HP advances RFID adoption with new solution
ConvergenceAsia staff
10/10/2007

At EPC Connection 2007, an annual conference and exhibition about RFID benefits and Electronic Product Code (EPC) industry standards, HP unveiled new Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology, including software and services to facilitate integration with RFID solutions from SAP and Microsoft for up-to-the-minute supply chain visibility.

The company also announced an RFID innovation lab designed to foster research and adoption of the technology.

RFID is a data collection technology that holds tremendous potential to improve operations by providing greater visibility into supply chains, from inventory and logistics to freshness dates. The technology can, in turn, help companies improve stock availability, reduce lost or stolen inventory, and deliver better customer service.

As part of its RFID implementation service offering, HP introduced the HP Connector Solution for use with SAP applications and Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2, which enables customers to link RFID devices to crucial supply chain and asset tracking applications.

Through Microsoft BizTalk RFID, Microsoft’s device management and event processing platform, customers can collect, manage and optimise data from within the physical RFID environment. The data integrates with the SAP Auto-ID Enterprise offering to enable supply chain, analytical and asset tracking applications.
 
“By cost-effectively simplifying the integration of RFID devices with business applications, companies can reap the many business benefits of RFID,” said Tim Wilkinson, Regional Manager, RFID & Supply Chain, Hewlett-Packard Asia Pacific & Japan.

Also at the conference, HP announced in conjunction with the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT), the opening of the SAIT Radio Frequency Applications Development Lab (RAD) to advance RFID innovation and research.

The new laboratory will provide faculty and students at SAIT with the facilities, services and hands-on experience needed to design, develop and test RFID solutions. The areas of application research will focus on the energy, agriculture, health and manufacturing industries. In particular, the RAD Lab will:

- Showcase RFID technologies and help local companies expand their RFID business;
- Deliver services in the form of a test development platform for RFID integration to local industries;
- Provide a place where service providers can work to study, design and deploy advanced RFID solutions; and
- Allow customers to complete a lab based proof-of-concept so they can see the technologies live at work prior to deployment.

HP said the company will utilise the RAD facility to communicate its latest RFID technology offerings, and HP RFID experts will be available to offer support and expertise to research clients during the development of prototypes and proof-of-concepts.

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