Afstudeerscriptie Implementing UHF RFID Sony PILOT

Report number: IO 05 - 031
Name:
J.M. Hendriks
Final thesis report
Title:
Implementing UHF RFID Technology
within Part of Sony’s Supply Chain
Specialisation:
Professor:
Tutor:
Date:
Year Group:
Industrial Organisation
Prof. Dr. Ir. G. Lodewijks
Dr. Ir. H.P.M. Veeke
07-06-2005
2002
This research is part of the TRANSUMO Research Program
Implementing UHF RFID Technology within Part of
Sony’s Supply Chain
J.M. Hendriks
J.M. Hendriks
Cacaomolen 20
1541 RM, Koog aan de Zaan
The Netherlands
Prof. Dr. Ir. G. Lodewijks
Section Industrial Organisation
Delft University of Technology
Mekelweg 2
2628 CD, Delft
The Netherlands
Koog aan de Zaan, 7th of June 2005
Subject: Implementing UHF RFID Technology within Part of Sony’s Supply Chain
Dear Prof. Dr. Ir. Lodewijks,
With this letter, I hope to inform you and the other members of the board of directors on the
results of my graduation research. The final report provides a detailed description of the
results and conclusions of the research on the implementation of UHF RFID Technology
within part of the supply chain of Sony.
Sony is very interested in getting more inside information on the performance of their supply
chain and would like to increase the efficiency, productivity and decrease the amount of
pilferage of their products. Besides finding own benefits of RFID Technology, many of Sony’s
customers are also experimenting with this technology to improve their supply chains. The
expectation will be that in the near future Sony will have to cooperate with some mandates
about the use of RFID from these customers.
To be able to give Sony a good advice on using this technology I performed a literature study
and some detailed testing. From these tests it can be concluded that the current technology
status is immature, especially in Europe, and therefore I would not recommend to start
implementing full scale.
JM Hendriks
I
After analysis of the current working processes within Sony’s European distribution centre, I
am convinced that, ones the technology is mature, Sony will have some major benefits in the
form of increasing productivity and efficiency and tracking & tracing of their goods from this
RFID Technology. Therefore I recommended to Sony to keep in close contact with the
technology via performing more tests and keeping up to date with new improved versions of
RFID, this to be able to start implementing full scale ones the technology is mature.
My report can be used as a guide for future test plans and during full scale implementation. If
any further information would be needed, please do not hesitate to contact me
Sincerely yours,
J.M. Hendriks
JM Hendriks
II
Preface
This final thesis report is the final assignment for the Master of Industrial Organisation from
the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering from the Delft University of Technology. This Master is
specialised in teaching the Delft Systems Approach invented by Prof. Dr. Ir. J. in ‘t Veld. By
using this Systems Approach a student must be able to solve business process management
problems through organisation (re)design. One of the strong features within this Master is the
learning to model complex processes and problems into well-organised models. Especially the
use of ‘An approach to restructuring questions’ model (Bikker, 2001), the Innovation model
and the Steady-State model (both in t’ Veld, 1998) are strong tools in understanding complex
problems and modelling them to well-organised easy-to-solve challenges.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Prof. Drs. Marco Waas, dean of the Faculty of
Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering, for getting me acquainted with RFID
Technology and bringing me in contact with Mieloo & Alexander, Business Integrators, who
will be my employer after finishing my study. Besides Marco, I would also like to thank Dr. Ir.
H.P.M. Veeke and the dean of the section Transport and Logistics, Prof. Dr. Ir. G. Lodewijks
for their support and the sharing of their knowledge. All the members of Sony Logistics
Europe, and especially Wolfgang Schönfeld, who was my direct contact within Sony. Mr
Schönfeld and I had many brainstorming sessions about the possibility to optimise the use of
RFID Technology, which I really appreciated. Also special thanks go out to all the members of
Mieloo & Alexander, who really supported me during my final thesis project and who shared
their thoughts and knowledge about the subject.
Thank you all!
Martijn Hendriks
JM Hendriks
III
JM Hendriks
IV
Summary
UHF RFID is a generic term for technologies that use radio waves to automatically identify
individual items. There are several methods of identifying objects using RFID, but the most
common is to store a serial number that identifies a product and perhaps some additional
information on a microchip that is attached to an antenna. The antenna enables the chip to
transmit the information to a reader device.
Sony is very interested in using this UHF RFID Technology within their supply chain because
they are convinced that they will find many benefits with this technology to increase supply
chain efficiency and increase profit. Besides the benefits for Sony itself, many retailers (and
thus customers of Sony) are also experimenting with this new technology to find tracking and
tracing benefits for their supply chains. The most important retailers who are experimenting
with UHF RFID Technology are: Wal-Mart, Tesco, Metro Group, Target, Albertsons and BestBuy. Since the first of January 2005, Wal-Mart already demands that their suppliers use RFID
tags on pallet and case level and soon The Metro Group and Tesco will demand the same. All
the expenses of implementation of these tags and readers are for the suppliers, and thus for
Sony.
The main goals to use UHF RFID are:
- Decrease counterfeiting
- Decrease level of shrinkage
- Increase shrink reduction
- Decrease (safety) stocks
- Asset tracking
- Less handling
Sony is in the middle of defining these advantages on the end-to-end chain for themselves.
This means that the objectives for Sony are still under development; the use of UHF RFID
must at least lead to an increase in the number of sales and an increase in the supply chain
efficiency.
A technical feasibility study is performed in both a laboratory and within the internal
distribution processes of Sony, which showed that the readability issues, based on the current
status of UHF RFID Technology, have great impact on the possibilities to use RFID on item
level. With the current technology status, only a small amount of product groups can benefit
from the advantages of UHF RFID.
JM Hendriks
V
After defining these product groups where RFID does bring some benefits, the following step
is to implement RFID Technology within the working processes of Sony Logistics Europe BV.
For the pilot during this research the scope is the Flat Television group (ATV Group) for the
Birkart platform. The reasons for this are:
- Readability may not be an issue during this pilot:
- Outbound processes may not be disturbed too much
- Number of movements must be quite small
- Birkart platform is very interested in RFID Technology
- Birkart platform delivers products to the Metro Group
Once the product groups have been chosen, a process re-design has been developed for the
pilot to work from. But, since within these processes the software of SAP is a major driver in
defining how these processes should look like, too many limitations in developing an efficient
TO BE process are introduced.
Because of the limitations from both the immature technology status and the limitations from
the SAP software, there is little space to developed efficient processes for Sony’s supply chain.
Once the technology and the SAP software is further developed, a good re-design can take
place and Sony can really benefit from the use of UHF RFID Technology.
JM Hendriks
VI
Table of Contents
Preface.................................................................................................................................. III
Summary ................................................................................................................................ V
1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................1
2. Final Thesis Assignment ......................................................................................................5
2.1 Introducing Mieloo & Alexander and Sony ................................................................................5
2.2 Problem Definition First Phase .................................................................................................6
2.3 Assignment First Phase ...........................................................................................................6
2.4 Problem Definition Second Phase.............................................................................................6
2.5 Assignment Second Phase.......................................................................................................6
2.6 Plan of Action.........................................................................................................................7
3. What is RFID?......................................................................................................................9
3.1 The Working of Passive UHF RFID ...........................................................................................9
3.2 Main Goals and Benefits of Using RFID .................................................................................. 11
3.3 Conclusions about RFID ........................................................................................................ 12
4. Innovation Model ............................................................................................................. 15
4.1 Environments Scan and Target Determination ........................................................................ 15
4.2 Policy Formulation ................................................................................................................ 16
4.3 Confrontation and Adjustment...............................................................................................17
4.4 Development and Installation ................................................................................................ 17
4.5 Controlling the Innovation Process.........................................................................................17
4.6 Policy Verification and Evaluation........................................................................................... 17
4.7 The Innovation Process for Sony Logistics Europe BV ............................................................. 18
5. IST Process of Sony .......................................................................................................... 21
5.1 Establishment....................................................................................................................... 21
5.2 Origin of the Name of Sony ................................................................................................... 21
5.3 Strategy and Mission ............................................................................................................ 21
5.4 Business Areas ..................................................................................................................... 22
5.5 History of Sony Nederland BV................................................................................................ 22
5.6 Sony Logistics Europe BV ...................................................................................................... 23
5.7 Analysis of Sony’s Supply Chain............................................................................................. 24
5.8 Analysis of the Processes within Sony Tilburg (SLE)................................................................ 26
JM Hendriks
VII
6. Conclusion after Analysis ................................................................................................. 29
6.1 Boundary Conditions to Implement RFID Technology.............................................................. 29
6.2 Model for Funnelling Research Scope..................................................................................... 29
6.3 Choosing a Product Group for Piloting.................................................................................... 30
7 Analysis of Television Process of SLE ................................................................................ 33
8. SOLL Processes for ATV Group with RFID ........................................................................ 41
8.1 Requirements to SOLL Processes ........................................................................................... 41
8.2 SOLL Process for Pilot ........................................................................................................... 43
9. Conclusions....................................................................................................................... 47
10. Recommendations .......................................................................................................... 49
Glossary ................................................................................................................................ 51
References............................................................................................................................ 65
Appendix A: RFID in More Detail.......................................................................................... 67
A.1 History & Development ......................................................................................................... 67
A.2 Technique of RFID ............................................................................................................... 68
A.3 Types of Tags ...................................................................................................................... 70
A.4 Used Frequencies ................................................................................................................. 72
A.5 Standardisation Regulations .................................................................................................. 74
A.6 Tag Performance.................................................................................................................. 79
A.7 System Design ..................................................................................................................... 79
A.8 Technical RFID Specifications................................................................................................ 81
A.9 Future Developments ........................................................................................................... 83
Appendix B: Conducting an RFID Technology Assessment .................................................. 87
B.1 Basic Conveyor Belt Tests ..................................................................................................... 89
B.2 Conclusions After Basic Conveyor Belt Testing........................................................................ 92
B.3 RFID in the Idealized World .................................................................................................. 92
Test 1: Define read-field of one antenna ................................................................................. 93
Test 2: Define read-field of three antennas ............................................................................. 94
Test 3: Define three antennas configuration (strongest read-field)............................................ 94
Test 4: Define power-level influence of one antenna................................................................ 96
Test 5: Define power-level influence for three antennas ........................................................... 99
Test 6: Define read-field of a tag .......................................................................................... 100
Test 7: Define minimum distance between two tags .............................................................. 100
Test 8: Define influence of tag onto different materials .......................................................... 102
Test 9: Define minimum distance R for a jammed tag ............................................................ 105
B.4 Conclusions After Fundamental Laboratory Testing............................................................... 107
JM Hendriks
VIII
B.5 Advanced Conveyor Belt Tests ............................................................................................ 108
Test 1: Define minimum distance between two tags .............................................................. 109
Test 2: Define influence of tag onto different materials .......................................................... 111
Test 3: Inside master carton tagging .................................................................................... 114
B.6 Conclusion After Advanced Conveyor Belt Testing ................................................................ 119
B.7 Next Phase of RFID Technology Assessment ........................................................................ 119
Test 1: Bulk pallet reading test ............................................................................................. 119
Test 2: Pallet build test ........................................................................................................ 120
Test 3: System integration pilot ............................................................................................ 121
Appendix C: Unit Pilot Test................................................................................................. 123
Test 1: Define read-field of one antenna ............................................................................... 123
Test 2: TV pallet with 9 tagged products ............................................................................... 124
Test 3: TV pallet with 18 tagged products ............................................................................. 128
Test 4: TV pallet with 12 tagged products in different angles, first orientation ......................... 131
Test 5: TV pallet with 12 tagged products in different angles, second orientation .................... 132
Test 6: TV pallet with 12 tagged products in different angles, third orientation........................ 133
Test 7: Define maximum read-distance for a tag with one antenna......................................... 135
Test 8: Define read-field of a tag .......................................................................................... 137
Test 9: Test readability during bulk reading........................................................................... 138
Test 10: Test readability during bulk reading, upgraded firmware ........................................... 141
C.1 Conclusions After Testing.................................................................................................... 142
C.2 Configuration Description for Sony ...................................................................................... 143
Appendix D: Selected Products for Pilot............................................................................. 147
Appendix E: Sony RFID Applications .................................................................................. 149
Appendix F: Layout of Hal 4 ............................................................................................... 151
Appendix G: IST 4th Aggregation Stratum of TME Group with Communication to WMS.... 153
Appendix H: IST 4th Aggregation Stratum of TME Group with Control Loops .................... 155
Appendix I: IST 5th Aggregation Stratum of ATV Group for Birkart Platform .................... 157
Appendix J: Layout of Birkart Platform .............................................................................. 159
Appendix K: IST Processes of Birkart ................................................................................. 161
Appendix L: SOLL Processes of Sony ATV Group ................................................................ 163
Appendix M: Additional SOLL Processes of Sony ATV Group.............................................. 165
Appendix N: Birkart Processes for Sony ATV Group ........................................................... 167
Appendix O: Additional Birkart Processes for Sony ATV Group.......................................... 169
JM Hendriks
IX
JM Hendriks
X
1. Introduction
This is the report of the final thesis project entitled ‘Implementing UHF RFID Technology
within part of Sony’s Supply Chain’. RFID stands for Radio Frequency Identification which is
the technique of automatic (product) identification via radio signals.
This final thesis project is initiated by Mieloo & Alexander, a Business Integrator with already
some experience on RFID. Since Mieloo & Alexander have a long history of cooperation with
Sony, Sony allowed Mieloo & Alexander to ‘experiment’ with UHF RFID Technology at Sony
Logistics Europe BV in Tilburg. In this particular project Sony facilitates by providing a real
working environment and Mieloo & Alexander will facilitate the project by providing the RFID
equipment and their knowledge on UHF RFID.
The reason that Sony wants to use this technology in its supply chain is because they are
convinced that they will find many benefits to increase supply chain efficiency and increase
profit. Besides the benefits for Sony itself, many retailers (and thus customers of Sony) are
also experimenting with this new technology to find tracking and tracing benefits for their
supply chains. The most important retailers who are experimenting are: Wal-Mart, Tesco,
Metro Group, Target, Albertsons and Best-Buy. Since the first of January 2005, Wal-Mart
already demands that their suppliers use RFID tags on pallet and case level and soon The
Metro Group and Tesco will demand the same (see Figure 1). All the expenses of tags and
readers are for the suppliers. From this mandate, they have three possible options:
1. Do not implement RFID
2. Implement RFID on the outbound process for Wal-Mart only
3. Implement RFID throughout the whole supply chain and find own benefits
If a supplier chooses the first option they will be sure that they will loose some of their
customers. Choosing the second option a supplier has to invest in tags and other RFID
equipment without any benefits. Choosing for the third option means investing in equipment
and research and pioneering in the field of RFID, but with a ROI opportunity.
Sony chose for this third option, first of all because they are convinced that UHF RFID will
give them own benefits like a decrease in the amount of pilferage, an increase in efficiency
and productivity throughout their supply chain and a better supply chain visibility, and
secondly because they want to cooperate with Wal-Mart in this challenging technology.
Sony has already some experience with RFID Technology (on another frequency range) and
even holds some intellectual property rights. One aim for Sony is to enable RFID
JM Hendriks
Page 1
communication between PC’s, handheld computers, set top boxes and other consumer
devices (so-called Near Field Communication, NFC). Another is to enable a whole host of
value-added services on the Web (the so-called Felicia loyalty payment card).
2000 - 2003
Pilots
2004 –
RFID Pallet and Case –level Mandates
Top 100 suppliers by
April 2005
Top suppliers by late spring 2005,
All by spring 2007
100 suppliers by mid 2006
Some suppliers beginning in September 2004
Top suppliers beginning in January 2005
and all suppliers by end of 2006
2000
2004
Figure 1: Retailer mandates
The theory used in this thesis is the Delft Systems Approach. This approach roots in the
developments at the Delft University of Technology. In 1968, two chairs were defined at two
different faculties: Business Engineering and Management (Prof. Ir. P.Ch.A. Malotaux) and
Industrial Organisation (Prof. Ir. J. in ‘t Veld). The collaboration between these chairs resulted
in the methodology that has been named Delft Systems Approach. The methodology as it is
today profited from the co-operation and elaboration by others working for the two chairs
(Dekkers, 2004).
In finding solutions to industrial problems one can use the model for ‘an approach to
restructuring questions’ (see Figure 2) (Bikker, 2001). In this model an analysis is made from
the so-called IST situation (the current situation). This analysis must lead to a problem
definition which can be solved by developing a new strategy and redesigning the
organisational structure. If such an analysis of the IST situation is made, one starts to
observe the weak signals. These are signals from the organisation which indicates that
something is going wrong within the organisation or the organisation’s main function is not
tuned to the environmental needs and demands anymore. These signals will be analysed to
develop the problem definition and create a (process-) model. After which, observations will
be made from this model and they again will be analysed. Finally, a review will be made to
see if the problem definition is still correct, otherwise it will be redefined and the process will
be started all over again (see Figure 3).
JM Hendriks
Page 2
1st trajectory of analysis
IST policy
SOLL policy
Conflictory
requirements
Design
criteria
Design
organisational
structure
Analysis
current situation
2nd trajectory of analysis
Figure 2: An approach to restructuring questions, simplified version
IST
situation
w eak signals
prob. def.
m odel
observations
analyses
review
Figure 3: Developing the problem definition from weak signals (Dekkers, 2003)
The development of the problem definition for the specific case within Sony is a little different.
Within Sony there are no real weak signals from within the company or the environment. In
this specific situation Sony is looking to find internal benefits from the use of UHF RFID and,
wants to cooperate with the Wal-Mart mandate. This does not lead to a change in the main
function for Sony, but has impact on the boundary conditions under which Sony conducts its
main function. Since Sony would have to invest on RFID equipment without knowing if any
return on investment (ROI) can be made, they decided to find processes that can be
JM Hendriks
Page 3
optimised with RFID. Therefore in this particular case Figure 3 has been changed to Figure 4
where another process has been taken to develop the problem definition.
Environment
IST situation
Use RFID on pallet level
RFID
knowledge
Conducting
RFID workshop
Define changing
business requirements
Inventory of potential
applications & benefits
Technical feasibility
assessment
Return on investment
calculation
Analyses
Model
Problem definition
Review
Figure 4: Defining the problem definition for Sony
This report will firstly explain the background of the final thesis assignment in chapter 2, will
then explain what RFID is in a simple way in chapter 3 (and in a more detailed way in
Appendix A). Chapter 4 will tell how an innovation takes place. Analyses of the business
processes of Sony and finding benefits for Sony on the use of RFID are presented in chapter
5. Chapter 6 draws some conclusions from this process analysis and determines which
product group best fits a pilot project on RFID. In chapter 7 this product group is analysed by
sketching the business processes in even more detail. An SOLL process description is given in
chapter 8 after which some conclusions are drawn in chapter 9, followed by
recommendations in chapter 10.
JM Hendriks
Page 4
2. Final Thesis Assignment
2.1 Introducing Mieloo & Alexander and Sony
Mieloo & Alexander - Business Integrators is a consulting firm specialised in the optimisation
of business processes by implementing innovative (information) technology for clients. From
various practices they provide program- and project management, business consulting and
integrated technical consulting services for multinationals with subsidiaries and divisions
located in The Netherlands and Western Europe. An important aspect of their services is their
approach and method in which the integration between Business, Organisation and
(Information) Technology remains the central point of focus.
Sony is established in May 1946 by Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation. Sony
has sales offices in almost any country, has revenues of € 55 billion worldwide and employs
180,000 people worldwide. Sony produces Consumer Electronics (CE) and Business solutions
and serves its markets within seven business areas:
- CAV
(Consumer
Audio
and
Video):
Audio,
Video,
Television,
Information
and
Communication, Electronic components, and others (so-called Consumer Electronics)
- SCEE (Sony Computer Entertainment Europe): Game Consoles and Software
- RME (Sony Recording Media and Energy Europe): primarily by Sony Music Entertainment
Inc. (SMEI) and Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc. (SMEJ)
- PSE (Sony Professional Services Europe): offers a range of services that create value for a
company's business through the application of advanced and tailored audiovisual
information technology (AVIT) solutions
- Pictures; Film- and television-industry, primarily by Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. (SPE)
- Insurance; insurance products are delivered by Sony Life Insurance Co., Ltd. and Sony
Assurance Inc.
- Other; Other products/services are leasing, credit card companies, satellite distribution
services for the Japanese market, and developments and exploitation of ‘Location-based
entertainment complexes’
Sony Logistics Europe BV operates one of two major distribution Centres for the European
market. It has a ground area of over 100,000 m2, over 400 employees and is situated in
Tilburg, The Netherlands. This distribution centre distributes the products of all six marketgroups to many European countries directly to stores and some smaller warehouses
(platforms).
JM Hendriks
Page 5
2.2 Problem Definition First Phase
One of Sony’s major customers, Wal-Mart from the USA, demands from all their suppliers
(Sony is one of their top suppliers) that they use RFID Technology on their pallets to track
and trace its goods. Wal-Mart demanded the RFID tags to be installed from the first of
January of 2005. If Sony complies with this mandate, they have to invest money without any
possible return. Sony is very interested in finding own RFID benefits and was willing to
comply with the Wal-Mart mandate and therefore decided to investigate the possibilities to
use this technology in their own supply chain.
Can RFID be used to:
- Decrease the amount of pilferage,
- Increase efficiency and productivity,
- Work with serial number scanning,
- Increase the supply chain visibility?
2.3 Assignment First Phase
Perform a technical feasibility study on the technology of RFID and analyse the current
processes within Sony Logistics Europe BV. From this analysis define a pilot project to
integrate RFID within the processes of Sony.
2.4 Problem Definition Second Phase
After definition of the product groups where RFID does not have any readability problems,
the following step should be to implement RFID Technology within the working processes of
Sony Logistics Europe BV. In this implementation phase several issues have to be tackled:
- How to handle the enormous data flow from all the tags?
- How to connect the RFID system to an ERP system?
- What is the impact on operations of the process re-design?
2.5 Assignment Second Phase
Do research in more detail about the system integration part of an RFID implementation for a
product group without readability issues (the TME – ATV group for the Cologne platform).
JM Hendriks
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2.6 Plan of Action
1. Get acquainted with RFID Technology (small literature survey)
2. Perform a structured technical feasibility study for RFID Technology and define boundary
conditions for the use of it (both in a laboratory and at Sony Tilburg)
3. Analyse the processes in Sony’s supply chain and within Sony Logistics Europe BV
according to the Delft Systems Approach
4. Describe the initiating, evaluating and control functions for these processes
5. Quantify the flows and storages where necessary
6. Analyse the criteria and conditions to introduce RFID technology
7. Describe a SOLL situation for the TV group pilot
8. Do research on the system integration part of the RFID implementation
9. Draw conclusions from this research
JM Hendriks
Page 7
JM Hendriks
Page 8
3. What is RFID?
Automatic Identification (Auto-ID) is the broad term given to a host of technologies that are
used to help machines identify objects. Auto identification is often coupled with automatic
data capture, since, companies want to identify items, capture information about them and
somehow get the data into a computer without having employees typing it in. The aim of
most auto-ID systems is to increase efficiency, reduce data entry errors and free up staff to
perform more value-added functions. There are a host of technologies that fall under the
auto-ID umbrella. These include bar codes, smart cards, voice recognition, some biometric
technologies (e.g. retinal scans), optical character recognition, radio frequency identification
(RFID) and others.
RFID is a generic term for technologies that use radio waves to automatically identify
individual items. There are several methods of identifying objects using RFID, but the most
common is to store a serial number that identifies a product and perhaps some additional
information on a microchip that is attached to an antenna. The antenna enables the chip to
transmit the information to a reader device.
3.1 The Working of Passive UHF RFID
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a technology to identify an object with the use of
radio waves. A tag is attached to this object and contains information about it. With an RFID
reader, this information is captured and is being transferred to a computer. The way it works
is quite simple: the technique exists of three components: chip, antenna and reader. The chip
has the size of a grain of sand and possesses an amount of data. This chip is attached to an
antenna which will send the data via radio-waves to the reader. The chip and the antenna
together are called the tag. The reader transmits a radio- or electromagnetic-wave. Once a
tag enters this electromagnetic field it uses the energy and sends its data back to the reader
(see Figure 5).
JM Hendriks
Page 9
reader
antenna
computer
tag Æ receiver
signal
transmitter Æ
tag signal
chip
antenna
tag
Figure 5: Working of passive RFID
Each tag has a manufacturer-installed unique identification code as well as additional
available memory. The data from this tag, collected by the reader, can be sent to a computer
that uses this information in an ERP program.
The technology already exists since World War II, but is not used on a wide scale. The
reason why interest is increasing is the enormous drop of cost of this technology: readers and
facilitating computers are decreasing in price. But the most important development is the
decrease in tag price (momentarily around € 0.30 to € 0.05 in a few years). Furthermore,
both the unique tag number and the working protocols are coded via the rules of the EPC
(Electronic Product Code); in doing so a world wide standard is being developed which
enlarges the use of this technology. A third reason why RFID has gain a great deal of interest
is because with this technology a large amount of data can be collected real-time.
The RFID system consists of the following components:
- RFID tags: micro processor, antenna and packaging
- RFID reader: antenna, coupler (for decoding) and micro chip
- Software: embedded protocol handling in the reader, data management and connection
RFID system to ERP (ISO protocols are being used for standardising the embedded
protocols of the reader: ISO 18000-1).
JM Hendriks
Page 10
3.2 Main Goals and Benefits of Using RFID
Most of the companies that are experimenting with RFID do this to improve their supply chain.
