Cost-effective RFID installation launched
offer customers with a flexible and cost-effective method of
linking bar coding and Radio Frequency Identification.
Both Domino Printing Sciences and Omron Electronics believe that the partnership will provide both suppliers and manufacturers with a cost-effective means of meeting retailer mandates on both sides of the Atlantic.
The new Product Traceability System (PTS) from the Domino and Omron alliance takes a customer-audit approach to the needs of individual customers in order to provide customised features. This, claims the partnership, creates a total solution for factory management that offers real cost savings and in provides a 'comfort zone' for customers.
"The solution will provide payback; it is not just an on-cost for customers," said Simon King, outer case coding director at Domino.
"Every customer is different and we will provide custom-made systems that create real flexibility and options in deploying RFID that can be linked to quality, productivity, automation, and track and tracing systems throughout the factory. For example the system assures 100 per cent product compliance through the elimination of bad RF tag and barcode reads."
The non-contact RF tag apply and in-line digital print system ensures integrity of the bar code and the RFID tag by offering in-line human readable, bar coding and RFID in combination. But it is the separation of the RF tag from the bar coded data and the human readable information, combined with non-contact application, which both Domino and Omron believe sets the concept apart.
The RFID tag is not embedded in the bar coded label, which means that both can be read independently and the tag placed in the position of choice. The separate RF tag application ensures absolute flexibility in placement, an essential feature for automated systems to ensure tag readability for different types of products.
"Contact systems may cause degradation of the RFID tag or thermal print face used to apply the bar code and human readable data," said King. "The PTS avoids such issues and, because the system is a modular design, customers can start quickly with the cost benefits of in-line digital printing of bar codes and add RFID capability retrospectively when required.
"There is no need to change print engines or deal with large, potentially expensive labels with embedded RF tags."
Additionally problems associated with reading RF tags successfully when in close proximity to certain materials (metal, liquids) mean that manufacturers need to build in flexibility for the placement of the tag on the product. The Domino and Omron system is claimed to accomplish this by separating the tag and print aspects thus ensuring the tag is placed in the optimum read position and does not interfere with the location of the bar code or human readable information.
The system is easily integrated into existing lines to provide bar coding and RFID encoding and validation in just over one metre of conveyor length.
Another important advantage of the PTS is that although the RFID tags and each bar code are validated as part of the coding process it is possible to provide different levels of information in each. This means that the different requirements of the bar coding standard governed by Coding Standard EAN UCC and the information required by the RFID Mandate being introduced by major retailers are met.
"Recent mandates by larger retailers requiring EPC-compliant RFID coding of shipments have created a demand for equipment that can apply and verify those RFID tags," said Paul Witt, Omron's strategic sales manager.
"For many companies, that has meant an additional investment and higher production costs with no way to recoup them and no off-setting benefits. The Omron and Domino strategic alliance will help change that.
The offering goes far beyond these requirements and takes customers into the 'comfort zone' by providing programmable systems for tracking and tracing that are able to ensure that codes applied at each section of the factory production are correct."
Domino Printing Sciences is a leader in ink jet and laser technologies offering total coding and printing solutions. In 2003 the company had a turnover in excess of US$295m.
Omron Electronics is a manufacturer and provider of industrial automation products and solutions. It is the Americas subsidiary of Omron Corporation, a $5 billion global leading supplier of advanced electronics and control system components.
