The company believes that this product will enable customers to profit from thebenefits of RFID throughout their warehouse, and move beyond simple compliance.
"As companies move beyond pure compliance operations, it becomes evident that a robust, reliable implementation for forklift-based operations is required," said Dick Sorenson, LXE director of product management. "With a mutual commitment to open standards, we've got the right teammates in Sirit and Intel with complementary skills to meet the challenge."
Most suppliers and manufacturers are investing in the minimum in order to comply with new regulations and retail mandates. But many experts believe that compliance represents a small percentage of the total benefits for manufacturers.
For example, effective RFID installation could improve information on inventory status, offer better tracking and management of assets, improve responsiveness and customer service and improve tracking of shipping containers. In addition, RFID technology could lead to reduced labour costs through the automation of numerous systems.
To this end, the new forklift-mounted RFID data collection system will utilise the Intel IXP4XX product line of network processors for application processing and network transmission. The processors are based on high-performance, low-power Intel XScale technology, enabling implementation in a variety of form factors.
RFID design firm Sirit will provide the RFID expertise and RFID reader module components supporting EPCglobal Class 0, Class 0+, Class 1 and UHF Gen2 protocols. The reader will leverage Sirit's existing technology collaboration with Intel to produce standards-based building block technology for RFID readers.
LXE brings to the project over 35 years' experience in developing wireless products and solutions and a customer base including many of the top companies currently implementing RFID in their supply chain operations.
"Sirit is delighted to build on the very successful relationship we've enjoyed over the past three years with industry leader LXE," said William Staudt, president and CEO of Sirit. "In particular, we look forward to following the success of a mobile, standards-based solution such as LXE's MX3-RFID with a forklift solution as supply chain customers move beyond compliance to reap benefits of RFID internally."
Indeed, the true benefits of RFID for supplies and manufacturers will only come about only if firms start to move beyond the compliance approach that most are contemplating now.
"This development effort can help customers use that infrastructure to rapidly realise cost-savings at the warehouse," said Doug Davis, Intel's Digital Enterprise Groupvice president.