In current times a large percentage of products simply disappear within the supply chain.
This can happen because of human (planning) errors, pilferage, shrinkage or products being
out-fashioned or past their due dates. Besides this, for popular products an extensive grey
market makes profit over the product founder’s back (counterfeiting). In many cases these
grey markets are hard to combat. So, the main goals to use RFID are:
- Decrease counterfeiting (counterfeiting gives 8 to 10% loss of sales)
- Decrease level of shrinkage (products that get lost during the supply chain)
- Increase shrink reduction (less mistakes during processes means less expensive recoveries
of those mistakes)
- Decrease (safety) stocks
- Asset tracking (increase your supply chain visibility, identify process bottlenecks)
- Less handling (human intervention), because of automatic (bulk) data capture
Nowadays the demands for a production and logistics process are increasing dramatically due
to quality increase and decrease in production cost, throughput time and batch sizes. To
produce and distribute in a faultless, flexible and efficient way, process control and process
visibility is more important than ever before. RFID can help in controlling and visualizing
these processes, and therefore besides the main goals mentioned above, RFID could bring a
lot more benefits:
- No more ‘phantom stock outs’ (discrepancy in stock on the shelf and in the computer)
- Decrease in handling costs (barcodes need hand-scanning, RFID tags can be read
automatically)
- RFID can trace the product from the manufacturer to the customer (for item level
tagging)
- RFID can improve the supply chain efficiency
- RFID teaches you about your supply chain
- Extensive process optimisation
- Better surveillance of the process chain
- Individual sections of the process chain can be better coordinated
- Production and inventory can be planned more accurately and are easier to control
- Tackling illegal copying of goods
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3.3 Conclusions about RFID
The use of this innovative technology leads to extensive process optimisation, to higher
effectiveness and thus to lower costs. It allows for better surveillance of the process chain.
The individual sections of the process chain can be better coordinated. Production and
inventory can be planned more accurately and are easier to control.
Despite all benefits that RFID can bring, there are still some issues to solve:
- There is a need for standards, otherwise economy-of-scale will never bring advantages
(EPC Global is working on these standards)
- How to cope with a non-functioning tag (there is no visual check if a tag has been ‘seen’
or not)
- Readers are not yet reliable enough (the market is full of prototypes)
- How to handle the data-explosion of all the real-time data?
Despite these obstacles in the use of RFID, it continues to gain new converts each year. This
is partly because many firms have more realistic expectations about what the technology can
do for them, but also because the technology itself continues to evolve. Advancements in
UHF RFID tags over the last year have closed the gap between what supply chain firms
require and what is technologically feasible. End users now have new technology offerings
that provide an optimal mix of price and performance – increasingly affordable tag prices, yet
achieving the superior performance required to achieve comprehensive visibility of pallets,
totes, cases, parcels and even individual items. Most large supply chain players see RFID
playing an important part of the overall data collection strategy. A key to a successful
implementation is to determine the most appropriate places to adopt the technology.
‘Even if the lofty goal of tagging and identifying every item that passes through the
organisation remains unrealistic today, that does not mean that RFID cannot be solving many
of the logistics problems now’ (Coyle, 2004). The technology is currently available to track
products at both the pallet and case level. To many manufacturers this level of detail is
clearly satisfactory. Forklift trucks can carry pallet loads of products through RFID enabled
portals (at receiving/ shipping, at internal check points, etc.) that can verify all movements of
those items (travelling speed of the forklift truck up to 12 km/h, then reader can read 200
tags/second). The cost savings over manual or even bar coded inspections become very real.
Returnable container tracking, often thought too complex, now becomes a reality as pallets
and totes can be easily identified as they pass in and out of the door. And since the RFID tag
identifying these containers can be read time after time, the cost-of-use becomes very low.
Cross docking, work-in-progress (WIP) tracking, pallet building and quality control – all are
good candidates for justifying RFID today. The question is: does the performance of the RFID
JM Hendriks
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technology satisfy the organisation’s basic visibility needs? Does it provide the speed, range
and reliability needed to track the product better than the organisation can do right now? If
so, RFID can be used: value is clearly the ultimate measure.
If an organisation starts using RFID, it must be sure what it is trying to accomplish; what
‘problem’ is there to be fixed and how it will be determined if the project is a success. Too
many RFID trials have failed because users were told to ‘pilot RFID’ without direction on how
it should be implemented.
The adoption of RFID into the mainstream of the supply chain is inevitable. A key to the
success achieved with RFID is clever implementation – knowing the capabilities and
limitations of the technology and making the best fit of these capabilities within your
operation.
See for more details on RFID, Appendix A.
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4. Innovation Model
If it is decided that a re-organisation is going to be initiated then the researcher and the
management will require a model for the innovation process to be set in motion. The
‘Innovation Model’ developed by In ‘t Veld may come useful in such situations (see Figure 6).
The innovation process starts with a systematic exploration of the environment and the
establishing of objectives. The evaluation of the operations that took place beforehand is thus
further deepened and translated into new objectives. With the ‘Policy formulation’ the ways
and means are discussed that are to give the re-organisation form, such as new technology,
specific workmanship and new information technology for the organisation of operations. In
‘Confrontation and adjustment’ the new ideas and draft proposals are tested against the
possibilities and then adjusted accordingly. Afterwards, in line with the results achieved up
until then, a master plan and a budget are made available and guidelines are given for the
development and implementation of the new equipment. After the master plan has emerged
the modernisation can be controlled as a project. Finally ‘Policy evaluation’ comes in order to
ascertain whether the original objectives and plan have been finished (Bikker, 2002).
The innovation process of using RFID Technology within Sony is not performed via the
method of In ‘t Veld. Still the method is used in this report to see the different steps of
innovation and to see if a match between theory and practice can be found.
4.1 Environments Scan and Target Determination
When, in the environment of an organisation, the need for the function fulfilled by the
organisation is decreasing, the existence of the organisation is endangered. Therefore any
organisation needs a function to scan the environment and translate its situation to new
needs, thus to find new external goals. One of these scanning methods is conducting a
technology assessment (such an assessment will be conducted for RFID in Appendix B).
For Sony such a new opportunity is the use of RFID on pallet and case level for the customer
Wal-Mart (USA). The main function of Sony keeps the same, but the boundary conditions in
which they fulfil that function, are changing. After all, not using RFID might lead to a loss of
customers, and thus endangers the main function of the company.
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4.2 Policy Formulation
Once new goals are formulated, the ways and means to establish these goals need to be
determined. At the same time priorities regarding these goals need to be posed. In other
words policy formulation deals about finding a good match between opportunities and threats.
Since Sony is more or less compelled to make use of the RFID technology, they have decided
to look if this technology can bring some advantages for themselves. Starting point is that the
use of RFID must increase the number of sales (marketing) and make the supply chain work
more efficiently (supply chain management). At least for some point in time a return on
investment (ROI) must be found.
Environment
Policy formulation
norm
Confrontation and
adjustment
Policy evaluation
m
Master plan
and budget
I
Controlling the innovation process and policy verification
Norm-policy
I
Environments scan and
target determination
Development
and installation
Environment
m
Operation
Figure 6: Innovation model (in 't Veld, 1998)
JM Hendriks
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4.3 Confrontation and Adjustment
In order to choose the right goals and policy for the company, the goals determined during
the policy formulation phase, which are desirables, need to be confronted with the
possibilities of the company itself. Questions to be solved could be: Do we have the right
knowledge, people and means for the new technology? Otherwise, can this be developed? In
what time? Is there enough capital? In what time can the investments be returned? Is a reorganisation needed to implement the technology? This confrontation and adjustment
process is an iterative process during which new questions will be asked to the policy
formulation and environments scan and target determination levels.
The final result of the confrontation and adjustment phase is a feasible confrontation which is
described in a master plan and a budget.
4.4 Development and Installation
From the former steps in the innovation process it is known which research and/ or
developments need to be done. This could be about:
- Product development: develop products or services to fulfil the needs found in the
environment scan
- Production development: develop better production processes to increase efficiency and
productivity
- Input development: develop better processes to increase the performance of the input
(materials, people and other means)
- Market development: develop better output processes to increase market relations and
sales-channels
4.5 Controlling the Innovation Process
An innovation process is a typical iterative process, which is showed in Figure 6 by the round,
two-way arrows. Although this iterative growth process, it needs to be controlled. To control
this process a pre-master plan has to be developed to give a timeline for the innovation
process.
4.6 Policy Verification and Evaluation
Once an innovation is implemented and is common sense within the operation process, the
company is able to see if this innovation has led to fulfilling the changed demand from the
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environment. Therefore the ‘policy verification and evaluation’ function is to ‘check’ if the
company’s goal is met. This is a so-called feedback function that checks, and if needed steers,
the innovation process. This feedback function should answer two questions: Did we innovate
the process correctly? Did we do the correct innovation?
4.7 The Innovation Process for Sony Logistics Europe BV
Sony Logistics Europe BV has done the first step of the innovation process: ‘Environments
scan and target determination’ in which it is determined that RFID will be looked at as a
technology to improve supply chain efficiency. Sony is in the middle of a technology
assessment (see Appendix B) and is already working on the next innovation step: ‘Policy
formulation’.
Wal-Mart found some clear objective in the use of RFID technology: save US $ 8 billion on a
yearly base. These US $ 8 billion must be earned for:
- 82% by handling efficiency; automatic data capture in stead of time-consuming manual
scanning
- 7% by no more out of stock situations; since better stock information results in an increase
in replenishment accuracy
- 6% by no more (human) errors; when the processes and data capturing works
automatically, there will be less errors during the processes
- 5% by increase in supply chain visibility; better information about the processes must lead
to a better control of these processes and therefore a decrease in throughput time and thus
an increase in savings
This must all lead to cheaper products and more availability of these products and thus to an
increase in customer-satisfaction.
Sony is in the middle of defining some advantages on the end-to-end chain. This means that
the objectives for Sony are still under development; the use of RFID must at least lead to an
increase in the number of sales and an increase in the supply chain efficiency, in order to
have a short return on investment and make money out of the use of RFID. To develop these
objectives, Sony has formed an RFID task force from people all over the company
(Production, Marketing, Sales, Supply Chain Management, Logistics, Manufacturing and After
Sales Services).
The team members have done a workshop first to understand the working and possibilities of
RFID (see Figure 4). After this workshop every team member is given the assignment to find
JM Hendriks
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possible advantages of RFID in their department/ working field. Some first advantages that
already could be mentioned are (see also Appendix D):
- Scan less goods movements: cost efficient scanning, improved productivity, improved
data accuracy, improved control
- Store/ update product data on the product: serial number, price, journey information
- Product locating
- Unaware scanning (security): Unaware scanning to prevent shrinkage could save a large
amount of money. According to the ‘2001 Retail Survey Report’ (Hollinger, 2002) the
degree of shrinkage is 0.69% within the consumer electronics. This 0.69% is built up
from employee theft, shoplifting, vendor fraud and human errors (see Figure 7)
- EPC: worldwide standard for unique item level identification (see chapter A.5)
- Increase efficiency: handling; automatic check and data capturing on goods receipt, put
away, stock count, picking, sorting, pallet stacking, loading
- Reduce loss: transport; automatic check of shipment completeness at each point of the
chain; data capturing and checking at the transhipment points, RF supported proof of
delivery at the customer site on case level
- Add value to products by using the RFID tags within marketing actions
- Millions of manual scans per year could be replaced by automatic data capture with RFID
Technology which saves time and money
- 5 to 10% decrease in loss because of the use of RFID means savings
Employee theft
6%
17%
Shoplifting
46%
Administrative and
paperwork errors
31%
Vendor fraud
Figure 7: Breakdown of shrinkage
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The investment-side of implementing RFID exists of three parts:
- Investments in new technology (e.g. readers, tags, software)
- Investments in extending existing technology (e.g. IT infrastructure)
- Adaptation of organisation and processes (e.g. training people, adjust processes)
A return on investment calculation is made for an RFID implementation within a distribution
centre for a comparable consumer electronics company. From such a calculation it is known
that in implementing RFID an annual loss of € 2 million is made. In order to get a return on
investment, one needs to find a solution where costs do not rise significantly and the benefits
increase enormously. Such a solution could be to implement RFID Technology throughout the
whole supply chain. In doing this, the cost will not rise significant, but the benefits would
increase enormous. Some of these benefits are:
- Revenue increase of 1%
- Cost of goods sold (COGS) reduction of 5%
- Inventory reduction of 2 to 8%
- Reduction of capital assets of 1 to 5%
Besides these benefits, serial number scanning is demanded from the business units of Sony
(for process control and mapping the grey market). This would mean that an additional
handling must take place and therefore a cost calculation is made (number of seconds to
scan the serial number times the average employee wage). When using RFID, this extra
handling is not necessary, and thus another cost benefit is a fact.
The purpose of overboxing is to prevent pilferage and protect the colourful marketing box.
Some small volume high value products (e.g. digital camera) mysteriously disappear when
moving in the supply chain. Overboxing for those items can make them difficult to be
recognized as high value products. Overboxing is done as part of the outbound process at
Tilburg and is also considered as another time and labour consuming activity (besides serial
number capturing) between picking and packing. The high value products, which are not
going to be shipped to dealers directly but by cross-docking through third party logistics,
need to be overboxed. These overboxing activities are causing bottlenecks in the warehouse
workflow and thus eliminating them will therefore increase profit.
After implementing RFID throughout the whole supply chain of an electronic consumer
company, the benefits could lead to an annual profit of € 80 million (Garikiparthi, 2004).
JM Hendriks
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5. IST Process of Sony
5.1 Establishment
Sony, established in Tokyo in 1946, was the brainchild of two people; Masaru Ibuka, an
engineer and Akio Morita, a scientist, invested an equivalent of 190,000 Yen to start a small
business with 20 employees for repairing electrical equipment and producing own fabricated
products. The success story began in 1954 when Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo K.K., or Tokyo
Telecommunications Engineering Corporation, as the company was called, got a permit to
fabricate transistors. The transistor was already invented in the United States, but was never
used inside a radio. In May 1954 Sony Japan introduced its first transistor and the first fully
transistor build radio in the year that followed. Not many companies have succeeded to
produce a list of inventions and innovations like Sony did. Most important developments
were; the first Trinitron colour television in 1968, the colour video-cassette-recorder in 1971,
the Betamax video-recorder in 1975, the Walkman in 1979, the 3,5 inch diskette in 1989, an
electronic camera in 1981, worlds first CD-player in 1982, the first camcorder for consumers
in 1983, the 8mm video in 1988, the first digital VTR in 1985 etc., until the day of today.
Since the foundation of the company, 50 years ago, the company has grown from 20
employees to 180,000 employees worldwide today. Akio Morita saw from the beginning that
his market was not only Japan, but the whole world; therefore he wanted the name of Sony
printed visible on every product. ‘Sony Corporation of America’ was founded in 1960 and
‘Sony United Kingdom Limited’ in 1968. Once products are being sold in a specific country, it
is advisable to produce them locally; therefore a production centre was founded in San Diego
in 1972, followed by a production facility in Bridgend (UK) to serve the British and European
market.
5.2 Origin of the Name of Sony
‘Sony’ is a derivative of two words: the first one is the Latin word ‘sonus’, which means sound,
the second word is ‘sonny boy’, a popular expression in the fifties in Japan used to describe
young free minded and entrepreneurial people. These words were used to show that the
company of Sony exists of young, free minded, entrepreneurial people with passion, energy
and unlimited creativity, who work for a better future.
5.3 Strategy and Mission
‘Sony aims to become a ‘knowledge-emergent enterprise in the broadband network era’,
which offers customers appealing and useful services through the cooperation of the five key
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business areas including electronics, game, entertainment (primarily consisting of the music
and pictures businesses), internet and communication services, and financial services. To
achieve this goal, Sony intends to continue its management initiatives by using information
technology and pursuing creativity. Moreover, through the use of EVA® (Economic Value
Added), a performance indicator which reflects the cost of capital, Sony intends to strive for
strengthening its growth potential and mid- and long-term competitiveness and to increase
corporate value.’
5.4 Business Areas
Sony serves its markets within seven business areas:
- CAV
(Consumer
Audio
and
Video):
Audio,
Video,
Television,
Information
and
Communication, Electronic components, and others (so-called Consumer Electronics)
- SCEE (Sony Computer Entertainment Europe): Game Consoles and Software
- RME (Sony Recording Media and Energy Europe): primarily by Sony Music Entertainment
Inc. (SMEI) and Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc. (SMEJ)
- PSE (Sony Professional Services Europe): offers a range of services that create value for a
company's business through the application of advanced and tailored audiovisual
information technology (AVIT) solutions
- Pictures; Film- and television-industry, primarily by Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. (SPE)
- Insurance; insurance products are delivered by Sony Life Insurance Co., Ltd. and Sony
Assurance Inc.
- Other; Other products/ services are leasing, credit card companies, satellite distribution
services for the Japanese market, and developments and exploitation of ‘Location-based
entertainment complexes’
5.5 History of Sony Nederland BV
In 1924 a small workshop in the Kerkstraat, Amsterdam, called ‘Brandsteder Spreekmachine
Meubelen’ was founded. This was a small shop which specialises in making wooden cases for
gramophones and loudspeakers. After 1945 the television was introduced and ‘Brandsteder
Spreekmachine Meubelen’ decided to build wooden cases for television as well. After World
War II, Sony was founded in Japan. In 1960 the former president of ‘Brandsteder
Spreekmachine Meubelen’, A. Brandsteder came in contact with Sony, which was looking for
a distributor of its products in the Netherlands. In 1961 the name of ‘Brandsteder
Spreekmachine Meubelen’ was changed into ‘Brandsteder Electronics BV’ and the since then
importing Sony was a fact. The furniture workshop was closed and ‘Brandsteder Electronics
BV’ focused on selling Sony products. In 1988 the company became a full daughter of Sony
JM Hendriks
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Corporation under the name Sony Nederland BV. From April 1997 Sony Nederland BV and
Sony Belgium falls under Sony Benelux BV with headquarters in Badhoevedorp (The
Netherlands).
5.6 Sony Logistics Europe BV
Sony Logistics Europe BV (SLE) is an in-house logistics service provider for the Sony Group,
these services consists of:
- Storage
- Handling of goods (inbound and outbound)
- Value added services (e.g. bundling)
- Arrange transport (both incoming and outgoing)
- Customs service
- Quality verification and remedy work
- Packaging services
- Returns handling
Hal 2
Hal 1
CAV
D
C
SCEE
B
A
CAV
RME
PSE
SCEE
Hal 4
Hal 3
Location: Dongenseweg
76,000 m2
Location: Prometheusweg
24,000 m2
Figure 8: Layout Sony Logistics Europe BV
Sony Logistics Europe BV is one of two major distribution Centres for the European market. It
has a ground area of over 76,000 m2 (and at a second location 24,000 m2) and over 400
employees and is situated in Tilburg, The Netherlands, since 2000 (see Figure 8). This
distribution centre distributes the products of the first four market groups (CAV, SCEE, RME
and PSE) to many European countries directly (Benelux and Germany, by end 2005 also
JM Hendriks
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France, Switzerland and Austria) and another 10 countries via local warehouses (platforms).
In 2002 it handled 535,288 m3 of volume and used 16,000 outbound trucks (see Figure 9 for
the division of total volume per market group).
6%
CAV
18%
SCEE
46%
RME
32%
PSE
Figure 9: Throughput percentages for Tilburg
5.7 Analysis of Sony’s Supply Chain
When looking to the highest aggregation stratum of the organic structure of Sony, the next
model in Figure 10 can be drawn. On the input side raw materials and orders are coming in
and on the output side products are coming out. The main process for Sony is producing.
orders
materials
Producing
products
Figure 10: First aggregation stratum for Sony
When zooming in on the order and purchasing flow of Sony, several business models can be
drawn. Within the consumer electronics supply chain operations there are three main
business models, namely: Local direct purchasing model, Shared inventory model and Central
stock replenishment model (see Figure 11).
JM Hendriks
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Local Direct Purchasing model
Dealer order
Purchase Order
Dealer invoice
Local SC
Invoice A
Factory
Invoice B
SEBV
Factory shipment
Dealer
Delivery order
Dealer shipment
Local WH
Shared Inventory model
Purchase Order
Sales forecast
Invoice
Factory
TP/invoice
SEBV
Local SC
Dealer order
Dealer invoice
Dealer
Delivery order
Factory shipment
Dealer shipment
Tilburg/Barcelona
Central Stock Replenishment model
Sales forecast/stock
Purchase Order
Invoice
Factory
Dealer order
Demand
TP/Invoice
SEBV
Local SC
Replenishment order
Replenishment
Factory shipment
Re-route containers
Tilburg/Barcelona
Dealer invoice
Delivery order
Dealer
Dealer shipment
Local WH
Figure 11: Three business models for the Consumer Electronics Industry
Local direct purchasing model features:
- Local sales company (SC) owns inventory
- Based on local forecast a purchase order is placed at the factory
- Sony Europe BV (SEBV) owns no inventory in the chain
Shared inventory model features:
- Local sales company (SC) does not own inventory, all inventory in the central hub WH is
owned by Sony Europe BV (SEBV)
- SEBV, by business group (BG), controls inventory based on local demand
Central stock replenishment model features:
- Local SC owns local (minimum) inventory and SEBV (by BG) owns central inventory
- Based on local forecast and stock, a purchase order is placed at the factory by the BG
- The SC is replenished weekly based on forecast and stock
(Beentjes, 2002)
Since not all the product from Sony Logistics Europe will move directly to the end-customer,
some platforms are being used as an intermediate station. Such a platform is a local
warehouse from which the products are further sorted and send to the end-customers
(dealers) of Sony.
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5.8 Analysis of the Processes within Sony Tilburg (SLE)
Looking at the role of the distribution centre in Tilburg within the Sony supply chain, the
organic structure of the first aggregation stratum can be drawn (as follows in Figure 12). It
shows that the main role of the distribution centre is to bundle the products for specific
customers from the bulk products that enter the distribution centre.
order
Bulk products
Bundled products
Distributing
Figure 12: Processes of SLE, first aggregation stratum
Further zooming in will give more detailed information about the processes within the
distribution centre (see Figure 13).
order
Bundled
Bulk
products
products
Receiving
Picking
Customizing
Inbound
Outbound
process
process
Loading
Figure 13: Processes of SLE, second aggregation stratum
In the inbound process, the products are being received and put to stock. In the outbound
process the products are being picked to order, customised for the specific customer and
then loaded into the truck. For an even more detailed organic process description, Figure 14
shows the third aggregation stratum.
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Unloading report
Receiving report
Inbound Sony
Airfreight
Shipments
Receiving
Sorting
Counting
Quality checking
Truck freight
order
stock
Pick order
Shipping label
Load ok report
Truck load report
FP
picking
MC
picking
Customising
Wrapping
Staging
Counting/
checking
Loading
Broken MC
picking
Outbound Sony
Figure 14: Processes of SLE, third aggregation stratum
Inbound process
In the inbound process three flows of products are coming in; by air (Amsterdam Airport
Schiphol) high value products (e.g. Digital Cameras), by ship (Port of Rotterdam) medium
value products (e.g. Auto Radios) and by truck (from European factories) low value products
(e.g. Televisions). An unloading report is being sent to the forklift driver which will receive the
products. The next step is to sort the received products by specific product and build pallets
per product. Then the products are being counted (manually) and checked on quality. This
information is then being sent to the warehouse management system (WMS), which will send
back a location to put the products to stock. The forklift driver scans the new build pallet and
then the pallet location and puts the pallet to stock.
Outbound process
After an order is being placed a forklift driver receives a pick order from the WMS. The forklift
driver scans the products and his empty pallet and puts the product on his pallet. There are
three streams of picking: a full pallet (FP) pick, a master carton (MC) pick and a broken
master carton pick. If a retailer ordered a quantity of products which is exactly or more than
a full pallet, the forklift truck driver picks a full pallet from the stock and scans the pallet with
a barcode reader. If a retailer orders less than a full pallet, the forklift driver picks the amount
of products needed, scans every product and puts them on an empty pallet. Sometimes a
JM Hendriks
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retailer orders less than a master carton. In this case the driver picks the products from the
mezzanine, where the broken master cartons are. In this case, again every product is being
scanned. After all products are being picked, the driver moves to the customisation area and
starts customising his order to the client specific wishes (extra stickers, adding marketing
materials, overbox the products, etc.). Then the pallet is being sealed in the wrapping area
and the address label is attached (created by the WMS), afterwards the pallet is put to the
staging area (assigned by the WMS). On this staging area a last counting and quality check is
performed and a ready to load report is sent to the WMS. Then the driver starts loading the
truck at the loading area and again scans every pallet and truck ID until the loading area is
empty. Then a truck load report is send to the WMS and the truck driver can leave the
distribution centre.
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6. Conclusion after Analysis
After an analysis of the processes of Sony Logistics Europe (see Chapter 5) is made and the
Technology Assessment (see Appendix B) is executed, a product group needs to be chosen to
start a pilot with RFID. The purpose of such a pilot is to be able to further analyse in detail
how the implementation of RFID will have impact on the IST situation of the processes and to
develop a redesign of these processes to define the SOLL situation for Sony. These SOLL
processes have to lead to benefits by increased efficiency of the supply chain.
