , the results some scientific study, or a government report. While the level of information available today continues to explode, to an extent this human factor has limited the amount of information that does get posted. Just consider the number of companies and organizations that have trouble keeping their web sites up to date. While at least for now human beings will still have to develop applications to take in and display the information, with the IoT, once the “things” start sending their data, the Internet as we know it may be overwhelmed, unshackled from the dependence on humans to get data to the web. There will be billions of inanimate objects sending streams of data 24 x 7 to the Cloud. Bandwidth, it seems, especially in the US (which is well behind Internet speeds versus many countries in Europe and Asia) could become a real IoT bottleneck given this huge increase in traffic. So while the idea that all the connected things will be sending data to the “Cloud,” readily accessible by all the relevant parties, that may just not be practical or even make sense in many applications. Consider, for example, a truckload full of pallets in a temperature controlled trailer. Each pallet has an RFID chip to uniquely identify it, connected to a sensor that monitors temperature and perhaps other environmental conditions, such as humidity. As that trailer is moving down the highway, how much of this real-time data do companies really want communicated – and how much data traffic can the communications systems really handle? Will companies really want updates from the sensors every few minutes? Or will “event management” thinking need to be added to the IoT, so that, for example, data from our moving pallets only is sent to the Cloud if temperature or other conditions change, or start to approach tolerances? The answer to that last question will often be Yes, meaning operations managers and IT will have yet another set of variables to consider when designing IoT applications. Or consider that new aircraft engines from GE have sensors and Internet communications for nearly every part the engine contains, and can generate as much as half a terabyte of data for a single flight. And this jet engine provides a great example of how tricky all this will be. Certainly, there would be some cases where data shows the engine needs some kind of maintenance when it lands, and just that information needs to be sent when it reaches certain tolerance levels. But in other cases, does a maintenance engineer need to see all the data, because to understand the big picture, readings from several areas or parts need to be viewed together.

And this then begs this question: if only a fraction of the data generated by the IoT is actually communicated upwards, is all the rest just be discarded, or is stored locally?Some of the IT industry’s biggest names, in fact, are pushing the idea of doing much of the data storage locally, with rules about what portions of it get sent to the Cloud mothership.Networking systems giant Cisco, if fact, is pitching a concept it calls the “Fog” as a complement to the Cloud. In Cisco’s vision, a new generation of routers – Cisco’s bread and butter offering – would get even smarter, have big storage capacity, and make decisions about what data goes where.It’s called the Fog because much information would stay “close to the ground” of where it is being generated, not all pushed into the Cloud. As part of this vision, these routers would not send information to the Cloud unless it needs to, based on defined business rules. IBM is pushing a similar concept.So we might be entering an age of what could be called “information logistics,” with complex questions about what data needs to be captured, how and when and how much of it needs to be moved, how much stored, and how anyone is going to make sense of it.The Internet of Things is likely to have a profound effect on many supply chains, but we are in the very early innings of figuring out how to optimally harness its power.

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IEEE, RFID, IoT. What does it all mean for inventory, resource and information management – and business process improvement? International experts and researchers recently convened to explore the promise, possibilities and augmented realities.

RFID Makes Internet of Things Come to Life –

Though RFID technology has been around for decades, new technologies and R&D promise to bring a flood of new applications to numerous industries.

May 15, 2014

Lindsey Frick | Machine Design

 

RFID is shaping up to be an important building block for the Internet of Things (IoT). Those attending the recent IEEE RFID 2014 conference in Orlando got a chance to see where the technology is headed in areas ranging from antenna designs to reflective communication methods.

RFID at Disney and in the fridge

The killer application of RFID is still inventory management. David Worrall of Disney’s New Technology Group said, “RFID technologies have been instrumental in streamlining our costuming inventory processes and providing global operational efficiencies across our theme parks, resorts, and cruise ships.”

Another example came from industry researcher Ismail Uysal from the RFID Center at University of South Florida. Uysal worked on tracking temperature and spoilage in the cold-food supply chain. From his research he concluded, “Pallet level or even higher-resolution temperature monitoring can be more widely adopted if three important issues are addressed — cost, data speeds, and standardization.”

