LogicaCMG Opens RFID Showcase
LogicaCMG Opens RFID Showcase
March 8, 2007: LogicaCMG has today launched its RFID Innovation Warehouse in Sydney to showcase RFID technology implementations in real warehouse business scenarios.
The facility is located in Lane Cove in Sydney’s North and mirrors a similar LogicaCMG centre established in The Netherlands. It’s a warehouse that provides businesses considering RFID solutions access real-time RFID strategies, feasibility studies and business case developments.
Craig Lennard, managing director of industry, distribution and transport at LogicaCMG, says the facility is a real working environment showcasing how RFID can work in warehouse scenarios. “It’s an operational warehouse, with real pallets and containers. It provides a demonstration of how it can and will work,” he says.
The facility uses a combination of forklift, handheld and fixed-mount readers to demonstrate its RFID capabilities. Current scenarios available for viewing include automatic receipt of products and cartons within a consignment, label production for cartons and consignments as well as end-to-end location tracking.
Lennard says the RFID technology in the warehouse provides the perfect opportunity to address some of the challenges facing the industry. “One of the main problems in the supply chain and logistics market it tracking these pallets,” he says. “There are obviously charges if they go missing and rent is charged if they don’t end where they are supposed to be.”
While barcode technology is well established in many warehouse situations, Teresa Henry, regional manager for Australasia at IDTechEx, believes RFID has the opportunity to address many of the disadvantages of such technologies. “They (RFID tags) are not limited to contact or line of sight and can be read faster, many at the same time, reliably and accurately,” she says. “They can be put in awkward places and read through ice, dirt, paint, steam, water, wood, even through or round metal obstructions and other non metals such as human/animal skin.”
“Barcode technology is well advanced and I don’t think that RFID is necessarily going to simply replace this technology,” says Lennard. “But I do think that RFID can provide solutions that barcodes don’t actually address.”
RFID innovators GS1, Sybase, Intermec and Alien have worked with LogicaCMG to establish the Sydney RFID Innovation Warehouse. It’s this broad range of industry knowledge that LogicaCMG says will assist them in deploying end-to-end RFID solutions.
Check out the March/April edition of Image and Data Manager magazine for more on RFID implementations!