6.1 Boundary Conditions to Implement RFID Technology
From the Technology Assessment (see Appendix B), some boundary conditions were
developed. The most important are:
- Make sure that the tag that must be read is within the 100% read-field of the antenna
(both within read-angle and read-distance)
- Make sure that the antenna and the tag are parallel to each other for best readability
results
- Keep the tags as far as possible from each other to be sure that they do not interfere
- Use the lowest possible amount of tags; the less tags, the better the total readability
performance (the less tags, the less data transfer, the faster the total pallet throughput)
- Use the lowest possible packaging material, otherwise use carton and polystyrene to make
sure that readability of the tags is 100%
- A good relation between tag onto product placement and antenna placement is important,
this determines far most the readability results
6.2 Model for Funnelling Research Scope
During the Technology Assessment a technical feasibility study was performed on the
technology of RFID and afterwards the current processes within Sony Logistics Europe BV
(SLE) were analysed. This technical feasibility study, performed in both a laboratory and
within the internal distribution processes of Sony, showed that the readability issues, based
on the current status of UHF RFID technology, have great impact on the possibilities to use
RFID on item level. With the current technology status, only a small amount of product
groups can benefit from the advantages of UHF RFID. These are products where readability
issues and tag interference are not involved (this is 8% of the products for Sony in handling
volume). The model in Figure 15 has been developed to funnel the further research during
this final thesis project. The choice has been made to focus on the small product groups
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which show no readability problems, and to focus on the implementation of RFID for these
groups.
Small part of product group:
readability no issue
Challenge: integration of
ICT, data handling,
architecture, filtering
Redesign the current
processes for a pilot
project
8%
Technology
assessment
92%
Challenge: technical
optimisation of RFID
readability performance
Large part of product group:
readability is an issue
Challenge: find other
techniques (2D barcode,
Visidot, combination of
passive/ active RFID)
Redesign the current
processes
Figure 15: Model for funnelling research scope
6.3 Choosing a Product Group for Piloting
Besides choosing a product group which satisfies the boundary conditions mentioned above,
Sony has some additional demands for the pilot:
- Readability performance for the total system must be at least 99.95% in order to be
competitive to current (automatic) barcode systems
- No back-end integration with WMS or ERP system; pilot must be a stand alone in order to
make sure that the IT processes are not disturbed or slowed down
- Current working processes may not be changed too much; workers need to do an
additional step within their process in order to apply the tags on the products. Process may
not become too time consuming to be sure that deadlines (loading times) are met
- Tags must be writable. Since there is no integration with the WMS system, it is difficult to
match the data from the current WMS and the stand alone pilot. Therefore the tag EPC
number must be created from the product 8-digit code and the product SSCC number, this
can afterwards be matched with reports created by SAP BW from the WMS
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Since readability is an important factor, an analysis is made how the products are stacked on
a pallet. In order to classify the product groups, three determining conditions are used:
- Metal/ liquid density (the higher this density the more difficult to read the RFID tag)
- Carton size (the bigger the carton, the less products on a pallet, the more air around the
product and thus better readability)
- Quantity of products on a pallet (the more products, the more tags and thus the more
interference between tags)
From these conditions a figure can be drawn that classifies the product groups within CAV
(see Figure 16).
Quantity (interference between tags)
420
Impossible to read 100%
DIME?
100% reading rate
Eve?
HVE?
TME?
PAE?
1
Big (Outer side)
small (Inner side)
Carton Size
Metal/liquid density
Figure 16: Conditions to classify the product groups within CAV
These conditions and the requirements mentioned above determine far most the product
group chosen for the pilot project. The choice has been made to use products from the TME
group.
Within the TME group it is chosen to use large LCD and Plasma Televisions. These products
have the advantage that the boxes are large, every Master Carton consists of only one item
(Television), all products have an outer pallet side and there are at most 18 products on one
JM Hendriks
Page 31
pallet. In Appendix C a unit test is performed to see if the requirements can be met with this
product group. From this unit test some conclusions can be drawn:
- The Class 1, Gen 1 Technology is immature
- A tag selection must be made to be able to have the 99.95% readability performance (the
rest of the tags perform too poor)
- Even a smaller selection need to be made within the LCD and Plasma products (maximum
of 9 products on one pallet) to be able to reach 99.95% readability performance
From this last conclusion a set of products are selected for the pilot (see Appendix D).
JM Hendriks
Page 32
7 Analysis of Television Process of SLE
Since for the RFID pilot the television group has been chosen (see Chapter 6), the process for
this group will be further analysed. In Figure 17 a simple drawing is presented of the flow of
the television process. The televisions for the European market are made in a factory in
Barcelona (Spain) and are then transported (via trucks) to the distribution centre in Tilburg
(The Netherlands). The reason why these televisions are made in Europe is because transport
costs are too high for these low-value high-volume products when they would be shipped
from Japan. In the distribution centre in Tilburg the televisions are bundled for warehouses
and retailers who will sell the televisions to the end customers. When a television needs to be
repaired, the retailer sends it to a special repairing factory that, after repairing, sends it back
to Tilburg.
Sony Europe factory
Sony Europe warehouse
3PL warehouse
Retailer
End customers
Sony Europe return centre
Figure 17: Supply chain for televisions
The television operation within Tilburg takes place in Hal 4 (see Figure 8 and Appendix F), it
can be modelled as follows (see Figure 18). Here the higher smaller blocks represent the
ordering process and the bigger heavy blocks represent the working process. The retailers
send their sales orders to the planning department of Sony Logistics Europe. This department
combines these sales orders to deliveries (sales orders from a number of retailers can be sent
via one platform). These deliveries are adjusted to a shipment size (size of a truck). Then the
Operations Control department takes over which releases picking waves for the workers once
the work in the distribution centre starts to diminish. These picking waves consist of many
transfer orders; which are total work assignments for one or more pallets. The transfer orders
are divided in tasks; These tasks are therefore the assignments for the worker to start picking
the products from the stock, put them on a pallet, make them client specific (customising),
wrap the pallet in plastic and load it onto the truck (see Figure 18).
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Creating
shipment
Creating
pick waves
Sales
order
Creating
delivery
+
Creating
transfer order
Creating
task
Pick
task
Bundled
Products
Picking
Customising
Wrapping
Loading
products
Pallets
Figure 18: Simple processes of TME Group
In looking to the process in more detail, the television group (TME) can be split into smaller
product groups:
- 1. TME
- 1.1. CRT
- 1.1.1. CTV (normal televisions)
- 1.2. ATV
- 1.2.1. LCD (LCD televisions)
- 1.2.2. PDP (plasma televisions)
- 1.2.3. PRJ (projectors)
In the fourth aggregation stratum the focus is on the LCD, PDP and PRJ products within the
ATV group (flat televisions) that will be shipped to the Birkart (Cologne) platform; in doing
this a small and defined product flow will be looked at and can be analysed into more detail.
Only the outbound process is looked at because this is the process that will change after the
use of RFID. This process is modelled in Appendix G which shows all the process steps of the
outbound flow with every communication point to the WMS. The same process is modelled
again in Appendix H which gives the IST processes of the outbound process with the current
control loops. The quantities of the flows are around 1600 televisions per month (see Table
1) (this is the ATV group for the Birkart platform only). Sony has 5 working days per week
with 2 shifts of 8 hours per day, resulting in an average of 6 televisions per working hour that
will be tagged with an RFID tag in the SOLL process. The maximum tagged televisions per
working hour will be 9.
JM Hendriks
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Months
July
August
September
October
November
December
January
Februari
Year
2004
2004
2004
2004
2004
2004
2005
2005
LCD
73
782
814
990
1808
1638
1903
646
Model
PDP
1
99
149
333
401
676
480
244
Grand Total
PRJ
61
116
303
172
297
533
265
72
135
997
1266
1495
2506
2847
2648
962
1607
Average
per month
Table 1: Number of products moved per month
According to the process in Appendix G, the worker will receive a picking order (first task of
his transfer order), starts picking and scans all the 8-digit codes of the products to the WMS,
then when the order is finished creates the handling unit (the full pallet) and drives his pallet
to the customisation area. Here he starts his second task; making the order specific to the
wishes for the retailer/ country/ product. The worker then moves the pallet to the wrapping
area where he wraps the pallet with plastic foil and prints the address label for the shipment.
Then he moves the pallet to the loading bay. Another worker receives a shipping report from
the WMS and starts counting all the products and checking the quality of the products and
pallets. If he is satisfied, he sends his findings to the WMS. Then another worker starts
loading the truck; he first scans the pallet shipping label and then the truck id; he does this
for every pallet and receives an ok or not-ok to load that specific pallet onto the truck. If the
truck is fully loaded the worker sends his findings to the WMS and the truck may leave the
loading bay and starts his journey to Birkart.
There are three points in this process where a filtering is being performed: after customizing,
after counting/ checking at the truck loading bay and after the pallets and truck is scanned to
start loading. If in any case an error message occurs, the driver has to start the whole
process again from picking to loading. This takes a lot of time, but is done to be sure that no
wrong shipments will ever leave the distribution centre; driving a shipment (or part of a
shipment) from one platform to another is very expensive. There are also many control loops
created which will mostly intervene in the beginning of the process. For Sony it is very
important that no errors occur, and therefore many control loops and filtering points are
introduced. If an error occurs, most of the times the picking process will be changed from the
beginning on.
In Appendix I the fifth aggregation stratum of the outbound process for the ATV group to
Birkart is presented. The worker can receive two different pick orders:
- Full pallet pick
- Master carton pick
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Full pallet picking
Full pallet picking is done by means of a task bundle. This task bundle is one task to be
picked for the same shipment and material from the one source bin location. The task in the
task bundle represents 1 full pallet. There is only one type of full pallet picking, namely;
picking by means of a pick tour.
Master carton picking
Master carton picking is done by means of a task bundle as well, but this task bundle is a
group of tasks to be picked for the same shipment and material from the same source bin.
Each task in the task bundle represents 1 master carton. The quantity displayed in on the
terminal is therefore the quantity of a master carton. The total quantity required for the bin is
printed on the picking label. 2 different types of master carton picking exist. Picking by means
of a pick tour or picking with use of the sorter (Pick-to-Belt). When executing a pick tour, a
confirmation is done for the boxes onto a pallet. While during the pick-to-belt process a
confirmation is done for the boxes onto the belt.
Pick-to-Belt
Master cartons will be picked and put on the sorter directly. Picking is done by means of a
picking header label and shipping labels. The shipping labels must be put on top of the box in
order for the sorter scanner to read the label. The picker should check the number of labels
and the number of boxes on the pallet to trace issues (pick shortages) in an early stage.
Packing
The packing process can be divided in to three different processes:
- Full pallet packing: During the packing step shipping labels will be printed and attached for
the full pallet picks. All pallets will get a pallet label with destination information.
- Master carton pick tour to chute lane: The move of the closed pallet is also considered as
packing.
- Customisation: Unpack and pack functionality will be described in the customisation section.
Master carton packing (from pick tour)
During the pick tour picking process the pallet will be built by confirming the task bundles
onto the pallet. Once the pallet is dropped-off at the drop–off area it can be picked up by the
forklift driver to transfer it to the chute lane to be consolidated with the rest of the shipment
that was picked via the sorter. If the pallet is full (no consolidation possible) the forklift driver
can bring the pallet to the related packing zone.
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Customisation
Customisation is a specific activity required by the customer, material or vendor; the
combination of these settings determine what kind of customisation is required. Customer
material info records will be used for very specific marketing requirements and customers
own labels. 2 marketing activities are allowed for a material at any time. The supply chain
group will provide detailed information of the requirement. An instruction manual will be
created per marketing activity. Once a shipment which contains a delivery with customisation
requirements is distributed to the WMS the flow of materials through the warehouse and also
the type of information for the warehouse users is put on a table which can be found in the
customisation activity file. The customisation area will be determined based on the assigned
staging lane. If staging lane 64 till 74 is assigned, customisation area 2 will be used. If
staging lane 78 till 87 is used, customisation area 1 is assigned. Depending on the picking
type and customisation requirement the information is displayed in different ways:
- MC Pick tour: Instructions can be found on the header label of the pick tour. Pick tours are
sorted by type of customisation
- MC pick to belt: Instructions can be found on the header label and at the sorter displays if
it concerns pallet type and -height
- FP picking: If a customisation activity is required for a full pallet pick the drop-off
information will show the assigned customisation area. In the customisation area a work-list
with instruction is printed per pallet
Loading
During loading the created pallets at packing will be assigned to a truck. When the loading
process starts shipment status 3 will be set. When the last pallet is loaded the status will
change to 4.
Close shipment
When the status of the shipment is set to “load end”, the goods issue and transport
documents can be processed. A first check needs to be done to make sure that all deliveries
for the shipment are packed on the loaded pallets. Status 5 needs to be set to post the goods
issue. Before printing the transport documents monitor that the goods issue is actually
processed in the ERP environment. To print the customs documents, the shipment status
need to be changed to 6. When the customs documents are printed one can change the
shipment to status 7 to print the CMR. These 3 steps need to be separated because the data
on the customs documents is based on the goods issued quantities and the document
number on the CMR can only be derived when those are created.
(Vermeer, 2003)
JM Hendriks
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The IST process for the Sony ATV is modelled in Appendix I. In this model the planning
department receives an order which is translated into shipments that are sent to the process
control department to be released as picking waves for the workers. Once a worker receives
a pick order he takes the labels (which contain information about the products, the
customisation and the customer) and start sorting them manually to choose a picking route
through the DC.
If the worker has to pick master cartons (MC) he starts to scan the bundle number on the
label and then scan the pallet handling unit (HU) number and scans the pallet type. He
attached the HU barcode to the pallet and drives to the first picking location. There he scans
the product (8-digit code) and types in the amount he has picked and attaches a carton label
to every product. He continues this picking until the pallet is full. Once the pallet is full he
closes the pallet by sending a close report to the WMS. Then he scans the pallet HU number
and receives a wrapper number from the WMS. He starts driving to this wrapper.
If the worker has to pick a full pallet (FP), he starts to scan the bundle number on the label
and drives to the correct picking location. There he picks the pallet, scans the HU number on
this pallet and receives the customising location back from the WMS. He drives to this
customising location and scans the HU number again. There a printer prints the carton labels
for every product. The worker takes these labels and attaches them to every MC on his pallet.
Once he is finished he scans the HU pallet number and receives the wrapper number.
When the worker arrives at the wrapper, he scans wrapper number and a printer starts
printing the blue address label. The worker starts wrapping the pallet and scans the blue
address label after which he receives the staging lane number from the WMS. He then drives
to the staging lane and scans the blue address label and the staging lane number. Here the
pallet waits until the full shipment is picked. Once the WMS know that every pallet is on the
staging lane a worker receives the message to start checking the load and afterwards starts
loading. During this loading every blue address label is scanned and every time a pallet
moves inside the truck the truck number is scanned. After the full shipment is loaded into the
truck the workers makes a picture and sends a full load report to the WMS.
Appendix J shows the layout for the Birkart platform. The IST process for Birkart is modelled
in Appendix K. The unloading part is the most important here, because during the pilot here
the RFID data capture will take place and will be matched with the received EDI file from
Sony. During the inbound at Birkart, all pallets are unloaded and put on a receiving area.
When the truck is empty a worker starts to check all the pallets on quantity and quality. Then
the pallets will move via a small sorter and are broken to pieces, all master cartons are
JM Hendriks
Page 38
scanned and the pallets are rebuilt for the retailer. Then a handling unit label for the newly
build pallet is created and the pallet is wrapped in black foil (anti-theft no-see-through foil).
Finally the pallet will be loaded and shipped to the retailer.
JM Hendriks
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JM Hendriks
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8. SOLL Processes for ATV Group with RFID
After the analysis of the IST situation and the boundary conditions from both the Technology
Assessment and the Unit Test, some additional requirements can be developed under which
the RFID pilot project within Sony can start.
8.1 Requirements to SOLL Processes
For this pilot the scope is the Flat Television group (ATV Group) for the Birkart platform. The
reasons for this are:
- Readability may not be an issue during this pilot:
o
No small products which contain metals or liquid (because of RF absorption)
o
Not too many products on a pallet (because of tag interference), (the chosen
Flat TV group has a maximum of 9 products on one pallet)
- Outbound process may not be disturbed too much (current ATV outbound process is quite
simple compared to some other processes)
- Number of movements is quite small (average of 80 products per day, see Table 1)
- Birkart platform is very interested in RFID Technology
- Birkart platform delivers products to the Metro Group
Therefore, this pilot will focus on the system integration part of an RFID implementation. The
objectives for this pilot are:
- Learn to set up the system integration for an RFID system
- Learn how much data is transferred via the network and predict how this will affect the
network after full implementation
- Learn how to handle the data flow within the current ERP system
- Learn how SAP Auto ID works
- Find benefits from the use of RFID from an IT perspective
Deliverables for the pilot project:
- Readability performance during normal processes
- Handling unit management
- Reliability of RFID
- Effort to attach RFID tag
- Workload for error handling
- General functionality of SAP Auto ID
JM Hendriks
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In order to use the general functionality of SAP Auto ID, the following figures are made (see
Figure 19 and Figure 20). They represent the way that SAP looks to the processes within the
distribution centre.
Pick
or
Produce
Sony
Build HU
Issue Goods
(Loading)
Birkart
Scan IDs
Associate
Items / Pallet /
Tags
Register ID
of Pallet
AII
SAP SCEM
(optional)
Post
Goods Issue
Create
Event Handler
SAP
Create HU
Delivery
WM
TRM
Adv. Ship
Notification
Sales
Order
Purchase Order
Figure 19: Outbound process according to SAP
Check and
Receive Goods
Sony
Scan IDs
Check consistency
Birkart
Feedback
Post Event
AII
SAP SCEM
(optional)
Register
EPCs
Create
Event Handler
Post
Goods
Receipt
SAP
Delivery
Adv. Ship
Notification
WM
Figure 20: Inbound process according to SAP
JM Hendriks
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For the inbound process SAP sees three independent steps:
- Tag commissioning: The creation of the tags per product and attaching them to the master
carton
- Packing: Creating a handling unit and allocating the tag EPC numbers to this handling unit,
then creating a SSCC tag for this handling unit
- Loading: Capturing the RFID data of both the product EPC’s and the pallet EPC
(see Figure 19)
For the inbound process SAP sees one step:
- Unloading: Capturing the RFID data of both the product EPC’s and the pallet EPC
Since the software determines far most how the processes will look like in the real world,
these four independent steps will be a guide in developing the pilot SOLL processes.
8.2 SOLL Process for Pilot
SOLL process description
The SOLL process for Sony has been modelled in Appendix L. Where the planning department
analyses the received orders and chooses the best shipment for using RFID labels. A special
RFID tagging message will be put on the pick bundle label so that the worker knows he
needs to move the pallet via customisation to attach RFID tags (see Figure 21).
Customizing
message area
Figure 21: Pick bundle label
JM Hendriks
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The picking process for the worker is exactly the same until he has a FP or a full MC pallet.
Then he will go to the customisation area where he scans the SSCC number and the 8-digit
code on every master carton. The RFID printer starts printing product tags which the worker
has to attach to the master cartons (SAP tag commissioning process). Then the worker scans
the HU pallet number and the printer prints a shipping tag for the pallet (SAP packing
process). Afterwards the worker can drive to the wrapping area. Then the normal outbound
process will take place. Only during the loading of the truck the RFID reader reads every
product tag and shipping tag that enters the read-field. The worker has to open the
connection before loading and close it again after the loading to tell the system which
products belong to which shipment (see for a detailed additional process description
Appendix M).
The SOLL process for Birkart has been modelled in Appendix N. Here the only change from
the IST process is that during the receiving of the products an RFID reader captures the
received products and shipping data and sends this information to the Auto ID software (see
Appendix O for a detailed additional process description).
Since the pilot is a stand-alone pilot without WMS integration, the product tags must have
numbers that can manually be compared with current WMS data. In order to create these tag
numbers, Sony chooses to use the existing SSCC codes of the products and the existing 8digit codes of the products.
The SSCC of the product is build from 20 digits:
Pos 1-3
-
Prefix, 000 = master carton, 001 = pallet, 005 = mixed carton
Pos 4-10
-
Fixed 8713432 = EAN International location number
Pos 11-20
-
Numeric number range 0090000000-0099999999
The 8-digit code is build from 8 digits.
Since the EPC numbers can store up to 24 digits, a filtering must take place (see Figure 22).
The first four numbers of the SSCC will be cut of.
JM Hendriks
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MC, pallet or Mixed
Carton
SSCC
0
0
EPC
0
8
Number range from
0090000000 to 0099999999
EAN prefix
8-digit internal Sony code
7
1
3
4
3
2
0
0
9
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
7
1
3
4
3
2
0
0
9
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Header
EPC manager number
1
+
1
Object class number
2
3
2
4
3
5
4
6
5
7
6
7
8
8
8-digit
GTIN
SGTIN
Figure 22: Building the EPC number
In knowing all requirements and all processes, a physical infrastructure can be drawn for the
SOLL process (see Figure 23).
JM Hendriks
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Hub
Internet
Internet
Auto ID
Mieloo & Alexander
office
Server
Internet
Internet
Internet
Internet
Hub
Sony
customisation
area
Birkart
unloading
area
AR-400
AR-400
Hub
Sony
loading
area
AR-400
Figure 23: Physical infrastructure for pilot
During the SOLL processes, the information between Sony and Birkart will be send via EDI
messages. An EDI message is an Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) message, which is the
exchange of data, structured in a standardised way, between computer applications of
business partners in order to perform business transactions without human intervention.
During the IST processes, these EDI messages between Sony WMS and Birkart WMS are
send via INFODIS. INFODIS is a service provider that connects different systems onto each
other, provides in order tracking and manages the transport processes. The main advantage
of using this service provider is that the EDI messages created by Sony or Birkart do not have
to have the same structure; INFODIS translates the messages in the correct format.
JM Hendriks
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9. Conclusions
RFID Technology is an automatic identification technology which can bring large benefits to
Sony for improvements in efficiency, productivity and in decreasing the amount of pilferage
by tracking & tracing the goods throughout the whole supply chain.
Sony is in the middle of defining these advantages on their end-to-end chain. This means
that Sony’s objectives are still under development, but the use of RFID must at least lead to
an increase in the number of sales and an increase in the supply chain efficiency, this in order
to have a short return on investment and even earn money out of the use of RFID.
Besides the benefits, RFID Technology can support in serial number scanning without
introducing extra cost.
During a Technology Assessment and a Unit Test a technical feasibility study was performed
on the technology of RFID. This technical feasibility study, performed in both a laboratory and
within the internal distribution processes of Sony, showed that the readability issues, based
on the current status of UHF RFID technology, have great impact on the possibilities to use
RFID on item level:
- The Class 1, Gen 1 Technology is immature
- Only 38% of the tags can be used because of poor performance (short reading-distances)
and therefore a tag selection must be made to be able to have the 99.95% readability
performance
With the current technology status, only a small amount of product groups can benefit from
the advantages of UHF RFID. These are products where readability issues and tag
interference are not involved. To be able to shift forward with RFID Technology, Sony chose
to start with a pilot for a small, well defined product group where readability does not play a
role.
Within the processes of Sony Logistics Europe with RFID Technology, the software of SAP is a
major driver in defining how these processes should look like. This gives too many limitations
in developing TO BE processes and therefore determines the efficiency of these processes too
much.
Once RFID proves to be a mature, reliable technology, Sony can reduce at least 10 physical
scanning moments already in the outbound process within the distribution processes. This
saves a lot of time and thus gives a headcount reduction. Besides this it will decrease the
JM Hendriks
Page 47
amount of errors made and will make the processes easier. Easy processes are important
because during peak months many temporary workers are hired to pick the orders. Since
these workers have no experience with the processes within the distribution centre of Sony,
easy processes make the work simple; thus the workers understand their tasks, learn them
fast and do not make errors.
UHF RFID Technology is a very interesting technology to use for improving the business
processes, but is too immature to implement full scale. Therefore piloting is a good way to
experience how it works and gain some knowledge, but the technology has to further
improve before real benefits can be expected.
JM Hendriks
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10. Recommendations
Future RFID Roll-out programs will be a stimulating challenge for Sony as the readability of
RFID-Tags is impacted by metal and fluids. Initially Sony must find an urgent answer to the
question how their products affect the usage of this technology. Besides this, further research
is necessary in the field of UHF RFID Technology to further improve tag performance,
readability, reading-distances, increase amount of data transfer and improve system
performance. It is also necessary to further investigate other techniques of automatic
identification, such as VisiDot, 2D barcodes and combining active and passive RFID.
Because of the limitations from both the immature technology status and the limitations from
the SAP software, there is little space to developed efficient processes for Sony’s supply chain.
Once the technology and the SAP software is further developed, a good re-design can take
place and Sony can really benefit from the use of UHF RFID Technology. Therefore further
research must also take place in the SAP software to make increase the design freedom for
the processes to make them really efficient.
JM Hendriks
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JM Hendriks
Page 50
Glossary
A
Active tag: An RFID Tag that comes with a battery that is used to power the microchip’s
circuitry and transmit a signal to a reader. Active tags can be read from 100 feet or more
away, but they're expensive – more than $20 each. They're used for tracking expensive items
over long ranges. For instance, the US military uses active tags to track containers with
supplies arriving in ports.
ADC: Automatic Data Capture
AIM: Association for Automatic Identification and Mobility. AIM Global is committed to
advancing the adoption of standards within the automatic data capture and mobility industry.
Amplitude: The maximum absolute value of a periodic curve measured along its vertical axis
(the height of a wave).