One presenter, Dr. Greg Kenning of Indiana University of Pennsylvania, addressed the food-temperature problem with a new material made up of alternating layers of cobalt and antimony. The resulting tag measures the dc resistance of this material, which happens to lower its electrical resistance the longer it stays in warm temperatures.

Consider, for example, a pallet of strawberries, marked with one of these sensor tags stored in a warehouse at room temperature for one day. The pallet tag would have a resistance reading much lower than would that on a pallet stored in a refrigerated storage room. The biggest upside to this technique is that it can be implemented in a passive sensor that uses energy-harvesting charge pumps rather than batteries.

Passive sensors enabled by RFID can now track spoilage caused by extended exposure to high temperatures. The graph of normalized resistance (R/Ro) shows that it would take a little more than a day (100,000 sec) for the material resistance to drop by 10% in a 98°F (310°K) storage room. Researcher Greg Kenning described the behavior in an IEEE paper titled, “Development of a Nanoparticle Time-Temperature Sensor for Passive and Active RFID.”

 

Harvesting energy at any and all frequencies

Aaron Parks and Dr. Joshua Smith from the University of Washington expanded an idea used in simple conventional RFID tags that employ charge pumps designed only for the 915-MHz ISM band. The team put together a prototype with five charge pumps — one for each frequency band around 237, 400, 600, 900, and 1,350 MHz.

With the new charge pumps, the team is able to harvest enough energy from ambient sources to do useful work. For example, they can harvest about 60 uW from a nearby TV-broadcast antenna transmitting at 539 MHz. This happens while simultaneously harvesting about 50 uW from a standard RFID reader at 915 MHz.

This five-band energy harvester receives signals from a wideband log-periodic antenna that feeds the central point in the circle. Each charge pump (labeled 1, 2, …, 5) is matched to a specific frequency band, and the harvested voltage is summed around the outer circle into the output ports (+) and (–) on the right side of the board. Researchers A. N. Parks and J. R. Smith outlined the charge pump in an IEEE paper titled, “Sifting Through the Airwaves: Efficient and Scalable Multiband RF Harvesting.”

More data, more possibilities

Communications between RFID tags and readers is notorious for being low-bandwidth. But researchers think it can improve.  For instance, a team out of Duke University designed a system that can send live audio, images, and possibly video across a 5-Mbps link from tag to reader.

This may not sound like a lot, but it is a 10x improvement over the standard “gen 2” passive RFID tag that sends only about 0.5 Mbps to the reader. This boost in data rate could be used to transmit images and possibly video if enough energy could be harvested to power a camera.

Researchers at Duke University used reflective communications to send this image of a sleeping baby from a passive tag to an RFID reader. Passive tags save energy by reflecting signals with data back toward the reader. The technology was detailed by S. J. Thomas, T. Deyle, R. Harrison, and M. S. Reynolds in an IEEE paper titled, “Rich-Media Tags: Battery-free wireless multichannel digital audio and image transmission with UHF RFID techniques.”

 

Here’s how it works. The passive RFID tag conveys an unmodulated signal back toward the RFID reader via modulated reflections. The passive tag has to scavenge for energy, so it cannot transmit signals like normal. Instead, it reflects the signals already in the air. It’s much like a mirror reflecting the light from a flashlight in a dark room. The modulation scheme used in the Duke paper is Slow-Scan Television (SSTV), which conveys pixel luminance via amplitude modulation and color via frequency modulation.

Augmented reality using RFID

Andreas Parr and Robert Miesen from Friedrich-Alexander University near Nuremburg, Germany, showed off a handheld computer screen with a front-facing video camera attached to an RFID reader. The computer screen shows a live view from the video camera.

With a few clicks on the screen, Parr and Miesen’s augmented-reality application locks onto and tracks an RFID tag in the camera’s view. As you move the handheld assembly, the application smoothly tracks the RFID tag. This demonstration shows the next level of visual target tracking and augmented reality available by combining with RFID.

An RFID tag is tracked on the screen (small circle) using position-estimation techniques pioneered at FAU Erlangen-Nuremburg. The device contains an inertial measurement unit, Thingmagic M6e RFID reader, RFID antenna (large silver box behind the screen), 7-in. touchscreen, a BeagleBoard computer running Ubuntu Linux, and a lithium-ion battery.

