All Aboard for RFID
By Gary Hartley of GS1 New Zealand
RFID – Radio Frequency Identification is increasingly in the news, most recently in context of Air New Zealand’s technology revamp of airport check-in and flight boarding processes of the installation. Then there’s the adoption of RFID by key players in the NZ kiwifruit industry.
Air New Zealand has been using RFID tags for about a year now for its frequent flyer customers for greater speed and convenience through domestic airports. Customers are beginning to carry permanent, re-usable tags for scanning at check-in and at the boarding gate. The tag, or ePass, instantly identifies the customer and links them to flight bookings and other relevant information in the airline’s database. It is an important piece of Air New Zealand’s $30 million investment in airport self-service systems that do away with frustrating queues and bits of paper for check-in.
The ePass innovation uses high frequency (HF) technology RFID, requiring the tag (the airline is urging customers to keep this attached to the back of their cellphone) to be scanned within a few centimetres of the reader. In the broad context of RFID solutions, ePass is hardly leading edge but it will expand Kiwis’ awareness of such technology and its advantages which is good.
Meanwhile, the New Zealand RFID Pathfinder Group continues its work with rather less visibility and fanfare, but potentially huge new benefits to the public and to industry of this country in the not-too-distant future.
The Pathfinder Group provides education, technical support and co-ordination for projects involving RFID. One key focus for the group is the Electronic Product Code (EPC) – a standard that offers wide application in supply chains. EPC is the standard adopted for the largest RFID project now underway worldwide, most notably those in the supply chains of trading groups such as Wal*Mart, and AG Metro.
The Pathfinder Group is committed to seeing successful, albeit low-key, deployments of EPC/RFID in this country. Pathfinder is a non-profit, membership based incorporated society established in 2006 by a cluster of New Zealand based organisations (incl: Fonterra, IBM, Progressive Enterprises, The Warehouse, GS1 New Zealand) to promote understanding of RFID and EPC technologies to help secure economic and competitive advantages to this country. Pathfinder is something of an evangelist, promoting the merits of the RFID and the EPC standard but not particular vendors of hardware or software.
The Pathfinder Group has very diverse membership including manufacturers, distributors, retailers, academics and regulatory bodies. Knowledgeable personnel from among these make a regular contribution to the ongoing development of RFID through involvement with international affiliations such as EPCglobal Inc., and ISO, they undertake on-site research and feasibility studies and they provide advice and guidance on implementations in New Zealand, be they pilot projects or commercial roll-outs of the technology. Pathfinder has gained international recognition for some of their work, especially in the use of RFID in livestock.
Last month, the Pathfinder Group supported trials conducted by Rezare Ltd on the use of UHF-based RFID with farm animals – and demonstrated a point of intense international interest. The on-farm trials, which were follow up trials run earlier by Pathfinder in mid 2008 with ear tagged cattle, deer and sheep has resulted in fast and simultaneous identification of multiple animals at high levels of reliability and performance. The results are of wide significance as agricultural industries around the world look at new technologies for livestock traceability in support of biosecurity and food safety. In New Zealand, the trial results are valuable input to the current process of designing our own traceability systems – and hopefully, linking these to systems that operate further along global supply chains for meat and dairy products.
Air New Zealand’s ePass roll-out is still an exciting, high profile development in the RFID world. Out in the backroom, the Pathfinder Group is working on other developments that will, in time, reach us all.
For more Information or membership details: The New Zealand RFID Pathfinder Group Inc; www.rfid-pathfinder.org.nz
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