Antenna: The antenna is the conductive element that enables the tag to send and receive
data. Passive tags usually have a coiled antenna that couples with the coiled antenna of the
reader to form a magnetic field. The tag draws power from this field.
Anti-collision: A general term used to cover methods of preventing radio waves from one
device from interfering with radio waves from another. Anti-collision algorithms are also used
to read more than one tag in the same reader's field.
ASN: Advanced Shipping Notification
Auto-ID Centre: A non-profit collaboration between private companies and academia that is
pioneering the development of an Internet-like infrastructure for tracking goods globally
through the use of RFID tags.
Automatic Identification: Sometimes called automatic data capture. These are methods of
collecting data and entering these data directly into computer systems without human
involvement. Technologies normally consider part of auto-id include bar codes, biometrics,
RFID and voice recognition.
JM Hendriks
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B
Back scatter: A method of communication between tags and readers. RFID tags using backscatter technology reflect back to the reader a portion of the radio waves that reach them.
The reflected signal is modulated to transmit data. Tags using back scatter technology can be
either passive or active, but either way, they are more expensive than tags that use inductive
coupling.
Bar code: A standard method of identifying the manufacturer and product category of a
particular item. The barcode was adopted in the 1970s because the bars were easier for
machines to read than optical characters. Barcodes’ main drawbacks are they don’t identify
unique items and scanners have to have line of sight to read them.
Bit: An abbreviation of binary digit, the fundamental building block of digital computer
systems. A bit can either be an '1' or a '0'. Several bits, usually in groups of 8, make up
binary numbers, which may represent an alphanumerical character, a value, a program
instruction or other information. The memory capacity of a smart card is usually quoted in
bits.
Byte: A byte is a group of bits, usually eight. As memory capacities increase, the capacity of
chip cards is often quoted in bytes rather than in bits as in the past.
C
Capture: Capturing the data with an RFID antenna gate (no human intervention)
CEPT: The European telecommunications and posts administration committee.
Chip Card: Cards with one or more microchips (integrated circuits) in them. See IC cards,
memory cards, simple logic chip cards, smart cards and super-smart cards.
Chipless RFID tag: An RFID tag that does not depend on an integrate microchip. Instead, the
tag uses materials that reflect back a portion of the radio waves beamed at them. A computer
takes a snapshot of the waves beamed back and uses it like a fingerprint to identify the
object with the tag. Companies are experimenting with embedding RF reflecting fibers in
paper to prevent unauthorized photocopying of certain documents. But chipless tags are not
JM Hendriks
Page 52
useful in the supply chain, because even though they are inexpensive, they can not
communicate a unique serial number that can be stored in a database.
Contacted Chip Card: A chip card which communicates and receives power via metal contacts
located on its surface.
Contactless Chip Card: Card that does not need to make physical contact with the read-writer
in order to work, since it passes electrical or magnetic signals through the air. Some operate
only a few millimeters away from the reader; others work at many meters. The remote
linking is either by capacitive or inductive coupling. More expensive but more reliable and
sometimes more tamper-proof than contacted cards. The remote link is by either capacitive
or inductive coupling.
Coupling: See inductive coupling
CMR: Convention Relative au Contrat de Transport International de Marchandises par la
Route: an international agreement which describes rights and obligations for the involved
transporting parties: sender, transporter and addressee.
D
Decryption: The process of converting encrypted data back into its original form so that it
may be understood and/or processed.
E
EAN: An association that manages a worldwide identification system and standards for
communicating data for products, services, transport units, locations and assets. EAN
develops and maintains international and multi-sectional standards related to the
identification system and its application in Automatic Data Capture and Electronic Commerce
Technologies. The global objective is to provide a common language to be used in national
and international trade. In 1974, manufacturers and distributors of twelve European countries
formed a council to examine the possibility of developing a standard article numbering system
for Europe, similar to the Universal Product Code (UPC) system already set in the USA by the
Uniform Code Council (UCC). As a result a not for profit association called "European Article
Numbering Association" (EAN) was created in 1997. The Head Office was established in
Brussels, Belgium. The success of the EAN System led to the establishment of new
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Numbering Organisations in countries from all continents. EAN quickly acquired an
International status and changed its name to "EAN Internationa1". Today, more than 550,000
companies worldwide use the EAN system through an international network of Numbering
Organisations represented in over 90 countries. In addition, UCC's membership reaches
220,000 companies in the USA and Canada. EAN International was originally involved with
the numbering and bar coding of products in the retail industry. The success in this sector led
to other industries adopting EAN standards to meet their item identification needs, like Health
Care, Packaging, Transport, Publishing, Shoe, Electronics, Postal Services, Defence.
EAN: Electronic article number
EAS: Electronic Article Surveillance
EDI: Electronic Data Interchange: the electronic exchange between commercial entities (in
some cases also public administrations), in a standard format, of data relating to a number of
message categories, such as orders, invoices, customs documents, remittance advice and
payments. EDI messages are sent through public data transmission networks or banking
system channels. Any movement of funds initiated by EDI is reflected in payment instructions
flowing through the banking system.
EEPROM: Electronically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory: like EPROM memory,
EEPROM memory retains its contents when no power is available and can be both read from
and written to. Unlike EPROM, information stored in EEPROM memory may be rewritten as
and when required. In chip card terms the memory cannot become full and the lifespan of
the card is determined by other factors. It is also sometimes known as E2PROM or simply
E2.Chip cards can have EPROM or EEPROM memory.
Encryption: Using ciphers to alter information before it is transmitted over a network.
Encryption ensures, to the greatest extent possible, that messages cannot be read or altered
during transmission.
EPC: Electronic Product Code
EPROM: Electronically programmable read-only memory: data stored in EPROM memory is
retained when there is no power supply. Data can be both read and written but new data
cannot be partially written over existing data. Usually the only way to do this is to expose the
memory to ultraviolet light, thus erasing the entire contents, and then add the new
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information to the blank area. In a chip card this means that, when an EPROM card's memory
is full, it is no longer of practical use as, for example, a prepayment card.
ETSI: The European Telecommunications Standards Institute. ETSI has been active in the
smart card field, building European standards where there are gaps in the ISO standards.
ETSI card standards work is based on ISO standards where published.
ElectroMagnetic Interference (EMI): Interference caused when the radio waves of one device
distort the waves of another. Cells phones, wireless computers and even robots in factories
can produce radio waves that interfere with RFID tags.
Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS): Simple electronic tags that can be turned on or off.
When an item is purchased (or borrowed from a library), the tag is turned off. When
someone passes a gate area holding an item with a tag that has not been turned off, an
alarm goes of. EAS tags are embedded in the packaging of most pharmaceuticals.
Electronic Product Code: (EPC): A 96-bit code, created by the Auto-ID Centre, that will one
day replace barcodes. The EPC has digits to identify the manufacturer, product category and
the individual item. It is backed by the United Code Council and EAN International, the two
main bodies that oversee barcode standards.
Error Correcting Code: A code stored on an RFID tag to enable the reader to figure out the
value of missing or garbled bits of data. It is needed because a reader might misinterpret
some data from the tag and think a Rolex watch is actually a pair of socks.
Error Correcting Protocol: A set of rules used by readers to interpret data correctly from the
tag.
European Article Numbering (EAN): The bar code standard used throughout Europe, Asia and
South America. It is administered by EAN International.
Excite: The reader is said to "excite" a passive tag when the reader transmits RF energy to
wake up the tag and enable it to transmit back.
eXtensible Markup Language (XML): A widely accepted way of sharing information over the
Internet in a way that computers can use, regardless of their operating system.
ERP: Effective Radiated Power; the power level at the antenna output side.
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EIRP: Effective Isotropic Radiated Power; the power level at the reader output side.
F
FMCG: Fast Moving Consumer Goods.
Frequency: The number of repetitions of a complete wave within one second. 1 Hz equals
one complete waveform in one second. 1KHz equals 1,000 waves in a second. RFID tags use
low, high, ultra-high and microwave frequencies. Each frequency has advantages and
disadvantages that make them more suitable for some applications than for others.
FP: Full Pallet
G
GTIN: Global Trade Item Unit (EAN-13)
GTAGTM: "Global Tag", a standards body, ran by UCC and EAN, to develop standards for RFID
smart labels and tags for logistics use.
H
High-frequency tags: They typically operate at 13.56 MHz. They can be read from about 10
feet away and transmit data faster. But they consume more power than low-frequency tags.
HU: Handling Unit
I
IC Cards: Integrated circuit cards: the term favoured in Japan, Denmark and elsewhere to
describe chip cards.
Inductive Coupling: This technique is used in many contactless cards in order to deliver
power to the card and to allow it to communicate with the outside world. The same technique
is used to interrogate early types of in-car tag. A coil is embedded within the surface of the
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card or the road and a card is placed in or connected to the read-write unit. When the current
is passed through one coil, say the read-write unit, magnetic field is created and, if the
second coil, say in the contactless card, is bought close enough to it, this magnetic field leads
to current being delivered to that coil as well. Once this occurs, the card has sufficient power
to function and data can be exchanged between the card and the read-write unit.
ISO: International Standards Organisation, is a network of the national standards institutes of
151 countries, on the basis of one member per country, with a Central Secretariat in Geneva,
Switzerland, that coordinates the system. The ISO publishes all kind of standards. Within
RFID it has published standards for a variety of cards and work continues on chip cards
(contact and contactless), optical memory cards and others. For chip cards, the central
standard is ISO 7816.
IT: Information Technology.
Integrated
Circuit
(IC):
A
microelectronic
semiconductor
device
comprising
many
interconnected transistors and other components. Most RFID tags have ICs.
Interrogator: See RFID reader
INFODIS: Service provider that connects different systems onto each other, provides in order
tracking and manages the transport processes
L
LCD: Liquid crystal display
LED: Light emitting diode
Low-frequency tags: They typically operate at 125 kHz. The main disadvantages of lowfrequency tags are that they have to be read from within three feet and the rate of data
transfer is slow. But they are less expensive and less subject to interference than highfrequency tags.
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M
MC: Master Carton
Memory Card: A chip card without processor, i.e. not a true smart card. Also used for data
storage devices of the type being standardized by the American PCMCIA and the Japanese
JEIDA organisations. This second type of card was originally a memory-only storage device in
the shape of a thick bank card, but has now evolved to include, for example, receiving faxes.
Multiplexer: A circuit that transmits several signals simultaneously on a single output channel
or wire.
Microwave tags: Radio frequency tags that operate at 5.8 GHz. They have very high transfer
rates and can be read from as far as 30 feet away, but they use a lot of power and are
expensive.
Modulation: Changing the frequency or amplitude of a wave to transmit data that is
converted into digital form. For example, a wave with the normal amplitude (or height) may
be a one in binary code and a wave with lower amplitude might be a zero.
Multiple Access Schemes: Methods of increasing the amount of data that can be transmitted
wirelessly within the same frequency spectrum. RFID readers use Time Division Multiple
Access, or TDMA, meaning they read tags at different times to avoid interfering with one
another.
Multiplexer: An electronic device that allows a reader to have more than one antenna. Each
antenna scans the field in a preset order.
Memory: The amount of data that can be stored on a tag
N
NET: Normes Européennes de Télécommunication, adopted harmonized European standards
used for approval of telecommunications terminal equipment.
Nominal range: The read range at which the tag can be read reliably.
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Null spot: Area in the reader field that doesn't receive radio waves. This is essentially the
reader's blind spot. It is a phenomenon common to UHF systems.
NFC: Near Field Communication; enables the user to exchange all kinds of information, in
security, simply by bringing two devices close together.
O
Object Name Service (ONS): An Auto-ID Centre-designed system for looking up unique
Electronic Product Codes and pointing computers to information about the item associated
with the code. ONS is similar to the Domain Name Service, which points computers to sites
on the Internet.
OSI: Open Standards Institute, computer systems
P
Patch antenna: A small square antenna made from a solid piece of metal or foil.
Passive: In electronics this means either unable to generate its own signal, therefore has no
power supply ( e.g. Amtech Toll Tag) or an electronic component that cannot amplify signals
and/or obeys Ohms Law ( e.g. resistors or capacitors).
Protocol: A specified procedure or process used to achieve a specific and common result,
such as a network communications message format.
Passive tag: An RFID Tag without a battery. When radio waves from the reader reach the
chip’s antenna, it creates a magnetic field. The tag draws power from the field and is able to
send back information stored on the chip. Today, simple passive tags cost around 50 cents to
several dollars.
Physical Markup Language (PML): An Auto-ID Centre-designed method of describing products
in a way computers can understand. PML is based on the widely accepted eXtensible Markup
Language used to share data over the Internet in a format all computers can use.
PML Server: A server that responds to requests for Physical Markup Language (PML) files
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related to individual Electronic Product Codes. The PML files and servers will be maintained by
the manufacturer of the item.
Power level: The amount of RF energy radiated from a reader or an active tag. The higher
the power output, the longer the read range, but most governments regulate power levels to
avoid interference with other devices.
R
RFID Radio frequency identification: Use of small devices that can be electronically identified
(and sometimes their data changed) at a distance without line of sight. Although radio is
typically defined as 300 Hz to 300 MHz, nowadays the term even encompasses tags
interrogated at 100 Hz and others at microwave frequencies (GHz).
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID): A method of identifying unique items using radio
waves. Typically, a reader communicates with a tag, which holds digital information in a
microchip. But there are chipless forms of RFID tags that use material to reflect back a
portion of the radio waves beamed at them.
Read: The process of turning radio waves from a tag into bits of information that can be used
by computer systems.
Range: See read range
Read rate: The maximum rate at which data can be read from a tag expressed in bits or
bytes per second.
Reader (also called an interrogator): The reader communicates with the RFID tag via radio
waves and passes the information in digital form to a computer system.
Reader field: The area of coverage. Tags outside the reader field do not receive radio waves
and can not be read.
Read-only tags: Tags that contain data that cannot be changed unless the microchip is
reprogrammed electronically.
ROI: Return On Investment
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Read range: The distance from which a reader can communicate with a tag. Active tags have
a longer read range than passive tags because they use a battery to transmit signals to the
reader. With passive tags, the read range is influenced by frequency, reader output power,
antenna design, and method of powering up the tag. Low frequency tags use inductive
coupling (see above), which requires the tag to be within a few feet of the reader.
Read-write tags: RFID tags that can store new information on their microchip. San Francisco
International Airport uses a read-write tag for security. When a bag is scanned for explosives,
the information on the tag is changed to indicate it has been checked. The tag is scanned
again before it is loaded on a plane. Read-write tags are more expensive than read only tags,
and therefore are of limited use for supply chain tracking.
RFID tag: A microchip attached to an antenna that picks up signals from and sends signals to
a reader. The tag contains a unique serial number, but may have other information, such as a
customers' account number. Tags come in many forms, like smart labels that are stuck on
boxes; smart cards and key-chain wands for paying; and a box that you stick on your
windshield to enable you to pay tolls without stopping. RFID tags can be active tags, passive
tags and semi-passive tags.
S
Smart label: A label that contains an RFID tag. It is considered "smart" because it can store
information, such as a unique serial number, and communicate with a reader.
Scanner: An electronic device that can send and receive radio waves. When combined with a
digital signal processor that turns the waves into bits of information, the scanner is called a
reader or interrogator.
Semi-passive tag: Similar to active tags, but the battery is used to run the microchip's
circuitry but not to communicate with the reader. Some semi-passive tags sleep until they are
woken up by a signal from the reader, which conserves battery life. Semi-passive tags cost a
dollar or more.
Shrinkage: Theft by retail staff or customers.
SKU: Stock Keeping Unit
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Scan: Scanning the barcode with a barcode handheld scanner (manually)
Smart cards: See contact-less smart cards
SGTIN: Serialised Global Trade Item Unit
SN: (Product) Serial Number
SSCC: Serial Shipping Container Code (EAN-128)
T
Tag: A unique identifier for a component. This is the simplest form of in-vehicle unit and
consists of some electronics containing a unique encoded number and an antenna whereby
the number can be read remotely at a charging point for tolls. Such tags are also suitable for
vehicle fleet management. Tags can be read only or read-write.
Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA): A method of solving the problem of the signals of two
readers colliding. Algorithms are used to make sure the readers attempt to read tags at
different times.
Transponder: A radio transmitter-receiver that is activated when it receives a predetermined
signal. RFID tags are sometimes referred to as transponders.
U
Ultra-High Frequency (UHF): Typically tags that operate between 866 MHz to 930 MHz. They
can send information faster and farther than high and low frequency tags. But radio waves do
not pass through items with high water content, such as fruit, at these frequencies. UHF tags
are also more expensive than low-frequency tags, and they use more power.
Uniform Code Council (UCC): The non-profit organisation that oversees the Uniform Product
Code, the barcode standard used in North America.
Uniform Product Code (UPC): The barcode standard used in North America. It is administered
by the Uniform Code Council.
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W
Write rate: The rate at which information is transferred to a tag, written into the tag's
memory and verified as being correct.
X
XML: See eXtensible Markup Language
XML Query Language (XQL): A method of querying a database based on XML. Files created
using the Auto-ID Centre’s Physical Markup Language can be searched using XQL.
8-Digit code: Internal Sony numbering system (with relation N – 1 to material)
(Coyle, 2003)
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References
- Beentjes, R. European shared inventory business model: blueprint phase
Rotterdam (The Netherlands), Mieloo & Alexander, 2002
- Bikker, H., Haaf, W. ten, Adriaanse, D.J. Fundamentals of business engineering and
management – A system approach to people and organisations
Delft (The Netherlands), Delft University Press, 2002
- Bikker, H. Analysis and design of production organisations (lecture notes)
Delft (The Netherlands), Delft University of Technology, 2001
- Coyle, T. RFID and the mainstream supply chain – Just what is good enough?
Columbia (USA), Matrics, 2004
- Coyle, T. Standard RFID Industry Glossary
Columbia (USA), Matrics, 2003
- Dekkers, R. Lecture notes
Delft (The Netherlands), Delft University of Technology, 2003
- Dekkers, R. Adapting industrial organisations to the dynamics of the environment
Rotterdam (The Netherlands), Delft University of Technology, 2004
- Eberhardt, N. Towards RFID performance benchmark tests
Cambridge (USA), MIT, 2001
- Engels, D.W. The reader collision problem
Cambridge (USA), MIT, 2001
- Garikiparthi, R. Huang, G Huang, M.C. The added value of RFID technology in
consumer electronics industry
Breukelen (The Netherlands), Nyenrode Business University, 2004
- Hollinger, R.C. 2001 National retail security survey
Gainesville (USA), University of Florida, 2002
- Kämper, G. Identificeren en registreren met RFID
Dieren (The Netherlands), Methec, 2004
- Mullen, D. Radio frequency identification – A basic primer
Pittsburgh (USA), AIM Inc., 2001
- Read, R.W. RFID Explained – A basic overview
Milwaukee (USA), Baird, 2004
- Roberti, M. RFID Journal glossary
New York (USA), RFID Journal LLC, 2005
Online: <http://www.rfidjournal.com/glossary>
- Roberti, M. Technology Guide
Cambridge (USA), Auto-ID, 2002
JM Hendriks
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- Scharfeld, T.A. An analysis of the fundamental constraints on low cost passive
Radio Frequency Identification system design
Cambridge (USA), MIT, 1998
- Schilthuizen, S. RFID: technologies, applications, future
Eindhoven (The Netherlands), Future Technology Centre TNO, 2005
- Shanks, W. Two RF inputs make a better RFID tag
Columbia (USA), Matrics, 2004
- Veld, J. in ‘t Analyse van organisatieproblemen
Houten (The Netherlands), Educatieve Partners Nederland, 1998
- Vermeer, R. Switch training manual: Outbound complete
Tilbug (The Netherlands), Sony Logistics Europe BV, 2003
JM Hendriks
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Appendix A: RFID in More Detail
A.1 History & Development
RFID is merely a more recent term given to a family of sensing technologies that has existed
for at least the past fifty years. The first commonly accepted use of RFID related technology
was during World War II. In their and their allies’ aircraft, the British military installed
transponders capable of responding with an appropriate identification signal when
interrogated by a signal. This technology did not allow determination of exact identification,
but rather if an aircraft was their own. This transponder technology, called Identify Friend of
Foe (IFF), has undergone continuous development and later generations are still used in both
military and civilian aircraft.
RFID, as generally known today, has undergone significant development since the early
aircraft transponder system of World War II. In the 60s and 70s, in an effort to safely and
securely track military equipment and personnel, various government labs developed
identification technology. In the late 70s, two companies were created out of Los Alamos
Scientific Laboratories to commercialize this technology. Initial applications included
identification and temperature sensing of cattle. In the early 80s, railroad companies began
using the technology for tracking and identification of railcars.
These early users were typically at higher UHF frequencies (900 MHz to 1.9 GHz). Through
the 80s, several companies in the United States and Europe began to develop technologies
for operation at different frequencies, with different power sources, memories and other
functions. In the mid-to-late 80s, as the large semiconductor companies became involved,
there was a shift towards performance improvement, size reduction and cost reduction.
In the late 80s, and through the 90s, as performance increased and size and cost decreased,
new applications emerged. Some of these include automatic highway tolling, access control
and security, vehicle immobilizers, airline baggage handling, inventory management and
asset tracking and the closely related smart-cards. For continued adoption in applications
demanding high performance, small size and low cost, improvements in design and
manufacturing have to be achieved (Scharfeld, 1998).
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A.2 Technique of RFID
The radio waves between the reader and the tag have the shape of a sinus (see Figure 24).
The wavelength and the amplitude are being determined by the frequency and the output
power. The small ripples on the wave contain the specific tag data information. The coupler
in the reader decodes these ripples back into the information (tag ID + specific user data)
which will be sent to the computer.
λ
λ = wavelength
У = amplitude
Displacement
У
Ripples
Distance
Figure 24: Radio wave of an RFID system
Receiving antennas collect power from the local field as if they have a collecting aperture with
an area that is much larger than the geometric area of the antenna. Energy collected by a
passive RFID tag antenna will power the RFID circuitry, so maximising collected energy is the
key aspect of increasing the range and robustness of an RFID system.
The collecting aperture of a single antenna can be increased, but only at the expense of
making the antenna more directional. The antenna parameter ‘gain’ is a measure of both the
collecting aperture size and the inability of the antenna to receive from all directions. This
inverse relationship between gain and isotropic reception is an unavoidable consequence of
wave phase.
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Because antenna dimensions are typically of the same order of magnitude as the wavelength
of radiation, they seek to receive a direction where antenna currents constructively add at the
antenna port. However, this is always accompanied by a direction where currents
destructively cancel each other. The disparity between gain at best and worst orientations
can be minimized by making the antenna small with respect to the operating wavelength, but
physically small antennas typically collect less total energy and have a narrower range of
operating frequencies. Bearing these tradeoffs in mind, a half wave dipole antenna is a good
compromise between collecting aperture area and directivity.
A dipole antenna receives and emits best perpendicular to its wire axis, and not at all along
that axis. The dead area in the radiation pattern of an antenna is referred to as a ‘null’.
Antenna directivity is extremely important for RFID tags because if the tag is oriented such
that its null is pointed at the tag reader, then the tag receives no power and can not be read.
Reading from several different angles can recover missed tags caused by antenna nulls, but
reader antenna diversity is not always possible or sufficient.
While reader antenna diversity can be a reasonable solution for static collections of tags,
moving collections of tags are often not in the read-field long enough to be interrogated by
multiple reader antennas. The problem of antenna nulls, and thus the problem of missed tags,
can be solved by including a second antenna along with a second independent set of energy
harvesting circuits on the chip. The second dipole antenna is oriented in such a way that if
one looks down the null of one antenna, the second antenna is in its best receiving
orientation. Energy is collected by each antenna, but not combined until after their relative
phase has been destroyed in the harvesting circuitry, thus allowing a tag to collect more
power from the field without introducing new nulls.
With this technique, the two antennas fill each other’s dead spot, increasing the tag read
range and guaranteeing that a tag can not be missed simply because it came through the
read field in a bad orientation. The second chip antenna port and associated circuitry add
little to the tag cost, while greatly increasing the robustness of the tag performance (Shanks,
2004).
RFID uses anti-collision protocols to read several tags (transponders) at the same time to
ensure every transponder (tag) is read only once.
The transponder is the data carrier en is available in both a passive and an active form.
Active transponders have their own internal power supply and can therefore send information
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over longer distances than passive transponder without internal batteries. A disadvantage of
these active transponders is that they have shorter life-time and cost more. An advantage
besides the longer sending distance is that they are less sensitive to surrounding environment.
Passive transponders have an almost infinite life-time, are more sensitive to the environment
(metal, humidity) have shorter sending distance, are less expensive but need powerful reader
signals.
A.3 Types of Tags
RFID tags come in two major classes; active and passive. The primary difference between an
active and a passive tag is the power source, which in turn determines a number of key
attributes, including signal strength, memory capability, size and cost.
A passive tag does not contain a local power source (a battery) for signal transmission,
instead receiving power from the reader itself. A transceiver projects RF energy from the
reader, which provides the necessary power to a passive tag (note, however, that passive
tags may use a small battery to maintain tag memory). The reader sends out an alternating
magnetic wave pattern. If the tag enters such a wave, an alternating pattern exists at the
tag-antenna connections which is being aligned to direct current and is used as power supply
for the chip. Since energy from the reader supplies transmission power, passive tags operate
only over relatively short ranges. In addition, some tags, at certain frequency ranges, have
difficulty performing in environments where a large amount of interference exists, including
the presence of metals, liquids and other RF energy. Without an internal battery for memory,
passive tags also have limited memory capability. Passive tags are less expensive, smaller in
size, lighter in weight, have longer lives and are subject to less regulation relative to active
tags. Passive tags tend to be used in close-range tracking of lower-end assets, such as supply
chain applications.