 

IEEE RFID conferences take place in early Spring each year alongside RFID Journal LIVE!, the largest RFID industry conference in the world.Next year’s RFID 2015 conference will take place in San Diego from April 15-17, 2015. For more info:http://2015.ieee-rfid.org/

____________________

MATTHEW TROTTER is a research engineer at Georgia Tech Research Institute, Information and Communications Laboratory (GTRI ICL).

Registration for RFID Journal’s European conference and trade show opened today. The London event for the RFID industry will be Oct. 23. Read more about it below.

RFID in the Middle East is taking off, with the aviation industry deploying the technology to increase safety and security:

Big growth projected in RFID solutions deployment by ME 

Suspect Bag Tracking System for Saudi airport

UAE and other Gulf airports benefits from EnTrackBag technology

Two to Three per cent suspect checked-in baggage at airports

Dubai, May 12, 2014: The use of Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) in the aviation industry in the Middle East region is expected to grow significantly in the next two years with an increasing number of airports, cargo and flight catering companies, duty free facilities and customs authorities deploying this modern technology in their operations.

The Dubai Internet City-based TrackIT Solutions is utilizing the 14^th Airport Show to create better awareness about its RFID solutions, including the world’s first Suspect Bag Tracking System – EnTrackBag – designed to meet the needs and expectation of the aviation industry for a secure and safer environment for millions of air passengers across the world.

Soma SekharVedantam, CEO, TrackIT Solutions, said two airports in the UAE and the other Gulf airports have already deployed EnTrackBag which has been helping the custom officials in identifying the suspect bags from the check-in baggage of the arriving passengers. The cutting-edge technology is due to be deployed at an airport in Saudi Arabia in the next six months. “If you look at the pace of RFID solutions deployment in the Middle East, we can say that the next two years will bring all the airports in the region under the RFID technology coverage. We are holding discussions with several organizations and could see the trend taking shape,” he said.

EnTrackBag is a comprehensive Suspect Bag Tracking System for airport customers that facilitate airport security/custom officials to identify and uniquely tag a suspect bag. Subsequently that bag can be unobtrusively tracked or located and relevant officials can then be alerted. The system also enables airports to profile passengers and build a database that can be used to significantly enhance security.

It supports sniffer dog identified suspect bag and could be integrated with Baggage Handling System (BHS), Screening System and Passenger data. No false or repeat alarms come from the system which also has the ability to profile passengers and uniquely identify every suspect bag in addition to automatic reporting. The hardware for the EnTrackBag is from Motorola, while the software comes from TrackIT.

EnTrackAsset offers a strong asset tracking solution to build and maintain master asset registry for various entities of airports. The system enables tracking of movable and non-movable assets throughout the life cycle of asset from purchase till disposal.

For the MRO industry, EnTrack product suite helps Maintenance and Engineering Department in tracking tools and spare parts. EnTrack product suite helps flight catering in tracking employees in the facility, kitchen equipment and knives from management and security perspective.

EnTrack product suite helps in tracking the Linen and Life jackets onboard the aircraft from sanity perspective. Linen Tracking and Management on ground is a huge task. EnTrack Suite assists in automating and streamlining the operations. For the Duty Free facilities, EnTrack product suite provides item level tracking and management of higher value duty free goods in addition to providing security in the facility.

EnTrack product suite provides a complete real time and nested tracking solution for Air Cargo Unit Load Devices (ULDs) and Pallets. ULD is a pallet or container used to load luggage, freight, and mail on wide-body aircraft and specific narrow-body aircraft. With the increasing number of wide-bodied aircraft now in operation, ULD management is a key element of high efficiency in air transport.

The B2B event, which got off to a flying start on Sunday with 25 exhibitors from 39 countries on board, is seeing the launch of 40 new technology, products and solutions by various global companies looking for a strong footing in the region’s highly-promising aviation markets.

The Middle East region is investing $100 billion, including $40 billion in the six GCC states, for airports expansion and new developments to handle the anticipated growth in air traffic.

The Middle East, according to International Air Transport Association (IATA), is expected to record the fastest growth rate of 6.6 per cent until 2016, making it the second-fastest growing aviation market in the world.

Airports in the MENA region, currently under various stages of expansion and upgrades, are projected to cater to 400 million passengers by 2020, with the UAE airports taking one-fourth of the share in the anticipated growth in air passenger traffic.

