During the EPCglobal US Conference 2006 held in Los Angeles from October 17 to 19, among the more important topics of the meeting were the statements by Wal-Mart Vice President Carolyn Walton and the company’s Chief Information Officer, Rollin Ford, from which it could be inferred that Wal-Mart and its suppliers are beginning work on transitioning in the near future from the level of tagging logistics units to the level of case and item-level tagging. Chris Maciejewski from the Campbell Soup Company, one of Wal-Mart’s suppliers, reported on the work currently underway aimed at developing RFID-friendly packaging for Campbell’s products. At the same time, it is worth mentioning that a new working group was recently established within EPCglobal, which is intended to work on the issue of item-level tagging.
Progress in RFID technology, indicating that the moment when we can expect the first implementation projects of RFID technology at the item level is approaching rapidly, was also confirmed by Impinj Inc. During the exhibition accompanying the conference, Impinj Inc. presented its new product – a tag that can be read even if it is submerged in water. The essence of this solution is a unique antenna design that allows operation both in the far field using the electric component and in the near field area, where the magnetic component is used, for which water and metal do not pose any obstacle hindering the reading.
The article comes from the magazine “Logistyka” 6/2006.