Active tags contain a battery that acts as a local power source for transmission purposes. This
enables a stronger signal, which gives active tags a number of advantages over passive tags,
including longer read ranges, less susceptibility to interference and greater memory capability.
However, due to the addition of the battery, active tags are typically larger, more expensive,
and have shorter life expectancies than passive tags. Active tags are historically used to track
high-end assets over longer ranges, such as containers in a shipyard (see Table 2) (Read,
2004).
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Passive tags
Active tags
Communication power supply
External from reader
Internal from battery
Read range
Up to 6 meters
Up to 100 meters
Write range
2/3 the read range
The same as the read range
Storage capacity
Relatively less
Relatively more
Susceptibility to interference
Higher
Lower
Tag cost
Life of tag
€ 0.30 to several euros
Up to 20 years
Over € 15
Roughly 5 to 10 years
Table 2: Characteristics of passive and active RFID tags
Active tags have a so called ‘blink-rate’; this is the time between two sending signals. If the
blink-rate is set to 10 seconds, it means that every 10 seconds the active tag sends out its
data; the smaller this blink-rate, the shorter the life of the tag.
There also exist semi-passive tags. These tags have a battery which is only used for
transmitting the data. The tag keeps ‘passive’ until the reader asks for its data; then the
battery gets activated and sends the tag data back to the reader. This gives the advantages
of an active tag with the lifespan of a passive tag. The price of these semi-passive tags are
somewhere between a passive and an active tag.
Tags also have different types of memory, including read-only, read/write, and write-once
read-many (WORM). Read-only tags, which are typically passive, are relatively low capacity
(up to 64 bits) and contain data that is permanently programmed. In this respect, they are
similar to a bar code where stored information is used primarily in an ‘identifier’ capacity. This
category of tag offers a high degree of security since the pre-specified information cannot be
altered. By contrast, read/write tags store data that can be read and updated on an asneeded basis. Read/write tags may have larger memory capacity, and thus can function as
portable databases. The ability to capture, store and communicate more information about an
item can facilitate better information flow and result in more informed decision-making,
ultimately improving productivity and reliability. While read/write tags are more expensive
than read-only tags, they are beneficial in applications where data may need to be altered
throughout a product’s life, such as in a manufacturing process, logistics or supply chain
tracking. Incorporating features of both read-only and read/write tags, a write-once, readmany (WORM) tag enables users to store information only once, after which users cannot
alter the stored data. As a result, it has the security benefits of read-only tags while
incorporating some of the additional functionality offered by read/write tags.
RFID is often seen as the next step from barcode scanning. Therefore a table is generated
(see Table 3) where the differences, advantages (+) and disadvantages (-) are shown for
both techniques.
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Barcodes
RFID / EPC
+
Low cost (€ 0.01)
Broad utilization
Human readable
Integrated in printed materials
Already worldwide standardised
No line of sight
Large memory
Data moves with product / asset
Dynamic data reads
Short reading period per scan
Are read automatically (no labour costs)
-
Data transfer requires line of sight
Data storage is limited
Environmentally sensitive
One-to-one reading
Long reading period per scan
Are usually read manually and thus
incur labour cost
Higher costs (€ 0.30)
Limited adoption
Read sensitive to product attributes
(metal, water)
RFID lacks complete standardisation
Table 3: RFID in comparison to barcode
A.4 Used Frequencies
Also important in determining the characteristics of an RFID system is the frequency
employed. In general, the higher the frequency, the more robust set of RFID characteristics
with respect to read-range, reading speed and number of tags read in one time. Higher
frequencies tend to be more expensive and as well (see Table 4).
Different frequencies have different characteristics that make them more useful for different
applications. For instance, low frequency (LF) tags are cheaper than ultra high frequency
(UHF) tags, use less power and are better able to penetrate non-metallic substances. They
are ideal for scanning objects with high water content, such as fruit, at close range. UHF
frequencies typically offer better range and can transfer data faster. But they use more power
and are less likely to pass through materials. And because they tend to be more ‘directed’,
they require a clear path between the tag and the reader. UHF tags might be better for
scanning boxes of goods as they pass through a dock door into a warehouse.
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Band
VLF
Frequencies
3 - 30 kHz
RF (ID) technology name
EM - EAS electro magnetic
LF
30 - 300 kHz
First RFID proximity standard
MF
300 - 3000 kHz
HF
3 - 30 MHz
VHF
30 - 300 MHz
UHF
300 - 3000 MHz
SHF
3 - 60 GHz
Used frequency
Typical application
Features
2 - 4 kHz Anti-theft protection No memory
on the chip,
no intelligence
125 - 135 kHz Finding animals / pets RFID tag
inside a glass
tube under
animal skin
--
--
RF - EAS / ISO RFID Range
8.2 / 13.56 MHz Smart-cards,
Admission control
--
Identification
of persons
--
UHF / EPC RFID Range
Wireless LAN and Telecom
330 / 865-968 MHz Retail, tracking and
tracing
Both passive
and active
tags
micro-, radar -waves Future RFID
frequency band
Table 4: RFID frequencies and applications
Within the UHF frequency range several countries have their own specific bandwidth (see
Table 5). This is because the UHF band is already in use by many other applications and
therefore every country needs to find some free bandwidth space for RFID. As long as the
frequencies keep in the UHF range, the same tag can be read al over the world (this is a
must from Generation 2 tags on, see chapter 1.5).
Frequency range
Power level
(MHz)
(W)
918.0 - 926.0
1 W EIRP
917.0 - 922.0
2 W ERP
* 865.0 - 868.0
2 W ERP
952.0 - 954.0
4 W EIRP
910.0 - 914.0
unknown
864.0 - 868.0
4 W EIRP
869.40 - 869.65
0.5 W ERP
915.2 - 915.4
8 W EIRP
902.0 - 928.0
4 W EIRP
Country
Australia
China
Europe
Japan
Korea
New Zealand
South Africa
USA / Canada / Mexico
* see figure 25 for more details
Table 5: UHF RFID frequencies
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A.5 Standardisation Regulations
Like mentioned before, standards are very important to bring RFID to maturity, therefore the
International Organisation for Standardization (ISO), where ANSI is the official US
representative, further built on existing standards to develop air-interface standards for all
key frequencies. These standards are ISO 18000-1 (generic parameters for global airinterface), 18000-2 (frequencies below 135 kHz), 18000-3 (13.56 MHz), 18000-4 (2450 MHz),
18000-5 (5800 MHz) and 18000-6 (UHF), where ISO-18000-6 is the most important as it
pertains to item management in the UHF band.
Besides the air-interface standards some EN regulations are developed by ETSI (European
Telecommunications Standards Institute). These regulations deal with the reader and tag
protocols for communication:
- EN 300 330: 9 kHz – 30 MHz
- EN 300 220: 25 MHz – 1 GHz
- EN 300 440: 1 GHz – 40 GHz
- EN 302 208: for European RFID on UHF (see Figure 25):
o
Shared operation in band 865.0 to 868.0 MHz
o
Power level up to 2 W (ERP)
o
Operation in sub-bands of 200 kHz (this makes 15 sub-bands)
o
Mandatory ‘listen-before-talk’ function (also known as ‘look-before-leap’):
listen 5 milliseconds before each transmission; maximum period of
continuous transmission of 4 seconds; pause of 100 milliseconds between
repeated transmissions on same sub-band or move immediately to another
vacant sub-band
The new standard of ETSI permits the simultaneous use of up to 10 sub-bands at 2 watts
(ERP). Dividing each sub-band into notional 500-millisecond timeslots gives a total availability
of 20 timeslots per second. This comes to 250 tags that can be read simultaneously in one
second.
The Auto-ID centre, which was established in 1999, created a broader framework than ISO,
including not only air interface protocols at the 13.56MHz and UHF frequencies, but also
including physical implementation, a unique coding structure and a data library. The Auto-ID
framework focused on using passive tags to identify each item with an individual serial
number, or Electronic Product Code (EPC). Each EPC, and the item’s relevant characteristics,
would be housed in a large electronic library and be accessible through the Internet. With this
structure, any supply chain participant would have the ability to retrieve item-level
information by scanning the RFID tag associated with that item.
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JM Hendriks
P (W ERP)
EN 302 208 (ETSI)
2.0
0.5
0.1
865.0
865.6
867.6
868.0
f (MHz)
Figure 25: European RFID bandwidth
In 2003, EPC-global was formed as a joint venture between the Uniform Code Council (UCC)
and the European Article Numbering Council (EAN, now called GS1) to oversee the
development of standards from an EPC perspective. The UCC and EAN are the respective bar
code standards bodies in North America and Europe. The formation of EPC-global will bring
about a greater focus on standards development for supply chain applications for the
following reasons:
- Wal-Mart and the DOD (US Department of Defence), as part of their mandates, have
publicly supported the EPC-global standards initiatives
- EPC-global has instant credibility because it is a joint venture between the established
North American and European bar code standards bodies
- The Auto-ID centre has transferred all administrative functions and intellectual property to
EPC-global, and is now a research group only
As part of the current standards process, EPC-global has outlined several tag classes with
varying sets of characteristics. Class 0 tags are passive, UHF based and are factory
programmed. Class 1 tags are passive, UHF or HF (13.56MHz) based and have a WORM
structure and, thus are field programmable. Class 0 and Class 1 tags, which tend to be used
in similar supply chain applications, are not currently interoperable. Electronic product codes
for Class 0 are 64 bits in length, and Class 1 tags are 96 bits in length and divided into
several sections. The first 64 bits identify the manufacturer, product, product version and
specific serial identification. In Class 1 tags, an additional 32 bits of the EPC are for unique
item information (item description, ultimate destination, special handling instructions, etc.)
that can be re-used at any point in the supply chain. The next generation of supply chain
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standard that will replace Class 0 and Class 1 tags is Class 1, Generation 2, which will be a
full read/write 128-bit RFID tag (available in April 2005); 96 bits will be for the EPC and an
additional 32 bits will be for error correction and a kill command. It is expected that this
standard will have an air-interface similar to ISO 18000-6 with a data structure similar to that
of EPC Class 1. Because Class 1, Generation 2 is a hybrid of the existing standard frameworks,
it is to believe that it marks the start of a unified passive RFID standard for supply chain
applications. Class 2, Gen 2 tags are passive, UHF based and have full read/write capability,
with greater memory. Class 3 tags are a passive/active hybrid as they have a battery, which
acts as an internal power source, but it remains in a passive mode until activated by a reader
(semi-passive). Class 4 tags are active tags (see also Table 6). Each of these Class standards
has not been fully ratified, and in many cases is evolving rapidly towards new standard
versions (Read, 2004).
Passive
Semi-active
Active
HF
UHF
Read-only
x
x
WORM
Read-write
EPC bits
Class 0, Generation 1
x
Class 1, Generation 1
x
Class 1, Generation 2
x
x
x
128
Class 2, Generation 2
x
x
x
256
x
x
greater
x
x
even greater
Class 3, Generation 3
x
x
Class 4, Generation 3
x
64
x
x
96
Table 6: Parameters for tag generations and classes
EPC-Global did not only create protocols for readers and tags, but also developed a
numbering system for the tag ID’s (see Figure 26). This 96 bit code provides unique
identifiers for 368 million companies (EPC Manager), each company can have 16 million
products (Object Class or Stock Keeping Unit SKU) and 68 billion serial numbers per product
type (Serial Number). The header identifies the EPC’s version number (Class number).
01 0000A89
00016F 000169DC0
Header
EPC Manager
Object Class
Serial Number
8-bits
28-bits
24-bits
36-bits
Figure 26: The Electronic Product Code (EPC)
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JM Hendriks
There are two separate components in a tag class: the air protocol (how the tag
communicates) and the programming technique (how the data is written to the tag).
The EPC network tries to enable near-perfect supply chain visibility. Each item will have an
EPC stored on an RFID tag attached to the item. RFID readers will read the EPC of the tag
and send the item’s EPC to a computer running Savant software. This middleware system,
amongst other functions, will send a query over the internet to an Object Name Service
(ONS) database (another Savant system). The ONS server matches the EPC number to the
address of a server (also Savant) that keeps the information about the product (Internet
address). The Physical Markup Language (PML) server contains information about the item
itself, its manufacturing, shipping and other related data (see Figure 27) (Roberti, 2002).
reader
data
internet
ONS
computer
PML
EPC
tag
Figure 27: The EPC concept
In standardising the coding by EPC makes RFID on the long run a cheap technology to help
improving supply chains. The primary function and capability of an RFID system used within a
supply chain is to monitor, in real-time, the location of all tagged objects within the supply
chain. Accurate, real-time data about the location of all objects within the supply chain
enables the efficient management of the supply chain (Eberhardt, 2001).
RFID reader systems encounter many different types of constraints on their operation than
do more traditional systems, such as cellular telephone networks, for which the frequency
assignment problem has been studied. These different constraints are primarily due to the
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minimal functionality contained within an RFID tag and the more stringent regulations on the
use of the free radio frequency spectrum used by RFID systems (Engels, 2001).
The one downside to the new regulations is that the data rate between the reader and the
tag is less than in the United States. This is because only 3 MHz of spectrum is available in
Europe for RFID, while 26 MHz is available in the US (see Table 5). The rest of the spectrum
at UHF is already allocated to primary services, such as public broadcast, and to mobile
phones. In order to permit optimum use of the available spectrum, EN 302-208 divides the
band into 15 channels of 200 kHz (see Figure 25). To enable readers in the same facility to
operate on adjacent channels, the regulations require that readers use only one channel at a
time and conform to something called a ‘spectral mask’ essentially, the amount a broadcast
can bleed outside of the channel. Compared with the United States, where readers can emit
radio waves within plus or minus 3 MHz of the frequency of the channel they are supposed to
be using. This wide range allows the reader to send more information more quickly. The
lower data rate is determined by the spectral mask imposed by the new standards. The
spectral mask limits an RFID reader’s data transfer rate to about 30 percent of what it would
be in the United States (see Table 7). To get data rates up to US levels there need to be an
agreed revision of the specifications and an advancement of radio engineering.
Feature
Band
Bandwidth
Number of channels to be used
Bandwidth of one channel
Listen-before-talk
Frequency hopping
Reader output power
Electromagnetic backscatter coupling
Time Division Multiple Access
Duty cycle
Europe
USA
*865.6 - 867.6 MHz
3 MHz
10
200 kHz
Y
Y
2 W erp
Y
Y
97,50%
902 - 928 MHz
26 MHz
50
500 kHz
N
Y
4 W eirp
Y
N
100%
* see figure 25
Table 7: Difference in UHF regulations for Europe and the US
Table 7 states 10 channels instead of 15. But as can be seen from Figure 25, European RFID
systems may use 10 channels of 200 kHz at 2 W erp, 3 channels of 200 kHz at 0.1 W erp and
2 channels of 200 kHz at 0.5 W erp. In the US an RFID system can use 50 channels of 500
kHz at 4 W eirp. This determines the most performance difference between the US and
Europe.
The difference between ERP and EIRP: effective radiated power (ERP) means the power level
at the antenna side, effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP) means the power level at the
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JM Hendriks
reader side. This means that for a power level in ERP the antenna send a fixed power level.
But a system with EIRP the antenna power level is determined by cable losses. Without cable
losses 4 W EIRP = 2.4 W ERP.
A.6 Tag Performance
Tag performance depends on many factors, besides used frequency and environment, like:
- Tag sensitivity: the ability of a chip to be ‘energized’ and to maximise the signal strength to
send its identifier back to the reader. The greater the chip sensitivity, the longer the read
range
- Tag size: larger generally means longer read-range
- Tag shape: different tag antenna shapes provide remarkably different levels of performance
- Number of tag antennas attached to the chip: two dipole antennas attached to a single chip
result in a tag performance that is less sensitive to orientation
- Speed: the rate at which a reader collects tag identifiers. Rapid read rates increase the
reliability of tag reads and are less likely to impose burdens on business processes. RFID
tags available today have read rates varying from as low as 20 tags/s to 500 tags/s
- Tight tag stacking: when stacked closely together, tags may interfere with one another.
There is a wide variation in tag performance in high-density environments
- Interference: well-designed tags and readers perform effectively in noisy environments
- Materials the tag is attached to: metal and water based materials are generally hostile to
RFID and negatively affect the read range
A.7 System Design
In designing an RFID system for any type of use, some design rules need to be followed.
Radio waves are absorbed by water and distorted by metal which makes tracking metal
products or those with high water content more problematic, but good system design and
engineering can overcome these shortcomings of RFID (for instance by using a buffer
distance between tag and material).
Interference experienced at a receiver is a function of transmitter power, receiver sensitivity,
antenna gains, patterns and polarizations, and channel loss. Channel loss is a function
primarily of distance, frequency, and weather and is quantified by either minimum acceptable
signal to noise power ratio or maximum permissible interference to noise power ratio as
measured at the receiver. Most of these interference factors are determined by regulations,
are a function of the reader and/ or tag design, or are beyond the ability to influence.
Consequently, consider interference to be a function of frequency and distance. There are
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two primary types of interference experienced in RFID systems: reader-to-reader frequency
interference and multiple reader-to-tag interference.
Reader-to-reader frequency interference
Reader-to-reader frequency interference, or simply frequency interference, occurs when a
reader transmits a signal that interferes with the operation of another reader, thus preventing
the second reader from communicating with tags in its interrogation zone. This type of
interference occurs when the signal transmitted by a reader is of sufficient strength when
received at a second reader that the signal masks or jams communication from tags to the
second reader. Interrogation zones should not overlap for reader-to-reader frequency
interference to occur. The signal from the tag to the reader is extremely weak since tags
communicate with readers by either reflecting or loading the reader’s own transmission.
These signals are easily masked by transmissions from other nearby readers. Frequencydistance interference constraints are often easy to construct: compute the distances between
pairs of transmitters and receivers and compare them with a minimum distance required to
prevent frequency interference given that the pairs operate on the same frequency. Another
way to avoid reader-to-reader anti collision problems is to link the readers to a clock and to
use the time division multiple access (TDMA) principle. In simple terms, the readers are
instructed to read at different times, rather than both trying to read at the same time. This
ensures that they do not interfere with each other. But it means that any RFID tag in an area
where two readers overlap will be read twice. Therefore middleware is developed which
deletes duplicate codes.
Multiple reader-to-tag interference
Multiple reader-to-tag interference, or simply tag interference, occurs when one tag is
simultaneously located in the interrogation zones of two or more readers and more than one
reader attempts to communicate with that tag at the same time. In this type of interference,
each reader may believe it is the only reader communicating with the tag while the tag is in
fact communicating with multiple readers. The simple nature of RFID communication can
cause the tag to behave and communicate in undesirable ways that interfere with the
communicating readers’ abilities to communicate with that tag and other tags in their
respective interrogation zones. Interrogation zone-distance interference constraints are often
easy to construct, compute the distances between the pairs of readers and compare them
with the minimum distance required to prevent interrogation zone interference (Engels, 2001).
Interference from other sources
Interference from other sources is an important factor that can keep the performance of an
RFID system low. Therefore an assessment of potential interference must be made and
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JM Hendriks
eventually remedies must be given. This assessment is similar to the site survey that is
conducted before wireless LANs are installed. Interference can be avoided or mitigated by
using different styles and sizes of RFID antennas and tags and experimenting with different
frequencies, power output levels and tag mounting options all within the scope defined by the
application requirements.
To read a lot of data via radio waves is a critical performance indicator. The more data to be
sent, the longer it takes for the reader to collect. A car driving with 120 km an hour passing
by an RFID reader cannot send a large amount of kilobytes, but a shopping cart standing still
for 10 seconds can send a mass of data to the cashier. This is a boundary condition which
needs to take into account.
A challenge for RFID is the data integration, collection, aggregation and filtration (clean data
and data synchronisation). No statement can yet be made about the amount of data that will
be handled once all items are tagged, but within a system design one needs to take into
account that existing servers and networks maybe need to be expanded.
A.8 Technical RFID Specifications
Frequency hopping
A technique used to prevent readers from interfering with one another. In the United States,
UHF RFID readers actually operate between 902 and 928 MHz, even though it is said that
they operate at 915 MHz. The readers may jump randomly or in a programmed sequence to
any frequency between 902 MHz and 928 MHz. If the band is wide enough, the chances of
two readers operating at exactly the same frequency is small. The UHF bands in Europe and
Japan are much smaller so this technique is not effective for preventing reader-to-reader
frequency interference.
Amplitude Modulation
Changing the amplitude of a radio wave. A higher wave is interpreted as a 1 and a normal
wave is interpreted as a 0. By changing the wave, the RFID tag can communicate a string of
binary digits to the reader. Computers can interpret these digits as digital information. The
method of changing the amplitude is known as amplitude shift keying, or ASK.
Anti-collision
A general term used to cover methods of preventing radio waves from one device from
interfering with radio waves from another. Anti-collision algorithms are also used to read
more than one tag in the same reader's field.
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Signal attenuation
The weakening of RF energy from an RFID tag or reader. The energy emitted by the reader
naturally decreases with distance. The rate of decrease is proportional to the inverse square
of the distance. Passive UHF RFID tags reflect back a signal at very low power levels. A tag’s
reflected signal decreases as the inverse fourth power of the distance between tag and
reader. Attenuation can be increased by external factors as well. For instance, water absorbs
UHF energy, causing signal attenuation (the reduction of energy).
Backscatter
A method of communication between passive tags and readers. RFID tags using backscatter
technology reflect back to the reader radio waves from a reader, usually at the same carrier
frequency. The reflected signal is modulated to transmit data.
Dielectric constant
The measure of a material’s ability to store a charge when an electric field is applied, or its
‘capacitance’. If a material has a high dielectric constant, it reflects more RF energy and
detunes the antenna more, which makes it harder to tag. Examples of materials with a low
dielectric constant are dry paper (2), plastics (most are between 2 and 4), and glass
(between 5 and 10). Water’s dielectric constant changes: At room temperature it is 80; near
boiling it is 55; and when frozen it is 3.
Detune
UHF antennas are tuned to receive RFID waves of a certain length from a reader, just as the
tuner on the radio in a car changes the antenna to receive signals of different frequencies.
When an UHF antenna is close to metal or metallic material, the antenna can be detuned,
resulting in poor performance.
Air Interface Protocol
The rules that govern how tags and readers communicate.
Frequency shift keying (FSK)
A method of communicating data by switching between two slightly different frequencies.
Reader talks first (singulation)
A means by which a passive UHF reader communicates with tags in its read field. The reader
sends energy to the tags but the tags sit idle until the reader requests them to respond. The
reader is able to find tags with specific serial numbers by asking all tags with a serial number
that starts with either 1 or 0 to respond. If more than one responds, the reader might ask for
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JM Hendriks
all tags with a serial number that starts with 01 to respond, and then 010. This is called
‘walking’ a binary tree, or ‘tree walking’.
Listen before talk (LBT)
The reader can be on for four seconds on the selected channel, but then must stop emitting
energy for at least 0.1 second to provide other devices with the opportunity to use the
channel. Alternatively, the reader could switch immediately to any other unoccupied channel
and transmit for up to a further four seconds.
Duty cycle
The length of time the reader can be emitting energy (in the US 100%, in Europe 97.5% of
the time, see Table 6).
Polling
The process of requesting and receiving information from a particular device.
Data transfer rate and bandwidth
Choice of field or carrier wave frequency is of primary importance in determining data
transfer rates. In practical terms the rate of data transfer is influenced primarily by the
frequency of the carrier wave or varying field used to carry the data between the tag and the
reader. Generally speaking the higher the frequency the higher the data transfer or
throughput rates that can be achieved. This is intimately linked to bandwidth or range
available within the frequency spectrum for the communication process. The channel
bandwidth needs to be at least twice the bit rate required for the application in mind. Where
narrow band allocations are involved, the limitation on data rate can be an important
consideration. It is clearly less of an issue where wide bandwidths are involved (Mullen, 2001).
Shielding
Making use of materials that reflect RF signals to confine a read-field
(Roberti, 2005).
A.9 Future Developments
In the current generation tags, the attachment of the antenna on the chip is the weakest
point and therefore is expensive to fabricate. The tag price is determined for 1/3 by the chip,
1/3 by the antenna and 1/3 by the attaching and wrapping material. Since the tags are
expected to have a long life span, this critical point may not break. One future development
to overcome this problem is to create a very small antenna on the chip and then connect the
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two antennas to each other; this is easier, less expensive and gives a less vulnerable tag.
Another possibility is to use flexible silicon for the chip.
Tag-antenna design is important for read distance and readability performance. Much
research needs to be done to improve these tag-antennas to adopt them for special materials
on which they are attached and to increase the RFID system performance.
Current EPC protocols deal with the way to store the tag ID number, in doing so readers from
several suppliers are able to read tags from other suppliers. Unfortunately there are no
protocols for the memory blockers (these are the free bits for the user to store specific
information). Because no protocols are yet developed, the suppliers are not able to read the
user data on another supplier’s tag. Future development must create EPC memory blocker
protocols to tackle this readability problem among different suppliers.
Future generations of tags all have batteries and can therefore communicate much easier and
from longer distances. A future development will then be when the tags start talking to each
other and a ‘leader’ tag is appointed to do the talking with the outside world.