Dubai is expected to attract an estimated 25 million visitors in 2020 during the six month run of the World Expo world’s third biggest event after Olympics and FIFA World Cup.

The B2B event is specially focused on the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia (MENASA) region where the airport developments remains a top priority with the governments’ driving the aviation growth as a key contributor to the economic consolidation.

For further information, please visit TrackIT website www.trackitme.com

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© Press Release 2014

Fujitsu, the Japanese electronics and communications giant, has acquired GlobeRanger, a Texas-based RFID and mobility solutions provider. Read more in Fujitsu’s press release below:

Fujitsu Acquires GlobeRanger to Accelerate Top Line Growth in its Defence and National Security Business

Acquisition supports Fujitsu Global Defence Initiative, bringing secure solutions in an ever changing world

Fujitsu UK & Ireland

London, May 02, 2014

Fujitsu today announced the acquisition of GlobeRanger, a US based technology company that operates in the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology space. The acquisition will see GlobeRanger remain as an autonomous product development and marketing unit, owned by Fujitsu UK & Ireland with Fujitsu taking a place on GlobeRanger’s Board of Directors.

Duncan Tait, Head of EMEIA, Corporate Senior Vice President, Fujitsu Limited said: “This acquisition is a key part of Fujitsu’s Global Defence Initiative which aims to harness the capabilities, technology and products from across Fujitsu’s global ICT business. It will ensure our customers can be confident of best of breed, proven and cost effective solutions for the defence and defence related industries.”

GlobeRanger has an established footprint in the US, notably with the Department of Defense, where it is highly regarded and used by many DoD departments for their software layer for passive RFID solution technology. Considered a leader in the emergent Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, GlobeRanger’s solution removes the need for wholesale replacement of customers’ existing information systems – an issue that has hampered the growth of the RFID sector to date.

GlobeRanger’s product suite provides an extremely flexible set of tools, enabling the rapid development of system which exploits data and processes at the edge of the enterprise. For the customer this will result in a transformation of supply chain management (SCM); maintenance repair and overall (MRO) and other asset management information needs by providing automatic, accurate and timely data on an asset’s geographical location enabling Business Processes to be executed even when Enterprise services are unavailable.

The merger will bring together the strength and global reach of Fujitsu in taking products to market, with GlobeRanger’s market leading Edgeware solutions. As a result Fujitsu are able to offer global solutions optimised to customer needs in SCM and MRO. Current market estimates for RFID are expected to surpass $20Bn globally in 2014.

Swiftsure returned from RFID Journal Live 2014 with an even deeper knowledge of proven industry solutions and innovations. Swiftsure, an RFID and resource management consulting group, has attended the event for many years to stay on the forefront of products and trends. The show was also a chance to further relationships and opportunities with such vendors and partners as GlobeRanger, American RFID, InSync, Impinj and Jamison.

The April event in Orlando underscored RFID’s coming of age. Past shows focused on RFID technologies – hardware, manufacturing, tags, etc.  This year displayed greater maturity, with increased end-user attendance and a shift toward demonstration of RFID-based applications.  The range of apps represented more vertical market segmentation, showcasing manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, law enforcement and aerospace.  “After years educating the market about the viability of RFID, participants spent more time presenting applications that assume RFID as a core technology in workflow and business processes,” said Swiftsure’s Bruno Riegl.  “There has clearly been a refinement in the development of RFID-based information management solutions, with substantial integration of mobile devices and mapping. Coming soon undoubtedly will be the increased use of RFID to support business analytics.”

Swiftsure’s international activities have picked up dramatically in recent months, with a focus on some unique markets and applications, most notably in the Middle East, where RFID is increasingly being used in a variety of healthcare, financial, oil and gas, security and education environments.  A key to Swiftsure’s solid reputation is having in-region implementation and support partners, as well as a select group of US-based information management software partners. Swiftsure’s experience in the region has been invaluable in breaking through ethnocentric and cultural barriers.

Following GlobeRanger’s well-crafted demo of RFID-based weapons at this year’s event, Swiftsure has been able to leverage the solution in several applications in Central and South America, where security has become a prime focus of numerous multinational, military and para-military organizations.

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