We wanted to provide some overall perspective on the state of the industry with respect to growth prospects, equipment and solution status, and some thoughts on key vertical markets for Gen 2 based technology. In our view, market growth exceeding 40% should be possible in 2010. We see apparel and asset management applications as key [...]
More CEOs should be aware that RFID can help drive incremental revenue in a wide number of industries. Today, most executives likely consider RFID to be an operational efficiency tool. Nonetheless, we now see examples where RFID enables revenue enhancement by improving customer facing tasks, offering a differentiated service, providing business intelligence or through offering [...]
We completed our December survey of 65 bar code resellers and observed encouraging trends, similar to those reflected during our September survey for both broader bar coding and RFID. While the environment remains generally soft, we were encouraged to hear of stability/improvement in several important verticals, including Transportation & Logistics, Healthcare and Government. Mobility products [...]
Two new studies, which will be published in the near future, suggest electromagnetic interference (EMI) of pacemakers and implantable cardiac defibrillators (ICDs) can be caused by RFID readers at LF and HF, while UHF results are more mixed. The conclusion of these studies differ somewhat, but both suggest process-related protections be implemented, and longer term, [...]
RFID use in healthcare could provide meaningful opportunity to reduce healthcare costs and improve patient outcomes. Unfortunately, one limited study, which we view as incomplete, has thrown cold water on moving forward with RFID. As we have written in Healthcare Test Protocols and Medical Standards Need More Work, AIMs RFID Experts Group (REG) is taking [...]
The Blood Center of Wisconsin, in conjunction with the University of Wisconsin and SysLogic Corporation, have received a $1.4M grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to fund the Phase II Prototype for using RFID in the blood supply chain. Phase I was funded with a $100,000 grant from NIH that evaluated the technical [...]
As an update to our June report on AIMs RFID Experts Group (REG), Georgia Tech Research Lab announced it has begun the process of developing test protocols for RFID in the healthcare setting. Recall, the REG is overseeing the program, which will test if interference takes place from both active and passive products in a [...]
We completed our September survey of 89 bar code resellers and continued to see improving trends from our June survey. We were encouraged to hear of an increasing number of projects moving forward, particularly in government, healthcare, and pharmaceutical distribution. We also started to see improvement in areas which had remained weak though the downturn, [...]
The Health Industry Business Communications Council announced ANSI / HIBC 4.0, a standard based on HF that is designed for product tagging for healthcare suppliers. The standard illustrates use of RFID within the existing HIBCC Supplier Labeling Standard where bar coding does not satisfy a company’s requirement. A recent HIBCC pre-release seeks to promote the [...]
RFID’s ability to generate value is evolving rapidly. Businesses appear to be taking an increasing look at the ability to add value with RFID by leveraging its automated features to more quickly discover process exceptions or to provide item level visibility into large pools of products. This week, we offer a guest column from industry consultant, Chris Hanebeck, who [...]