A development for lowering the tag price is to print the tag with conductive ink (ink with
silver parts). The only disadvantage is that the ink has less conductive performance than
copper. Therefore the next step would be to produce tags from conductive polymers and
other plastics. In doing this the tag price could drop enormously without losing performance.
After 20 years of research it would be possible to use Nano technology or even produce
(organic) molecular tags. A major advantage of these developments would be that the tags
do not need to be separated from other garbage after use and that one can even eat the tags
where the stomach would break them apart. These tags could be used in food to tell the
status of the expiring date or for communicating with a microwave about the heating curve
(Schilthuizen, 2005).
For safety of RFID systems, much research needs to be done for encryption protocols in both
reader and tags. In using encryption technology misuse of RFID is almost impossible.
Agile readers (multi-protocol) need to be developed that can read tags at LF, HF and UHF
frequencies, tags from different suppliers and tags from different classes. That way,
companies can use different types of tags in different situations and not have to buy a reader
for each frequency, supplier or class.
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JM Hendriks
Another important development must be the readability of a large amount of tags
simultaneous (more than 500 tags/s). Nowadays tags of Generation 1, Class 0 (US tags) can
be read with approximately 300 tags/s, tags of Generation 1, Class 1 (EU tags) with
approximately 50 tags/s. These numbers are far too low for many applications within supply
chains. The speed is determined by several factors:
- Amount of data per tag to be send; the higher the amount of data per tag to be send, the
less tags per second that can be read
- Translation of the protocols; the longer and more difficult the protocols are, the longer it
takes to read one tag and thus less tags can be read within one second
- Software; the reader sends its data to a computer where software is used to filter and
translate this data into information. The more filtering and translating needed, the less tags
per second that can be read (the same works for the embedded reader software)
- Listen-before-talk principle; changing the ETSI rules could increase the number of tags read
simultaneously and thus improves the RFID system
- Bandwidth and number of sub-bands; increase in bandwidth gives an increase in number of
sub-bands and thus an increase in channels to send the data and thus more tags can be
read simultaneously
The Generation 2 protocols are already improved for multiple tag reading; the reader is
capable of blocking a tag after it has been read. In doing so, the read tags do not disturb the
reader which can focus on the not yet read tags. This will increase the amount of tags read in
one second.
JM Hendriks
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JM Hendriks
Appendix B: Conducting an RFID Technology
Assessment
A technology assessment is a detailed, in-depth examination of the potential success for
transfer of an innovation into an application, known as spin-out. The assessor conducts
research to evaluate this option carefully and objectively and will analyse an individual's
strengths and weaknesses in light of the specific tasks that need to be accomplished. By
assessing the technology before any financial investments are made, the company takes
small risks.
The overall goal of an RFID technology assessment would be to enable all concerned, from
industry leaders to policymakers, to make informed decisions about the best ways in which to
implement the technology - that being, to maximize the social and economic benefits and
prevent or minimize the harmful ones.
Examples of the kinds of questions that could be addressed by an RFID technology
assessment are:
- Are there other technologies that can accomplish much the same things as RFID, but that
are less intrusive? One alternative technology could be, for example, 2-D barcodes
- What are some potential consequences of item-level tagging that could be of risk to
individuals' privacy and civil liberties? Would law enforcement, for example, adopt
surveillance strategies that take advantage of the unique RFID identifiers and their
concomitant data base records?
- Can many of the benefits of RFID be accomplished without resorting to the placement of a
unique identifier, called the Electronic Product Code (EPC), on each and every consumer
product that is released into the marketplace?
For example, one benefit of RFID that has been touted is to label toxic materials contained
inside computer products, such as components containing lead or nickel-cadmium. This
application of RFID could make it much easier to separate out such materials when they are
headed for the landfill. Yet, such materials do not need the fully unique identifier, only a
generic tag that emits the code for ‘lead’ or for ‘nickel-cadmium’. There may be many other
ways to benefit from the RFID technology without embedding unique identifiers on each and
every product, right down to each individual can of Coke, for example
Before applying RFID tags and antennas into your supply chain, a good understanding of the
way it works is essential. Therefore a technology assessment has been executed with tests in
both an ‘idealized’ world and the real world of Sony Logistics Europe BV. This idealized world
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is a laboratory where all influencing variables can be turned on and off on demand, this
makes it possible to do some basic fundamental research about this technology.
The steps taken to understand the technology of RFID are:
- Step 1: Understand your visibility requirements: What items do you want to read?
Where? How often? From what distance?
- Step 2: Test in an ideal world to get feeling with RFID
- Step 3: Test in the real world setting. Put tags on things and set up readers at the points
you seek enhanced visibility
- Step 4: Evaluate technical performance. Do you get reliable reads? Does it properly
update your application?
- Step 5: Assess the economic benefits. Is it better than what you are currently doing?
- Step 6: Understand the impact of the technologies on business processes and integration
issues with enterprise systems
- Step 7: Make a decision to: (a) move forward with larger scale implementation; (b) refine
the trial – different processes, technologies, items and/ or read points; or (c) cease
activities
In these particular tests hardware from Matrics is used:
- Three Matrics ANT-001 High Performance Antennas
frequency: 865.6 – 867.6 MHz, output power: 1 W e.r.p
- One Matrics Stationary Reader RDR-001
- Matrics Generation 1, Class 0, 64 bits EUR EPC compliant tags
read-only tags, with two dual dipole antennas
- A laptop with software: Matrics Tag Tracker version 3.3.0
The number of runs to determine if a 99.95% readability rate is met is determined with the
following calculation:
Z
N = P ⋅ Q ⋅ ( )2
B
(Formula 1)
N = the sample size or the number of times necessary for the test [--]
P = the success rate for the test [%] (here 99.95%)
Q = the failure rate for the test [%] (Q = 1 – P) (here 0.05%)
Z = the Z-value regarding to the confidence level of the test [--] (here 2.576, confidence level
of 99%)
B = bound on the sampling error [%] (here 1% = 1 – confidence level)
2
⎛ 2.576 ⎞
N = 99.95 ⋅ 0.05 ⋅ ⎜
⎟ = 33 runs
⎝ 1 ⎠
Page 88
JM Hendriks
B.1 Basic Conveyor Belt Tests
In the basic conveyor belt tests some experimental (trial and error) testing has been done to
determine how the technology works. The three antennas are placed perpendicular and
parallel on the conveyor belt and the products are tagged on all kind of locations (see Figure
28 to Figure 31).
Position of operator
To put test cases back on the belt
Position of Antenna
and test equipment
Figure 28: Top view of conveyor belt at Sony Logistics Europe BV
Barcode
scanner
RFID antenna
gate
RFID antenna
gate
Test product (with
RFID tag)
Figure 29: Test setup on conveyor belt
JM Hendriks
Page 89
Figure 30: Test product with an RFID tag
Figure 31: Conveyor belt with normal and tagged products
Page 90
JM Hendriks
In this experimental test phase every product runs 30 times on the conveyor belt, with a
speed of 50 m/min, via the RFID antenna gate. The antenna reads are collected by the
reader which sends information to the laptop (Matrics Tag Tracker 3.3.0). After the 30 runs
the amount of reads are collected from the software. Then the number of reads is divided by
30 and so the readability is determined in percentages. Figure 32 gives an example of such a
test with the Sony product STSE370. Table 8 gives all the results.
STSE370
metal
metal
Outside
Ta g position
Top
B ottom
Front
B ac k
left
right
This tag
gives 100%
readability
This tag
gives 43%
readability
Inside
Ta g position
under produc t
On foam
on produc t
# re a ds % re a ds
30
100
14
47
30
100
30
100
30
100
30
100
# re a ds % re a ds
13
43
30
100
13
43
Figure 32: STSE370 product testing
Reading results
Tag position outside MC
BG
RME
DIME
HFE
PAE
DIME
DIME
DIME
DIME
PAE
Eve
DIME
PAE
SCE
PAE
HFE
PAE
Eve
Material
AM3-E4
CCDTRV228E.CEEJ
CDPXE370S.CEL.A
CMTCPX11.CEL.A
DCR-DVD91E.CEEJ.a
DCRHC14E.CEEJ.a
DSC-T1.CEE1.b
GVD200E.CEE.A
ICDB26.ce7
MEX100NV.EUR.b
MVCCD400:CEE.A
MZN520s.4eu8
SCPH-50004
SRFM37LS.IF1
STSE370B.CEL.b
WMEX525L.CE7
XM502Z.EUR
Top
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
Left
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
Right
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
Front
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
88%
100%
96%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
on
on
subcarton product
inside MC inside MC
Bottom
0%
100%
40%
80%
32%
33%
68%
83%
52%
20%
93%
60%
90%
24%
8%
74%
28%
67%
24%
44%
71%
40%
37%
32%
67%
48%
43%
35%
88%
60%
Table 8: Results after basic conveyor belt tests
JM Hendriks
Page 91
B.2 Conclusions After Basic Conveyor Belt Testing
From these basic conveyor belt tests Table 8 can be produced. From this table some
conclusions can be drawn:
- Tags on the outside of the product give 100% readability, except on the bottom (and some
at the front of the product)
- Tagging the products inside the packaging material (MC) gives poor readability results
- In a master carton (MC) where more than one product is situated in a carton box, not
every tagged product gives 100% readability
- Putting the tag on the product itself give poor readability performance
Since the readability performance of the RFID tags is too low to start implementing RFID at
Sony’s supply chain it has been decided to gain some fundamental knowledge on the working
of RFID and Radio Waves in particular by setting up some tests within a laboratory (see next
chapter). In organizing such a fundamental test some basic understanding needs to be
developed to increase the readability performance after which the RFID tags can be installed
onto the products.
B.3 RFID in the Idealized World
For the fundamental research within the laboratory environment a different setup has been
chosen. The main advantage in such a laboratory setup is that the parameters which
determine readability performance can be better controlled. Eventually the readability
determines the performance of the total RFID system. See Figure 33 and Figure 34 for the
setup.
Figure 33: The Matrics reader and laptop
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JM Hendriks
Figure 34: The laboratory setup
Test 1: Define read-field of one antenna
Goal: determine the read-field around the antenna to make sure every tag moves within this
field in order to be able to read this tag.
First the read-field of one antenna will be determined. Several outside-tagged-boxes are
placed onto the floor at increasing distances and angles from the antenna. At the computer it
is being monitored which tags can be read (100% readability) and which are outside the
read-field of the antenna. This test is being done in two directions and for all three antennas
individually. Figure 35 shows the placing of the antenna and tags to calculate the read field.
Conclusion: It can be seen that a variation in the direction of the antenna gives a variation in
the read-field; the short side has a read-angle of 86º and the long side has a read-angle of
68º.
JM Hendriks
Page 93
antenna
side view (short)
side view (long)
86°
68°
tags
Figure 35: Determination of read-field around one antenna
Test 2: Define read-field of three antennas
Goal: See if the read-field becomes any bigger if the three antennas are put on at the same
time.
After the determination of the read-field of the three antennas individually, all three antennas
are put on at the same time to see if there are any differences.
Conclusion: The result is that the read-field does not become any larger or change in some
other way (angles and distances keep the same).
Test 3: Define three antennas configuration (strongest read-field)
Goal: See if the ‘antenna-combine’ tool has influence on the shape of the read-field.
Now the three antennas are ‘combined’ via the software (see Matrics Tag Tracker program).
Again the total read-field is determined.
Conclusion: Again there are no differences with the results from test 1 and test 2. But since in
former testing at Sony Logistics Europe BV (see Appendix A.1), where a clear difference in
results could be seen when the three antennas were or were not combined within the
software, the feature of combining is further examined. Three explanations can be found (see
next page):
Page 94
JM Hendriks
1. No influence: According to the manufacturer of the equipment (Matrics) there is no
difference in readability for using the combined or not-combined mode within the
software. Not-combined: one can see which antenna has read the tag; this can be used
for location indication, Combined: one can only see that the tag has been read (less
data use within software).
2. Influence: If the antennas are combined, they will send their pulses at exactly the same
time. When a point is taken in space, which lies a distance R from the three antennas
which is the same, the electromagnetic waves will influence each other and in the best
way will increase to one wave of 6W (= 3 x 2W) (see Figure 36).
A ntennas
R
R
W ave
1
W ave
2
1
2
R
3
W ave
3
x (m )
t (s)
φ1
φ2
Figure 36: Three antenna waves
In Figure 36 it can be seen that when R1 = R2 = R3, the tag-antenna distance is the
same for all three antennas. If the antennas are combined within the software, all three
antennas will send their electromagnetic wave pulses at exactly the same time and thus
φ1 = φ2 = 0 and the amplitude x(m) is influenced positively (it increases). This means
that in combining the three antennas within the software, the readability will increase,
but only when the distances R1, R2 and R3 are the same, or differ a wavelength shift.
This wavelength can be calculated with the next formula:
λ=
JM Hendriks
c 299,792,458(m / s )
=
= 34.5(cm)
868( MHz )
f
(Formula 2)
Page 95
This means that the readability performance is the best if the tag-antenna distance for
the three antennas has the relation of R1 = b·λ·R2 = c·λ·R3, where b and c are real
numbers (b, c ε {1, 2, 3, 4, 5,....}); the three waves have a wave-shift of exactly one
period (Dr. Ir. M.D. Verweij, personal interview).
3. A third explanation could be that when the three antennas are combined within the
software, that the reader uses the principle of TDMA; Time Division Multiple Access.
TDMA works by dividing a radio frequency into time slots and then allocating slots to
multiple calls. In this way, a single frequency can support multiple, simultaneous data
channels.
Conclusion: Since the principle of listen-before-talk (see chapter 3.5) applies on this European
equipment, in combining the antennas during reading the principle of TDMA is being used
(option 3). If the antennas are combined, the reader will alternately use the antennas for
emitting power and receiving data. Thus in combining the antennas in the software makes
the reader work more efficient.
Test 4: Define power-level influence of one antenna
Goal: Measure if in increasing the emitting power-level of the antenna, the read-distance of
the tag will increase.
Now a tag is placed parallel to the antenna (angle is 0° in both the short view and long view
direction) and the longest read-distance is measured (see Figure 37). Beginning with a power
level of 0 mW and stepwise increasing to 1000 mW (ten steps).
antenna
side view (short)
side view (long)
Pr
Pr
R
R
tags
Figure 37: Distance measurements
Page 96
JM Hendriks
Once the first distance is determined (for three measurements) the power level is adjusted
and the longest read-distance is being measured again. This is done for ten levels of power;
see Table 9.
Power level Pr
(W)
0.00
0.10
0.20
0.30
0.40
0.50
0.60
0.70
0.80
0.90
1.00
Distance R1
measured(m)
0.00
1.05
2.09
2.83
4.11
4.53
4.99
4.96
5.01
5.03
5.10
Distance R2
measured(m)
0.00
1.10
2.00
2.80
4.11
4.66
4.88
4.98
5.02
5.07
5.09
Distance R3
Distance Raverage
measured(m)
measured(m)
0.00
0.00
1.14
1.10
2.05
2.05
2.86
2.83
4.10
4.11
4.61
4.60
4.90
4.92
4.97
4.97
5.01
5.01
5.07
5.06
5.10
5.10
Table 9: Power-level to read-distance
The results from this table can be used to plot a figure where the relation can be seen
between the power-level setting and the read-distance. This is done in Figure 38.
6.00
5.00
Distance (m)
4.00
3.00
2.00
1.00
0.00
0.00
0.20
0.40
0.60
0.80
1.00
1.20
Power level (W)
R1
R2
R3
R average
Figure 38: Power-level to read-distance relation for radio waves through air
JM Hendriks
Page 97
From Figure 38 it can be seen that the read-distance does not linearly increase when the
power-level of the transmitter increases. In the literature this relation is determined by
formula 3:
S=
Pr
Aellipse
, where
(Formula 3)
Aellipse = π ⋅ a ⋅ b
(Formula 4)
In this formula S is the field-strength, Pr is the power-level of the transmitter and A is the
surface of the cross-section of the read-field at a distance R from the transmitter. In this
particular case A has the shape of an ellipse because the angles in the short view and long
view are different (see Figure 39).
Side view
R
Front view
R
b
34°
a
b
R
43°
a
Figure 39: Determination of cross-section of read-field
Since in Test 1 the angles of the read-field are determined (68° and 86°), the surface of the
cross-section at any given read-distance R can be determined by using the formulas on the
following page:
Page 98
JM Hendriks
b = R ⋅ TAN (34°)
(Formula 5)
a = R ⋅ TAN (43°)
(Formula 6)
Then a and b can be used in Formula 4, which can be used in Formula 3 to determine the
field-strength S.
If the relation shown in Figure 38 is to be determined again, Formula 3 to Formula 6 can be
rearranged to the following formula:
R=
Pr
π ⋅ S ⋅ (TAN 34°) ⋅ (TAN 43°)
(Formula 7)
Since the denominator of Formula 7 is a constant, Formula 7 can be changed into:
R = C ⋅ Pr
(Formula 8)
where C is a constant (C=7.08).
Conclusion: Knowing the relation between reading-distance R and emitting-power Pr (see
Formula 8), the trend until 0.6 W in Figure 38 can be understood. After 0.6 W the increase in
emitting-power has no positive effect on the increase in read-distance. This has to do with
the tag itself. The tag is unable to deliver more output power from a higher receiving signal.
Hopefully future developments and tag-design will overcome this problem.
Test 5: Define power-level influence for three antennas
Goal: See if the three antennas working together will increase the total read-distance of one
tag.
Test 4 is performed again, but now with the three antennas working together. The powerlevels are increased again from 0 mW to 1000 mW for three antennas at once.
Conclusion: No differences can be seen other than the results in test 4 for undisturbed tags.
In the sorter test the readability performance increased enormous when the three antennas
were ‘combined’ in the software (see conclusion after Test 2).
JM Hendriks
Page 99
Test 6: Define read-field of a tag
Goal: Determine if the twisting of the tag has influence on the readability performance.
To determine the read-field around the tag, one antenna is put on. The tag is placed parallel
onto the transmitter-field of the antenna and is rotated around its axis to determine the angle
in which it can be read (see Figure 40).
side view (short)
antenna
110°
tag
Figure 40: Read-field of a tag
Conclusion: From the measurements it can be seen that the tag must be within a 110º angle
of the antenna to make sure it gets read.
Test 7: Define minimum distance between two tags
Goal: Determine for what distance the tags experience any interference.
For the determination of the minimum distance between two tags, two setups are being used
(see Figure 41 on the next page). In this test, one antenna is used to emmit the
electromagnetic waves. Then the tags are placed like shown in Figure 41; in both cases a 2
dimensional setup with in one case 25 tags (left) and in the other case 7 tags (right).
Because it was not possible to create a 3 dimensional matrix of the tags, this test could not
be executed at once. After the tags are placed, the distances of x, y and z are being varied
until the readability of all the tags is 100%. If this is so, the distances of x, y and z are being
measured.
Page 100
JM Hendriks
Conclusion: The distances between the tags in three directions are:
- x = 210 (mm)
- y = 180 (mm)
- z = 42 (mm)
According to the literature these minimum distances (x, y and z) have to be at least 13 mm
(Shanks, 2004), but unfortunately in reality the radio waves of the tags are disturbing each
other quite strong. A remark must be made: when the number of tags that have to be read
simultaneously increases, the distances x, y and z have to increase as well to keep the
readability at 100%. In the laboratory test 25 tags could be read simultaneously with the
above mentioned distances for x, y and z.
Top view
Side view
X
z
y
Figure 41: Determination of distance between two tags
In the tests in the laboratory, tags from Matrics are used (see the pictures in Figure 42).
These tags have two linear dipole antennas per tag. Also some testing have been done with
other types of tags, but the read-distances of these tags are much smaller compared to the
first tags and thus further testing has been stopped.
JM Hendriks
Page 101
Figure 42: Two Matrics tags with double dipole antennas
Test 8: Define influence of tag onto different materials
Goal: Determine what the influence is on the reading-distance if a tag is placed on a material.
Figure 43 shows the test setup for calculating the reading-distance for a tag placed on
several materials.
side view (short)
antenna
R low
tag
material B
Figure 43: Test setup for material-tag distance variation with lower material
Conclusion: Readability drops to 0% when the lower material is either water or metal (any
kind), all the other materials show 100% readability if the distance between tag and antenna
is decreased, compared to the maximum read-distance in free air. From this test it can
therefore be concluded that the distance between any material B and the tag (Rlow) may be
Page 102
JM Hendriks
zero, as long as material B is neither water nor any metal. For water and metal the distance
must be: Rlow = 13 mm (this corresponds to the 13 mm distance between two tags according
to Shank, 2004). In Figure 44 a tag is placed on 13 mm polystyrene to overcome the
reflecting effect of the aluminium foil which is beneath this polystyrene layer.
Figure 44: Tag on polystyrene layer to eliminate the reflecting effect of the aluminium foil
Test 8 is performed again, but then with material A and Rhigh = 0 mm (see Figure 45). Again
the readability drops to 0% if the material is water or any metal. For all other materials this
readability can still be 100%. Again in order to keep this 100% readability the distance
between tag and antenna has to decrease, compared to the maximum distance in free air.
side view (short)
antenna
R high
material A
tag
Figure 45: Test setup for material-tag distance variation with upper material
JM Hendriks
Page 103
Now that the read distances for a blocked tag from two ways are made, a table for tags
attached to wood can be created (see Table 10). The first row in this table presents the
situation like in Figure 43, the second row presents the situation like in Figure 45.
Power level Pr
(W)
0.00
0.10
0.20
0.30
0.40
0.50
0.60
0.70
0.80
0.90
1.00
tag-->wood
Distance R
measured(m)
0.00
1.11
1.38
1.49
1.79
1.84
2.12
2.18
2.31
2.36
2.84
wood-->tag
Distance R
measured(m)
0.00
1.33
1.65
2.19
2.39
2.53
2.58
2.60
2.76
2.98
3.21
Table 10: Read-distance to power level for blocked tags
These measurements can than be plotted in a graph (see Figure 46). In this graph the yellow
line is the distance for a tag in free air. This line is used as a reference line. It can clearly be
seen that the read distances decreases enormous for a blocked tag (see the blue line (test
like in Figure 43) and pink line (test like in Figure 45)).
6.00
5.00
Distance (m)
4.00
tag-->wood
wood-->tag
3.00
Air
2.00
1.00
0.00
0.00
0.20
0.40
0.60
0.80
1.00
1.20
Power level (W)
Figure 46: Power-level to distance relations for single blocked tags
Page 104
JM Hendriks
Test 9: Define minimum distance R for a jammed tag
Goal: Determine what the influence is on the reading-distance if a tag is placed in between a
material; a so-called jammed tag.
In Figure 47, the test setup for calculating the distance between a jammed tag and an
antenna (Rtag-antenna) can be seen. If a tag is jammed between a material (this means Rlow =
Rhigh = 0 mm and material A is the same as material B), no matter which material is being
used, the readability of the tag drops to 0%. If this readability has to increase to 100% again,
the maximum distance R must decrease, like in test 7 and 8. For several materials this
relation is shown in the graph from Figure 48. It can be seen that when the density of the
material is increasing, the permeability of the material is decreasing.
side view (short)
antenna
R high
material A
tag
R low
material B
Figure 47: Test setup for material-tag distance variation for a jammed tag
Conclusion: The influence of materials on the performance of the readability comes from two
factors:
- Absorption; the most important insulation property is the dielectric constant (k) of the
material. The dielectric constant of materials is generally compared relative to free space.
The property describes how hard it is to set up an electric field in a material compared to a
vacuum. A dielectric constant of 2 indicates that that material is twice as hard to set up the
field as in a vacuum. Table 11 on the next page, lists some relative dielectric constants of
various materials (these numbers vary little dependant on frequency and temperature).
- Reflection; means that an electric field will not penetrate the material but will be reflected.
Metals have the property of blocking RF signals by reflection.
If the tag is jammed between any metal or water (also wet paper), the readability is 0%. This
is in line with the test results from Test 8.
JM Hendriks
Page 105
6.00
5.00
Read distance (m)
4.00
Air
Wood
3.00
Carton
Stone
2.00
1.00
0.00
0.00
0.20
0.40
0.60
0.80
1.00
1.20
Power level (W)
Figure 48: Power-level to distance relations for a jammed tag
Material
Vacuum
Air
Paper (dry)
Teflon
Polyethylene
Polystyrene
Wood (dry)
Rubber
Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC)
Glass
Nylon
Water (distilled)
Dielectric Constant (k)
1.0000
1.0006
1.5000
2.1000
2.5000
2.4000
2.4000
3.0000
3.3000
3.8000
4.9000
34.0000
Table 11: Dielectric constants of materials
From Figure 48 it can be seen that a tag in free air gives the best readability performance. In
the tests with a jammed tag for the carton case, carton is being used with a thickness of 6
mm build up from three layers: on the outer sides, two plane carton layers and in between
one sheet of corrugated carton. In this way the carton has almost the same characteristics as
free air. This conclusion can be underlined by the yellow line in Figure 48 which is almost the
same as the blue line from a tag in free air.
Clearly it can be seen from Figure 46 and Figure 48 that the results for a single blocked tag
are much better than for a jammed tag (see the lines for a tag on wood or jammed in
Page 106
JM Hendriks
between wood where a single blocked tag has a maximum reading distance of 2.84m and a
jammed tag has a maximum reading distance of 1.87m).
