Savi launches complete 'tag-and-ship' RFID concept
with components from Symbol Technologies and Zebra Technologies
that enables suppliers to quickly and cost-effectively meet new
EPC-compliant, passive RFID shipment requirements.
Called Savi RFID-ACT (Assured Compliance Today), the multi-package offering builds on the expertise of the three companies in designing a flexible "tag and ship" solution for passive RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) that is claimed to be simple, quick and reliable to implement. Value-added components can be integrated to help suppliers go beyond compliance and realise investment returns within their own supply chains.
This is a vital consideration to suppliers and manufacturers under pressure to realise better cost margins. A recent report carried out by Deloitte Research for Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (DTT), suggest that rather than taking a holistic, global view of their businesses, most global manufacturers focus on addressing the individual pieces of their far-flung global network - the complex web of suppliers, production facilities, distribution centres and customers - that comprise their supply chain.
This piecemeal approach means that more than 80 per cent of them fail to capture the full returns of their global investments.
To address this, Savi claims that RFID-ACT can be implemented and integrated into a manufacturer's information system within a matter of hours, enabling suppliers to instantly translate product data into EPC-compliant passive RFID data, print the appropriate EPC passive RFID labels, validate that the shipment matches the purchase order, and then immediately transmit an ASN to the recipient in the required format.
The Savi RFID-ACT solution builds on the strengths of three core industry-leading products - Savi SmartChain Site Manager middleware platform; Symbol's EPC-compliant passive RFID labels and readers; and, Zebra's EPC-compliant smart label printer/encoders. This combination offers a number of enhanced features, including creation of new shipment records, Web-based user interface to support multiple shipping stations and for identifying the status of shipments, dynamic administrator functions, and, both visual and auditory alerts for shipment validations or errors ("RFID Verification Portal"), and support tools for manual key entry, among others.
"The seamless integration of Symbol's, Zebra's and Savi's proven products into this plug-and-play solution justifies the statement that, 'the sum of the parts is greater than the whole," said David Stephens, Savi's senior vice president - public sector.
"Because the solution is built on an open technology platform that can capture data from any automatic identification and data collection device, it can be configured with other components to maximise investment returns for users now and going forward."
In Europe, RFID is being driven hard by retailers such as Metro, which see RFID as the natural replacement of industry's current bar code-based tracking systems. This will allow companies to automatically track inventory throughout an entire supply chain.
Metro and its industry partners, including Kraft Foods, have been delivering pallets and hanger goods equipped with smart chips since November 2004. Metro now plans to extend its RFID roll-out to unit levels by the end of 2005. By January 2006, Metro Group plans to have 300 suppliers sending RFID-tagged pallets and cases to its distribution centres, and retailers worldwide are exerting more pressure on suppliers to adopt RFID technology.