B.4 Conclusions After Fundamental Laboratory Testing
From these 9 fundamental tests some boundary conditions can be developed:
- Make sure that the tag that must be read is within the 100% read-field of the antenna
(both within read-angle and read-distance)
- Make sure that the antenna and the tag are parallel to each other for best readability
results
- Choose an antenna configuration where all antennas overlap with their read-fields as much
as possible and are aiming as much as possible in the same direction
- Use the ‘combined’ software tool for best readability performance (because of the TDMA
principle)
- Use the highest amount of reader output power as allowed by the regulations, this for best
permeability through packaging materials rather than for long read-distances
- Keep the tags as far as possible from each other to be sure that they do not interfere
- Use the lowest possible amount of tags; the less tags, the better the total readability
performance (the less tags, the less data transfer, the faster the total readability)
- Use the lowest possible packaging material, otherwise use carton and polystyrene to make
sure that readability is 100%
From the basic conveyor belt tests in Appendix A.1, some conclusions were drawn. In having
the knowledge from the fundamental tests these conclusions can be explained:
- Tags on the outside of the product give 100% readability, except on the bottom. The RF
signal for outside placed tags, which are all placed on carton, is not disturbed by any
material and thus the tags can easily be read. The tag on the bottom moves directly over
the conveyor belt which is made from rubber and steel. The tag is so close to the steel that
the reflection blocks the RF signal and the tag can not be read.
- Tagging the products inside the packaging material gives poor readability results. This is
firstly because the permeability of the packaging materials is not always good, secondly
because the tags were sometimes placed directly onto the metal or liquids that are used
within the consumer electronic products and thirdly because some tags were jammed
between the packaging materials.
- In a master carton where more than one product is situated in a carton box, not every
tagged product gave 100% readability; this is firstly because the tags were placed too close
to each other and interfered with each other and secondly were placed in the wrong places
(see remarks made above).
JM Hendriks
Page 107
B.5 Advanced Conveyor Belt Tests
In the advanced conveyor belt tests the knowledge from the basic tests and the fundamental
knowledge from the laboratory tests is being used as boundary conditions to setup these
tests and try to have 100% readability for every tag. For these tests a series of products is
chosen which are used on the conveyor belt during normal processes. The same setup is
being used as before, see Figure 28, Figure 29 and Figure 49. Only for the configuration of
the antennas another form has been chosen (see Figure 50 and Figure 51).
Figure 49: Test setup conveyor belt test
Figure 50: Left photo; Laptop and reader, Right photo; reader and antennas
Page 108
JM Hendriks
Figure 51: Setup of the three Matrics antennas around the conveyor belt
The reason for another configuration of the three antennas is that in the former conveyor belt
tests two of the three antennas were facing the tags parallel and thus gave bad readability
results (see test 6 in Appendix A.3). In this configuration (see Figure 51) the three antennas
have a very good overlapping read-area and have quite similar reading-angles. Again, like in
the basic conveyor belt tests, all products run 30 times on the conveyor via the reader.
Test 1: Define minimum distance between two tags
Goal: Verify the minimum distance between tags to prevent tag-interference.
Again test 7 from Appendix A.3 is being executed. For this test the product WM-EX525 is
being used (see Figure 52 on the next page). Here the distance for X and Z are:
- X = 150 mm
- Z = 55 mm
This gives the following readability results:
Readability
100%
66%
92%
100%
100%
Row 1
Tag 1
Tag 2
Tag 3
Tag 4
Tag 5
Row 2
Tag 1
Tag 2
Tag 3
Tag 4
Tag 5
Readability
64%
100%
42%
75%
100%
Table 12: Readability percentages of tags on product WM-EX525
JM Hendriks
Page 109
Z = 55 mm
X = 150 mm
Figure 52: Master carton with 10 WM-EX525 products with tags
The results in Table 12 show that not all tags are read 100% of the time. The reason for this
could be that the distance of X is too small (see test 7, Appendix A.3). In a second test run
(of 30 runs via the reader) the X distance is increased to 210 mm (see Figure 53).
Z = 55 mm
X = 210 mm
Figure 53: Master carton with 10 WM-EX525 products with increased tag distance X
Page 110
JM Hendriks
Now again the readability results can be plotted in a table (see Table 13) and it can be seen
that all the tags can be read with 100% readability.
Readability
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
Row 1
Tag 1
Tag 2
Tag 3
Tag 4
Tag 5
Row 2
Tag 1
Tag 2
Tag 3
Tag 4
Tag 5
Readability
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
Table 13: Readability percentages of tags on product WM-EX525 with increased distance X
Conclusion: In using the boundary condition of the minimum distance between tags, the
readability of all tags will go to 100% readability.
Test 2: Define influence of tag onto different materials
Goal: Verify which materials under the tag give readability problems.
Since in the case of the conveyor belt tests the level of tagging is at item-level, the tag has to
be placed onto all kind of materials. In the advanced conveyor belt tests the tag has been put
on carton, polystyrene, wood, plastic, paper and metal. In these cases no maximum read
distance can be calculated, only if the tag has been read or not.
Conclusion: From these tests it follows that the tag onto any metal material (see Figure 54)
could not been read as long as the distance between tag and the metal is below the 13 mm
(see Figure 55). Also tag directly placed onto Memory Sticks or LCD screens gave poor to no
readability (see Figure 56 and Figure 57). The solution for metal and liquid is to create a
minimum distance of 13 mm between tag and material. For the other materials there are no
readability problems as long as the decreased reading-distance is still enough to reach the
reader-antenna. In the advanced conveyor belt testing the maximum antenna to tag distance
is 1.20m (see Figure 51). The power level during this testing is 1 W (e.r.p). If one looks to
Figure 48, it can be seen that by 1 W (e.r.p) even the worst case jammed tags (excluding
water, metal or wetpaper) can be read within a distance of 1.20m (see also the test results in
Table 14, where the above results are from the basic conveyor belt tests and the lower
results are from the advanced conveyor belt tests in which the boundary conditions from the
fundamental tests is being used). Therefore the test results from this advanced conveyor belt
testing fully underlines the results from the fundamental laboratory testing.
JM Hendriks
Page 111
Figure 54: ST-SE370 with tag directly on metal housing gives 8% readability
Figure 55: ST-SE370 with the booklet between the metal housing and the tag gives 100% readability
Page 112
JM Hendriks
Figure 56: Tag directly on a LCD monitor of a DIME product
Figure 57: Tag under a carton layer onto the LCD monitor of the DIME product
JM Hendriks
Page 113
Product
Tag ID
DSC-T1
030080507A802001000008E49A
GV-D1000E
030080507A802001000001CD8A
MDS-JE780
030080507A8020010000002346
ST-SE370 new 030080507A80200100000411BA
ST-SE370 old 030080507A802001000001CD8B
Tag placement
On top Memory Stick
On the product
Directly on the product
On top of product; put cables under the product
Under the product, on the carton
Number of
Readability
reads from 30 percentage
26
87%
13
43%
0
0%
2
7%
29
97%
Product
Tag ID
DSC-T1
030080507A802001000008E49A
GV-D1000E
030080507A802001000001CD8A
MDS-JE780
030080507A8020010000002346
ST-SE370 new 030080507A80200100000411BA
ST-SE370 old 030080507A802001000001CD8B
Tag placement
On booklet, Memory Stick under booklet
Booklet between tag and product
Booklet between tag and product
Cables between tag and product
Under the product, on the carton
Number of
Readability
reads from 30 percentage
30
100%
30
100%
30
100%
30
100%
30
100%
Table 14: Readability results of inside tagging
Test 3: Inside master carton tagging
Goal: Verify a number of boundary conditions from Appendix A.3 in during real processes.
In test 3, the results from test 1 and test 2 (Appendix A.3) are being used. Here the tags are
placed on item level within the master carton within the package of the sellable unit. In this
advanced conveyor belt testing four types of products were used to see if a number of tags
can be read during an antennas pass. These are the products; D-EJ100 (see Figure 58), ICDB26 (see Figure 59 to Figure 61), XM-502Z (see Figure 62 and Figure 63) and MZ-N520 (see
Figure 64 and Figure 65).
Figure 58: Ten D-EJ100 products within one master carton
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JM Hendriks
Figure 59: One big master carton with two smaller master cartons of the ICD-B26 product
Figure 60: One smaller master carton with five ICD-B26 products
JM Hendriks
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Figure 61: One ICD-B26 product with a tag
Figure 62: Six XM-502Z products in one master carton
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JM Hendriks
Figure 63: Tag inside one XM-502Z product carton
Figure 64: Five MZ-N520 in one master carton
JM Hendriks
Page 117
Figure 65: Tag inside one MZ-N520 product carton
Conclusion: If the boundary conditions developed in Appendix A.3 are followed and the
results from test 1 and test 2 (of Appendix A.3) are being used; this means keep the
minimum distances of X, Y and Z between tags in mind, do not place the tags directly on
liquid or metal, put the tags within a good angle from the reader, place the tags on carton or
polystyrene packaging materials, the readability will be 100% (see Table 15).
Number of
tag
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
1
2
3
4
5
6
1
2
3
4
5
Product
D-EJ100
D-EJ100
D-EJ100
D-EJ100
D-EJ100
D-EJ100
D-EJ100
D-EJ100
D-EJ100
D-EJ100
ICD-B26
ICD-B26
ICD-B26
ICD-B26
ICD-B26
ICD-B26
ICD-B26
ICD-B26
ICD-B26
ICD-B26
XM-502Z
XM-502Z
XM-502Z
XM-502Z
XM-502Z
XM-502Z
MZ-N520
MZ-N520
MZ-N520
MZ-N520
MZ-N520
Tag ID
030080507A802001000001CD5B
030080507A802001000001CD62
030080507A802001000001CD63
030080507A802001000001CD6A
030080507A802001000001CD73
030080507A802001000001CD7A
030080507A802001000001CD7B
030080507A802001000001CD82
030080507A802001000001CD83
030080507A802001000001EFCA
030080507A802001000001CD53
030080507A802001000001CD5A
030080507A802001000008DAC3
030080507A802001000008E56D
030080507A80200100000915CC
030080507A80200100000915D4
030080507A80200100000915DB
030080507A80200100000915EB
030080507A80200100000915F3
030080507A802001000009164C
030080507A8020010000058EB7
030080507A8020010000072B5A
030080507A802001000008DAC2
030080507A802001000008E565
030080507A802001000008E574
030080507A80200100000914CA
030080507A802001000008E584
030080507A8020010000091586
030080507A80200100000915B2
030080507A80200100000915BA
030080507A8020010000091644
Number of
Readability
reads from 30 percentage
Tag placement
Row 1, column 1
30
100%
Row 1, column 3
30
100%
Row 1, column 2
30
100%
Row 1, column 4
30
100%
Row 1, column 5
30
100%
Row 2, column 3
30
100%
Row 2, column 1
30
100%
Row 2, column 4
30
100%
Row 2, column 5
30
100%
Row 2, column 2
30
100%
Row 2, column 4
30
100%
Row 2, column 5
30
100%
Row 2, column 2
30
100%
Row 2, column 1
30
100%
Row 1, column 4
30
100%
Row 1, column 5
30
100%
Row 1, column 3
30
100%
Row 1, column 2
30
100%
Row 1, column 1
30
100%
Row 2, column 3
30
100%
bottom, column 1, row 1
30
100%
bottom, column 1, row 2
30
100%
bottom, column 1, row 3
30
100%
bottom, column 2, row 3
30
100%
bottom, column 2, row 1
30
100%
bottom, column 2, row 2
30
100%
Row 5
30
100%
Row 4
30
100%
Row 1
30
100%
Row 3
30
100%
Row 2
30
100%
Table 15: Readability results of inside master carton tagging
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JM Hendriks
B.6 Conclusion After Advanced Conveyor Belt Testing
- The conclusions from the fundamental laboratory testing can be used as system boundary
conditions for designing an RFID test setup
- With the new antenna configuration even tags that are on the bottom (inside) of the
products are read with 100% readability
- In this particular setup the tags are about 2 seconds in the read field. If the distance
between antennas and conveyor belt will increase, the read field will increase and the tags
will be longer in the read field. This gives the antenna more time to ‘find’ the tag and
therefore will improve the readability results. (In order to keep in line with the results from
test 2, when the antenna to conveyor belt distance (and thus antenna to tag distance)
increases, the power level must increase. This is possible under current law)
- A good antenna setup would be when the antennas are placed around a curve in the
conveyor belt. When placed around a curve, the products will be longer within the read
field and the products will come in the read field from several directions. In coming from
several directions into the read field, the tag orientation is less important, because it rotates
within the read field and will always come parallel onto the antenna read field
- Some (smaller) boxes will rotate on the conveyor belt during transport, therefore no tag
direction can be determined and in the worst case the tag will come parallel to the read
field of the antenna and will not be read. To overcome this problem several antennas have
to be placed around the conveyor belt, twisted with a small angle from each other to read
tags that are not parallel to the read field
- In future RFID system design a good relation between tag onto product placement and
antenna placement is important, this determines far most the readability results
B.7 Next Phase of RFID Technology Assessment
The next step in this RFID technology assessment consists of three parts:
- A bulk pallet reading test
- A pallet build test
- A system integration pilot
Test 1: Bulk pallet reading test
Goal: Tackle readability issues for pallets with a large number of tagged products.
In this particular test a pallet full of tagged products will be moved through an RFID dockdoor gate. The challenge is to determine a way to place the tags such that all tags will be
read with 100% readability during this pallet movement.
JM Hendriks
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Some test features:
- Tag all products and pallet (with removable/ re-usable tags)
- Run full pallets through RFID gate
- Test readability of products, experiment with parameters found in ‘fundamental’ testing
- Understand size of read ranges
- Define a maximum number of tags to be read during one pass (maximum amount of data
transfer through the software)
- Use SAP Auto-ID for management of RFID technology and data handling
(see Figure 66)
„100%“
Read-range
∆x
Accidental
read-range
Figure 66: Bulk reading test
Test 2: Pallet build test
Goal: Find out if RFID could eliminate barcode scanning operations during picking process
and tackle some issues regarding readability and operating questions.
The idea behind this test is that in future operations every forklift truck has an RFID antenna
mounted above their forks. During the picking process the reader will count and check if the
worker picks the right products and the right quantity. This would make the process very
easy and eliminates a number of manual, time-consuming barcode scans.
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JM Hendriks
Some test features:
- Build new (mixed product) pallets from 1 or 2 pallets; tag products on removal from
original pallet (with removable/ re-usable tags)
- Scan products during the stacking process and during the picking process
- Test readability of products, experiment with parameters found in ‘fundamental’ testing
- Understand size of read-ranges; how to avoid repeat reads, etc.
- Use SAP Auto-ID for management of RFID technology and data handling
- Variant: mount RFID device on EPT and perform pick tour
(see Figure 67)
Antenna
array
w
„100%“
Read-range
h
Accidental
read-range
Figure 67: Pallet build test
Test 3: System integration pilot
Goal: Learn how to implement an RFID system.
To investigate the data handling volumes and to learn to cope with the RFID information flow
a pilot project is planned to work the technology assessment out in further detail. For this
pilot an operation is chosen with a defined product range. Besides this, in the pilot no
readability issues may play a role; so a product needs to be chosen which has little boxes on
a pallet and where all boxes have an outer pallet side. In looking to the processes within the
distribution centre the flat television operation for the German market (via the Birkart
platform) seems to fit both conditions: it has a maximum of 8 products on one pallet, all with
an outer pallet side and is a good defined product group. A third advantage in using this
JM Hendriks
Page 121
specific product group is that Birkart (a third logistics party) is moving the products via a
platform in Cologne (Germany) to many Metro Group retailers. This means that Sony is
providing the Metro Group with RFID tagged products even before the Metro Group has given
Sony a mandate (to be expected in mid 2006).
Besides the goal several learning affects will be achieved, that is to integrate an RFID printer
from Zebra Technologies (R4M Plus printer), integrate RFID readers (Symbol AR-400),
integrate Class 1, Gen 1 RFID tags (both from Alien and Rafsec), integrate handheld Barcode
scanners (Symbol MC3000), integrate SAP middleware (SAP Auto ID) and tackle data
handling issues via several networks.
Pilot features, outbound Sony Tilburg:
- Apply RFID tag on each pallet during outbound operation
- Use a Zebra RFID printer which prints the (RFID tagged) address label and programs the
tag with the same information
- Read address label and RFID product tag during loading and combine data in RFID
application
Pilot features, inbound Birkart Cologne:
- Read PDP pallets with Gate antenna during Goods Receipt
- Print RFID Receiving report
- Match data (manually or/ and automatically)
- Use SAP Middleware
(see Figure 68)
„100%“
Read-range
Accidental
read-range
Figure 68: Television pilot
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JM Hendriks
Appendix C: Unit Pilot Test
In these particular tests hardware from Matrics/ Symbol is used:
- Four Matrics/ Symbol ANT-001 High Performance Antennas
For all tests: frequency 865.6 – 867.6 MHz and output power 2 W e.r.p.
- One Matrics Advanced Reader AR-400, Firmware 4.1.1 and FPGA 3.8.0
- Rafsec and Alien Generation 1, Class 1, 96 bits EUR EPC compliant tags,
write-once, read-many (WORM) tags
- A laptop with software: Matrics Tag Tracker, version 4.1.0
- A forklift truck with per movement one pallet with Flat televisions
(see Figure 69)
AR-400
Vaio
Figure 69: Test setup
Test 1: Define read-field of one antenna
Goal: determine the read-field around the antenna to make sure every tag moves within this
field in order to be able to read this tag.
Since during the pilot writable tags need to be used, a new technology is introduced: Class 1,
Gen 1 tags and the Symbol AR-400 reader. These work on other air-interface-protocols which
JM Hendriks
Page 123
makes it necessary to perform old tests again (see Appendix A.3). First the read-field of one
antenna is being determined. Several tags are placed at increasing distances and angles from
the antenna. At the computer it is being monitored which tags can be read (all the time) and
which are outside the read-field of the antenna (or fluctuating too much during reading). This
test is being done in two directions and for all four antennas individually. Figure 70 shows the
placing of the antenna and tags to calculate the read-field. It can be seen that a variation in
the direction of the antenna gives a variation in the read-field.
antenna
side view (short)
side view (long)
86°
72°
tags
Figure 70: Determination of read-field around one antenna
Conclusion: It can be seen that a variation in the direction of the antenna gives a variation in
the read-field; the short side has a read-angle of 86º and the long side has a read-angle of
72º.
Test 2: TV pallet with 9 tagged products
Goal: Determine if 9 tags can be read during normal loading process with two antennas.
In test 2 a forklift truck drives with a full pallet of 9 televisions through a gate with two
antennas (see Figure 71). All 9 televisions have an outer pallet side and are tagged on the
outside of the product-carton-box (see Figure 72 and Figure 73). In this test all tags are
parallel to the antenna (for best readability results) and move through the read-field
determined by Test 1. The forklift truck drives 33 times through the gate with the pallet in
front (this is the normal loading procedure when loading a truck and driving through the
dock-door-gate).
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JM Hendriks
One antenna
Figure 71: Setup for test 2
Tag
Figure 72: Pallet with 9 tagged televisions and forklift truck
JM Hendriks
Page 125
Tag
Figure 73: Pallet with 9 tagged televisions, pallet side-view
After the 33 runs, the number of tag-reads is counted and the read-rate can be calculated.
These so-called readability results are shown in Table 16 and Figure 74.
Tag ID
0x00000000000000000001
0x00000000000000000002
0x00000000000000000004
0x00000000000000000005
0x00000000000000000006
0x00000000000000000007
0x00000000000000000009
0x00000000000000000010
0x00000000000000000012
Number of
reads
33
17
30
23
26
0
0
33
0
Readability
percentage
100%
52%
91%
70%
79%
0%
0%
100%
0%
Total number of runs is 33
Table 16: Readability results test 2
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JM Hendriks
91 %
52 %
100 %
0%
100 %
0%
79 %
0%
70 %
Figure 74: Readability results test 2, pallet side-view
Because three of the nine tags give no readability at all, these tags are replaced by new ones.
Besides these not-performing tags, the readability of the other tags is also pretty poor,
therefore a second antenna is put to each side (see Figure 75) and the test is performed
again (see Table 17 and Figure 76). Clearly it can be seen that the performance of the three
unread tags increases, but the total readability of the 9 products is far from 100%.
Two antennas
Figure 75: Pallet with 9 tagged televisions moving through the gate with four antennas
JM Hendriks
Page 127
Tag ID
0x00000000000000000001
0x00000000000000000002
0x00000000000000000004
0x00000000000000000005
0x00000000000000000006
0x00000000000000000010
0x00000000000000000013
0x00000000000000000014
0x00000000000000000015
Number of
reads
30
15
30
24
27
30
30
33
30
Readability
percentage
91%
45%
91%
73%
82%
91%
91%
100%
91%
Total number of runs is 33
Table 17: Readability results test 2, second run
91 %
45 %
91 %
91 %
91 %
100 %
82 %
91 %
73 %
Figure 76: Readability results test 2, pallet side-view, second run
Conclusion: Readability of 9 products is far from 100%.
Test 3: TV pallet with 18 tagged products
Goal: Increase number of tags to be read to see if the readability performance decreases.
In this test a forklift truck with a pallet with 18 televisions moves through the gate. All
televisions have an outer pallet side to the antennas. On both gate sides two antennas are
placed. Then the forklift truck drives two runs (one of 23 and another of 21 times) through
the gate with the pallet in front (this is the normal loading procedure when loading a truck
and driving through the dock-door-gate). The readability results are presented in Table 18,
Figure 77 and Table 19, Figure 78.
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JM Hendriks
Tag ID
0x00000000000000000001
0x00000000000000000002
0x00000000000000000004
0x00000000000000000005
0x00000000000000000006
0x00000000000000000007
0x00000000000000000009
0x00000000000000000010
0x00000000000000000011
0x00000000000000000012
0x00000000000000000013
0x00000000000000000014
0x00000000000000000015
0x00000000000000000016
0x00000000000000000017
0x00000000000000000018
0x00000000000000000019
0x00000000000000000020
Number of
reads
23
12
17
21
22
0
6
12
0
0
10
23
22
3
12
8
6
8
Readability
percentage
100%
52%
74%
91%
96%
0%
26%
52%
0%
0%
43%
100%
96%
13%
52%
35%
26%
35%
Total number of runs is 23
Table 18: Readability results of test 3
Left side
Right side
100 %
52 %
74 %
100 %
96 %
52 %
91 %
96 %
26 %
13 %
0%
0%
52 %
0%
43 %
35 %
26 %
35 %
Figure 77: Readability results of test 3, pallet side-views
JM Hendriks
Page 129
Tag ID
0x00000000000000000001
0x00000000000000000002
0x00000000000000000004
0x00000000000000000005
0x00000000000000000006
0x00000000000000000007
0x00000000000000000009
0x00000000000000000010
0x00000000000000000011
0x00000000000000000012
0x00000000000000000013
0x00000000000000000014
0x00000000000000000015
0x00000000000000000016
0x00000000000000000017
0x00000000000000000018
0x00000000000000000019
0x00000000000000000020
Number of reads
21
13
11
21
21
2
20
14
0
7
11
20
20
9
20
21
19
21
Readability
percentage
100%
62%
52%
100%
100%
10%
95%
67%
0%
33%
52%
95%
95%
43%
95%
100%
90%
100%
Total number of runs is 21
Table 19: Readability results of test 3, second run
Left side
Right side
100 %
62 %
52 %
95 %
95 %
95 %
100 %
100 %
95 %
43 %
0%
10 %
67 %
33 %
52 %
100 %
90 %
100 %
Figure 78: Readability results of test 3, pallet side-views, second run
Conclusion: The readability performance is far from 100%. The tags from Class 1, Gen 1
perform much worse than from Class 0, Gen 1 (see Appendix A).
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JM Hendriks
Test 4: TV pallet with 12 tagged products in different angles, first
orientation
Goal: Determine if tags parallel to the antenna can be read.
In this test a forklift truck drives through the gate with four antennas. The products are now
tagged on the front and at the side of the pallet (see Figure 79). Again the readability
performance can be calculated, see for the results Table 20 and Figure 80.
Pallet side
Pallet front
Figure 79: Test setup test 4
Tag ID
0x00000000000000000001
0x00000000000000000002
0x00000000000000000004
0x00000000000000000005
0x00000000000000000006
0x00000000000000000007
0x00000000000000000009
0x00000000000000000011
0x00000000000000000012
0x00000000000000000013
0x00000000000000000014
0x00000000000000000016
Number of
reads
18
7
17
18
23
0
14
0
1
16
18
3
Readability
percentage
78%
30%
74%
78%
100%
0%
61%
0%
4%
70%
78%
13%
Total number of runs is 23
Table 20: Readability results of test 4
JM Hendriks
Page 131
0%
78 %
0%
13 %
74 %
30 %
78 %
78 %
61 %
100 %
4%
70 %
Figure 80: Readability results of test 4, front- and side-view
Conclusion: The tags at the front side of the pallet show even worse readability performance
than the tags at the side of the pallet.
Test 5: TV pallet with 12 tagged products in different angles, second
orientation
Goal: Determine if tags jammed between the pallet and the forklift truck can be read.
For this test the same pallet is being used as for test 4, with the same tags. The forklift truck
only takes the pallet from the front where it blocks the three front tags (these tags are
between the forklift truck and the pallet itself). The readability results are presented in Table
21 and Figure 81.
Tag ID
0x00000000000000000001
0x00000000000000000002
0x00000000000000000004
0x00000000000000000005
0x00000000000000000006
0x00000000000000000007
0x00000000000000000009
0x00000000000000000011
0x00000000000000000012
0x00000000000000000013
0x00000000000000000014
0x00000000000000000016
Number of
reads
18
6
13
18
18
0
13
0
0
12
3
4
Readability
percentage
100%
33%
72%
100%
100%
0%
72%
0%
0%
67%
17%
22%
Total number of runs is 18
Table 21: Readability results of test 5
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JM Hendriks
0%
17 %
0%
22 %
72 %
33 %
100 %
100 %
72 %
100 %
0%
67 %
Figure 81: Readability results of test 5, front- and side-view
Conclusion: The jammed tags show very poor readability results. During the pilot tags may
not be blocked.
Test 6: TV pallet with 12 tagged products in different angles, third
orientation
Goal: Determine if tags jammed between a pallet and a forklift truck can be read.
For this test the same pallet is being used as for test 4 and 5, with the same tags. In this test
the forklift truck only takes the pallet from the side. In doing so it blocks the nine side tags
(which becomes back tags) (see Figure 82). The readability results are presented in Table 22
and Figure 83.
Tag ID
0x00000000000000000001
0x00000000000000000002
0x00000000000000000004
0x00000000000000000005
0x00000000000000000006
0x00000000000000000007
0x00000000000000000009
0x00000000000000000011
0x00000000000000000012
0x00000000000000000013
0x00000000000000000014
0x00000000000000000016
Number of
reads
18
0
2
20
18
0
6
0
0
0
18
0
Readability
percentage
90%
0%
10%
100%
90%
0%
30%
0%
0%
0%
90%
0%
Total number of runs is 20
Table 22: Readability results of test 6
JM Hendriks
Page 133
Tag between truck and pallet
Figure 82: Test setup test 6
0%
90 %
0%
0%
10 %
0%
100 %
90 %
30 %
90 %
0%
0%
Figure 83: Readability results of test 6, side- and back-view
Conclusion: Most of the jammed tags show no readability at all. During the pilot the forklift
driver must load the pallet onto the truck without blocking some tags.
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JM Hendriks
Test 7: Define maximum read-distance for a tag with one antenna
Goal: Determine the maximum reading-distance per individual tag.
Now a tag is placed parallel to the antenna (angle is 0° in both the short view and long view
direction) and the longest read-distance is measured (see Figure 84). This is done for every
Rafsec and Alien tag individually. These maximum distances are presented in Table 23 and
Figure 85 on the next page.
antenna
side view (short)
side view (long)
Pr
Pr
R
R
tags
Figure 84: Distance measurements
Conclusion: The graph in Figure 85 shows a range of read-distances for the tags. Clearly it
can be seen that the performance per tag varies from 0 m (no readability at all) to 4.22 m.
This variation determines the readability of the total system since the average reading
distance during truck loading will be around 1.50 m (see Test 9).
JM Hendriks
Page 135
Rafsec tags
Tag ID
0x00000000000000000000
0x00000000000000000000
0x00000000000000000000
0x00000000000000000000
0x00000000000000000033
0x00000000000000000035
0x00000000000000000003
0x00000000000000000011
0x00000000000000000034
0x00000000000000000008
0x00000000000000000007
0x00000000000000000016
0x00000000000000000023
0x00000000000000000032
0x00000000000000000009
0x00000000000000000002
0x00000000000000000012
0x00000000000000000020
0x00000000000000000029
0x00000000000000000010
0x00000000000000000013
0x00000000000000000014
0x00000000000000000019
0x00000000000000000025
0x00000000000000000027
0x00000000000000000031
0x00000000000000000004
0x00000000000000000017
0x00000000000000000028
0x00000000000000000021
0x00000000000000000015
0x00000000000000000001
0x00000000000000000030
0x00000000000000000022
0x00000000000000000005
0x00000000000000000018
0x00000000000000000024
0x00000000000000000026
0x00000000000000000006
Alien tags
Reading
distance (m)
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.05
0.08
0.12
0.24
0.25
0.30
0.35
0.41
0.44
0.54
0.70
0.76
0.86
1.20
1.25
1.40
1.40
1.70
1.76
1.88
1.90
1.95
2.00
2.05
2.18
2.40
2.44
2.50
2.50
2.58
2.60
2.64
2.64
2.77
3.10
Tag ID
0x00000000000000000000
0x00000000000000000000
0x00000000000000000000
0x313233345246494400000000
0x000000000000000000000005
0x000000000000000000000001
0x00000000610150366099
0x00000000610150366132
0x000000000000000000000010
0x000000000000000000000006
0x00000000610150366140
0x00000000610150366100
0x00000000610150366141
0x000000000000000000000009
0x00000000610150366093
0x000000000000000000000007
0x00000000610150366095
0x00000000610150366133
0x00000000610150366102
0x00000000610150366139
0x000000000000000000000002
0x00000000610150366103
0x000000000000000000000003
0x00000000610150366136
0x000000000000000000000011
0x00000000610150366146
0x000000000000000000000004
0x000000000000000000000008
0x00000000610150366149
Reading
distance (m)
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.67
0.84
0.88
0.97
0.97
1.12
1.13
1.16
1.16
1.17
1.19
1.44
1.64
1.65
2.63
3.06
3.48
3.59
3.74
3.92
3.94
3.96
3.97
3.99
4.22
Table 23: Reading distances for Rafsec and Alien tags
4.50
4.00
3.50
Reading distance (m)
3.00
2.50
2.00
Rafsec
tags
1.50
1.00
Alien
tags
0.50
0.00
Tag ID number
Figure 85: Graph of maximum reading distance in free air for every tag
Page 136
JM Hendriks
Test 8: Define read-field of a tag
Goal: Determine if the twisting of the tag has influence on the readability performance.
To determine the read-field around the tag, one antenna is put on. The tag is placed parallel
onto the transmitter-field of the antenna and is rotated around its axis to determine the angle
in which it can be read (see Figure 86). The figure shows the angel under which the reader
reads the tag.
side view (short)
antenna
110°
tag
Figure 86: Read-field of a tag
Besides these reading angles, the reading orientation between tag-antenna and readerantenna is important. Figure 87 shows the test setup for this test. On the left the two
antennas are perpendicular onto each other; this gives the best readability result. On the
right, the two antennas are parallel; this gives the worst readability result. In changing the
orientation of the tag-antenna from perpendicular to parallel onto the reader-antenna, the
maximum reading distance decreases significant.
Antenna front-view
Antenna front-view
Tag front-view
Tag front-view
Figure 87: Tag-antenna to reader-antenna orientation
JM Hendriks
Page 137
Conclusion: From the measurements it can be seen that the tag must be within a 110º angle
of the antenna to make sure it gets read. The phenomenon from Figure 87 can be undone if
the tags would have dual-dipole antennas like the Matrics tags in Figure 42.
Test 9: Test readability during bulk reading
Goal: Determine bulk readability performance for 18 A class tags (A class tags are tags that
can be read from at least 1.13 m).
During the pilot within Sony, a pallet with at most 18 televisions will be driven through the
RFID antenna gate. Therefore this test needs to determine if all 18 tags are read every time
the pallet passes the gate. In the test setup a pallet is being used where on one side 18 tags
are attached (see Figure 88). This side moves alongside two antennas, and all tags are
passing through the read-field within the read-distance (both determined in Test 7 (see
Figure 89 and Figure 90)). From these Figures a calculation can be made for the maximum R
and θ to determine which tags can be used during the test run. Taking into account a little
safety margin, the next formulas can be used (see Figure 89 and Figure 90):
R1 =
X 2 + Y1 = 87 2 + 712 = 113cm
2
⎛ Y1 ⎞
−1 ⎛ 71 ⎞
⎟ = TAN ⎜ ⎟ = 40°
⎝ 87 ⎠
⎝X⎠
θ1 = TAN −1 ⎜
R2 =
X 2 + Y2 = 87 2 + 65 2 = 109cm
2
⎛ Y2 ⎞
−1 ⎛ 65 ⎞
⎟ = TAN ⎜ ⎟ = 37°
⎝ 87 ⎠
⎝X⎠
θ 2 = TAN −1 ⎜
From the angle calculations the conclusion can be drawn that all 18 tags are just within the
read-field-angle of the antennas (see Figure 70, right side). From the distance calculation the
tags from Table 23 need to be chosen which can be read from at least 1.13 m.
From these calculations the tags are used from Table 23 which can be read from 1.13 m, as
stated above, and the test is performed. The readability results are presented in Table 24 for
both the Rafsec and Alien tags. In both tests the 18 best (longest read-distance) tags are
being used. The side-views of the pallets are presented in Figure 91.
Conclusion: All tags are within the read-field of the antenna and all tags can be read from at
least 1.13 m, still the readability is not 100% for all tags. Clearly it can be seen that the
readability has risen compared to former tests, but it is still not good enough (Demand:
99.95% for the total system). The total Rafsec system gives 92.89% and the Alien system
gives 86.67% of total readability.
Page 138
JM Hendriks
Figure 88: TV pallet with 18 tags on one side
87
24
70
14
AR-400
220
70
32
30
Figure 89: Side-view of test setup for test 9
JM Hendriks
Page 139
X
R1
Y1
θ1
AR-400
θ2
Y2
R2
Figure 90: Side-view of test setup for test 9
Rafsec tags
Number
of reads
Tag ID
0x00000000000000000001
15
0x00000000000000000004
15
0x00000000000000000005
14
0x00000000000000000006
15
0x00000000000000000014
15
0x00000000000000000015
15
0x00000000000000000017
15
0x00000000000000000018
14
0x00000000000000000019
15
0x00000000000000000021
15
0x00000000000000000022
11
0x00000000000000000024
15
0x00000000000000000025
15
0x00000000000000000026
15
0x00000000000000000027
15
0x00000000000000000028
15
0x00000000000000000030
2
0x00000000000000000031
15
Total number of runs is 15
Alien tags
Readability
percentage
100%
100%
93%
100%
100%
100%
100%
93%
100%
100%
73%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
13%
100%
Tag ID
0x00000000000000000002
0x00000000000000000003
0x00000000000000000004
0x00000000000000000007
0x00000000000000000008
0x00000000000000000009
0x00000000000000000011
0x00000000610150366093
0x00000000610150366095
0x00000000610150366100
0x00000000610150366102
0x00000000610150366103
0x00000000610150366133
0x00000000610150366136
0x00000000610150366139
0x00000000610150366141
0x00000000610150366146
0x00000000610150366149
Number
of reads
15
15
15
6
15
15
15
9
15
12
15
5
15
15
15
7
15
15
Readability
percentage
100%
100%
100%
40%
100%
100%
100%
60%
100%
80%
100%
33%
100%
100%
100%
47%
100%
100%
Total number of runs is 15
Table 24: Readability results of test 9
Page 140
JM Hendriks
Rafsec tags
100 %
100 %
100 %
100 %
100 %
100 %
100 %
100 %
100 %
73 %
100 %
93 %
Alien tags
100 %
100 %
100 %
100 %
13 %
93 %
100 %
100 %
80 %
60 %
100 %
100 %
100 %
100 %
100 %
100 %
100 %
47 %
100 %
40 %
33 %
100 %
100 %
100 %
Figure 91: Readability results of test 9
Test 10: Test readability during bulk reading, upgraded firmware
Goal: Determine if a firmware upgrade of the Reader increases the readability performance.
Since the readability results for test 9 do not give 100% readability for all tags and all tags
individually do give 100% readability, the reader firmware is upgraded to version 4.2.5 and
the test is performed again. The results are presented in Table 25 and Figure 92 on the next
page.
Rafsec tags
Tag ID
0x00000000000000000001
0x00000000000000000004
0x00000000000000000005
0x00000000000000000006
0x00000000000000000014
0x00000000000000000015
0x00000000000000000017
0x00000000000000000018
0x00000000000000000019
0x00000000000000000021
0x00000000000000000022
0x00000000000000000024
0x00000000000000000025
0x00000000000000000026
0x00000000000000000027
0x00000000000000000028
0x00000000000000000030
0x00000000000000000031
Total number of runs is 15
Number
of reads
15
15
15
9
15
15
15
15
15
15
4
13
15
17
15
15
15
14
Alien tags
Readability
percentage
100%
100%
100%
60%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
27%
87%
100%
113%
100%
100%
100%
93%
Tag ID
0x00000000000000000002
0x00000000000000000003
0x00000000000000000004
0x00000000000000000007
0x00000000000000000008
0x00000000000000000009
0x00000000000000000011
0x00000000610150366093
0x00000000610150366095
0x00000000610150366100
0x00000000610150366102
0x00000000610150366103
0x00000000610150366133
0x00000000610150366136
0x00000000610150366139
0x00000000610150366141
0x00000000610150366146
0x00000000610150366149
Number
of reads
15
15
15
8
15
15
15
8
15
14
15
5
15
15
15
9
15
15
Readability
percentage
100%
100%
100%
53%
100%
100%
100%
53%
100%
93%
100%
33%
100%
100%
100%
60%
100%
100%
Total number of runs is 15
Table 25: Readability results of test 10
JM Hendriks
Page 141
Rafsec tags
87 %
100 %
100 %
100 %
100 %
27 %
Alien tags
100 %
100 %
60 %
100 %
100 %
93 %
100 %
100 %
100 %
100 %
100 %
100 %
100 %
100 %
100 %
100 %
93 %
53 %
100 %
100 %
60 %
53 %
100 %
100 %
100 %
100 %
33 %
100 %
100 %
100 %
Figure 92: Readability results of test 10
Conclusion: After the firmware upgrade the total Rafsec system gives 92.61% and the Alien
system gives 88.44% of total readability. The firmware upgrade did not increase the
readability performance significantly.
C.1 Conclusions After Testing
In these 10 tests the boundary conditions from the former testing on the sorter and in the
laboratory are being used. These boundary conditions are:
- Make sure that the tag that must be read is within the 100% read-field of the antenna
- Make sure that the antenna and the tag are parallel to each other for best readability
results
- Use the ‘combined’ software tool for best readability performance (TDMA principle)
- Use the highest amount of reader output power as allowed by the regulations for best
readability and permeability
- Keep the tags as far as possible from each other, otherwise they will interfere
- Use the lowest possible amount of tags; the less tags, the better the total readability
performance
- Make sure that tags are not jammed between any materials or forklift truck and pallet
From these 10 tests new boundary conditions can be developed:
- The Rafsec tags are designed to stick to plastic crates, therefore their readability
performance when sticked to carton (carton is almost the same as free air) is lower. This is
because the dielectric constant of plastic is different from the one of carton. In the tag-
Page 142
JM Hendriks
antenna design this dielectric constant is being used to determine its length and its form.
The Alien tags are designed for carton. This difference can be seen in Figure 85, where the
Rafsec tags have shorter reading-distances
- Percentage of loss for the Rafsec tags is: 10% (4 out of 39), for the Alien tags: 14% (4 out
of 29).
- Performance per tag ranges significantly, therefore only Class A tags need to be used
during the pilot
C.2 Configuration Description for Sony
From the tests and the developed boundary conditions a configuration setup needs to be
developed for the pilot project. In the distribution centre from Sony in Tilburg, one outbound
dock door will be used (gate 78). Around this gate 4 antennas will be placed. The drawings in
Figure 93 and Figure 94 show the configuration during the pilot.
In watching how the forklift driver loads the truck it is noticed that they will always drive over
the steel red plate on the floor. In knowing this, the minimum and maximum distance X (Xmin
and Xmax) and the minimum and maximum read-angle θ can be determined (both for θ1 and
θ2, see Figure 94). These results can then be used with Figure 70 to see if all the tags are
within the read-field, and can be used with Table 23 to see which percentage of the tags are
within the read-distance. In doing so a conclusion can be drawn what the readability will be
for the total pallet, both when tagged with Rafsec and Alien tags.
From this observation the distance Xmin and Xmax can be determined. These distances can
then be used to calculate the angles θ1 and θ2 and reading distances R1 and R2 (see Figure 93
and Figure 94).
Y1 = 71 cm
Y2 = 65 cm
Xmin = (45 + 50) = 95 cm
Xmax = ((210 – 120) + 45 + 50) = 185 cm
R1 = (Y1 ) 2 + ( X min − max ) 2
R2 = (Y2 ) 2 + ( X min − max ) 2
R1,min = 712 + 95 2 = 119cm
R2,min = 65 2 + 95 2 = 115cm
R1,max = 712 + 185 2 = 198cm
R2,max = 65 2 + 185 2 = 196cm
JM Hendriks
Page 143
50
300
50
120
X
70
220
14
AR-400
70
30
45
210
45
Figure 93: Distances of the dock-door
X
R1
Y1
θ1
AR-400
θ2
Y2
R2
Figure 94: Configuration for pilot
Page 144
JM Hendriks
⎛
Y1
θ1 = TAN −1 ⎜⎜
⎝ X min − max
⎞
⎟⎟
⎠
⎛
Y2
θ 2 = TAN −1 ⎜⎜
⎝ X min − max
⎛ 71 ⎞
⎟ = 21°
⎝ 185 ⎠
θ 2,min = TAN −1 ⎜
⎛ 71 ⎞
⎟ = 37°
⎝ 95 ⎠
θ 2,max = TAN −1 ⎜
θ1,min = TAN −1 ⎜
θ1,max = TAN −1 ⎜
⎞
⎟⎟
⎠
⎛ 65 ⎞
⎟ = 19°
⎝ 185 ⎠
⎛ 65 ⎞
⎟ = 34°
⎝ 95 ⎠
From these calculations some conclusions can be drawn:
- Again all tags are passing the read-field within the read-field-angle
- Only the tags that have a read-distance over 198 cm can be used for the pilot, this means a
percentage of:
o
Rafsec tags: 33% (13 out of 39 tags)
o
Alien tags: 38% (11 out of 29 tags)
(see Table 23)
JM Hendriks
Page 145
Page 146
JM Hendriks
Appendix D: Selected Products for Pilot
LCD Televisions:
- KLV21SG2
- KLV23HR2S
- KLV26HG2
- KLV30HR3B
- KLV30HR3S
- KLVL23M1B
- KLVL23M1S
- KLVL23M1SI
- KLVL32M1B
- KLVL32M1S
- KLVL3SM1SI
Plasma Televisions:
- KEP37M1B
- KEP37M1S
- KEP37M1SI
- KEP37XSI
- KEP42M1B
- KEP42M1S
- KEP42M1SI
- KEP42XSI
JM Hendriks
Page 147
Page 148
JM Hendriks
Appendix E: Sony RFID Applications
Generic
benfits/differentiators from
barcode id
Scan-less goods movements
* cost efficient scanning of all
items and movements
* improved productivity
* improved data
accuracy/control
Manufacturing
Logistics
Supply Chain
Sales/Mktg
Retail
Customer
After-sales support
Environmental waste
Scan-less goods movements
parts receipt, goods issue to
production order, goods issue to
sales order
Scan-less goods movements
goods receipts, internal transfers,
goods issue, handling during
transport
Decreased buffer stocks through
increased data accuracy.
Understanding product journey
Cashier-less checkout
Link products to customers
through product registration in
combination with loyalty cards
Direct product info when
returned for maintenance
Registration of actual returns to
scrap to validate waste levies
Reduced scan/handling in
assembly by storing routing &
BOM on tags; decreased erors,
less control required.
Less stock counting, higher bin
accuracy, increased safety
(warning of hazardous materials)
and security
Measure total supply chain velocity Monitoring 'grey' market
Intelligent fridge/waste bin for
shopping list maintenance
Control of re-repairs
Easy separation of waste
Improved data accuracy (under
assumption of full readability, no
human errors)
Improved data accuracy (under
assumption of full readability, no
human errors)
Measuring velocity at individual
Link products to customers
steps of supply chain (how long at through product registration in
carrier platform; how long in
combination with loyalty cards
retailer DC; how long in store etc.)
Automatic replenishment
trigger/actual demand/sales
information: reduce oos improve
inventory productivity and
fresshness
Rapid price mark down (off price
stores)
Tracking & tracing customer
behaviour
Automated stock counting
Recognition of compatible
products to automatically configure
software for integration
Automatic replenishment
trigger/actual demand/sales
information
Link products to customers
through product registration in
combination with loyalty cards
Possible applications
Less stock counting, higher bin
Timely replenishment of
consignment stocks
accuracy, increased safety
(warning of hazardous materials)
and security
Route cause analysis of defects by Overboxing on inbound
capturing serial numbers
(capturing SN becomes achievable
in a cost efficient way)
Automatic replenishment
trigger/actual demand/sales
information: improve inventory
productivity and freshness
Receive automatic product update Counterfeiting spareparts:
info
eliminate possibility that non
Sony or Non Sony licensed
parts are being fitted into key
models
Product life-cycle measurement
- tracking of product from
manufacturing till waste
Validate retailer prices in store by
merchandisers
Product information and crossselling
Store/update product data on
the product: serial nr, colour,
size, manufacturer, current
price and ‘journey
information’
Locating
Zone location of handling units,
less missing, less time lost for
searching
Unaware scanning (security) Security, anti-theft
EPC: worldwide standard for
unique item level
identification, and concepts
that enable online product &
‘product journey’ information
Zone location of handling units,
less missing, less time lost for
searching
Improved control of consignment
stock, timely invoicing
Stock reduction due to reduced
pilferage
Counterfeit prevention
Enhanced product information
display
Product information and crossselling
Cross-selling - screens to
recognise what you've bought and
what you might also want
Electronic article surveillance/theft
prevention
Meet & greet - recognise
customers through clothes tags
and welcome personally
Lost, stolen and found: link
products to owners
Cost of readers and tags
Monitoring 'grey' market
Product information and crossselling
Customer product registration:
completing loop between point of
sale and customer
JM Hendriks
Page 149
Appendix F: Layout of Hal 4
H al 4
Stock
Sorter
Custom isation
M ezzanine
W rapping
Truck
loading
bay
Receiving
bay
O ffices
O utbound
JM Hendriks
Inbou nd
Page 151
Appendix G: IST 4th Aggregation Stratum of TME Group with Communication to WMS
Sony
WMS
WMS
Send data
to WMS
pick order
Picking
Scanning 8-digit
& pallet SSCC
Stock
JM Hendriks
Customizing
Customisation
area
Wrapping
WMS create
WMS load
WMS truck
shipping label
report
load report
Printing
address label
Wrapping area
Counting/
checking
Scanning
pallet
Scanning
truck
Truck
loading
Truck loading area
Page 153
Appendix H: IST 4th Aggregation Stratum of TME Group with Control Loops
External
Information
standards
environment
aberration
Initiating
Evaluating
standard
pick
customize
WMS create
WMS load
WMS truck
order
order
shipping label
report
load report
Comparing
Regulating
Comparing
i
m
Picking
Stock
JM Hendriks
Scanning 8-digit
& pallet SSCC
Customizing
Customisation area
Regulating
Comparing
m
Wrapping
Printing
address label
Wrapping area
Counting/
checking
i
m
Scanning
pallet
Scanning
truck
m
Truck
loading
Truck loading area
Page 155
Appendix I: IST 5th Aggregation Stratum of ATV Group for Birkart Platform
EDI
B irk a r t
WMS
EDI
IN F O D IS
Sony
WMS
R e c e iv e :
Sen d:
Sen d:
R e c e iv e :
Sen d:
Sen d:
Sen d:
Sen d:
Sen d:
Sen d:
Se nd:
R e c e iv e :
Send:
Sen d:
Se nd:
R e c e iv e :
Sen d:
Sen d:
Sen d:
• N um b er
o f M C ’s
• B u n d le
n um ber
• B u n d le
n um ber
• P ic k
lo c a t io n
• 8 -d ig it
cod e
• P a lle t
n um be r
(HU)
• P a lle t
n um ber
(HU)
• F u ll p a lle t
fo r
lo a d in g
• P a lle t
n um ber
(HU)
• W rapp er
n um ber
• P a lle t
n um ber
(HU)
• Ad dress
in f o
• A d dress
p a lle t
la b e l
(b l u e )
• Ad dress
p a lle t
la b e l
(blue)
• S ta g in g
la n e
n um ber
• L o a d in g
re p o r t
• A d dress
p a lle t
la b e l
(blue)
• T ru c k I D
• F u ll lo a d
re p o r t
• P ro d u c t
in fo
• P a lle t
n um ber
(HU)
• C u s to m e r
in fo
S o rtin g
p ic k la b e ls
S c a n n in g
R e c e iv e :
R e c e iv e :
• C u s to m iz in g
n um be r
• P a lle t
ty p e
• C u s to m iz in g in fo
P rin tin g
p ic k la b e l
• N um b er
o f p ic k e d
M C ’s
• Ad dress
la b e l
(blu e)
• W ra pp e r
n um ber
P ic k in g
M C ’s
S c a n n in g
S tic k in g
c a rto n
la b e l p e r M C
C los in g
p a lle t
S c a n n in g
P ic k in g
FP
S c a n n in g
S c a n n in g
S tic k in g
c a rto n
la b e l p e r M C
S c a n n in g
• P h o to
• S u p e r v is o r
s ig n a t u r e
R e c e iv e :
S ta g in g
la n e
S c a n n in g
W ra p p in g
S c a n n in g
S tic k in g
a d d re s s
la b e l (b lu e )
S c a n n in g
S c a n n in g
S c a n n in g
C h e c k in g
q u a lity
S c a n n in g
S c a n n in g
L o a d in g
M C p ic k
S c a n n in g
F P p ick
O rd e r re c e iv in g a re a
JM Hendriks
P ic k in g a re a
C u s to m iz in g a re a
W ra p p in g a re a
S ta g in g a re a
L o a d in g a re a
Page 157
Appendix J: Layout of Birkart Platform
1
JM Hendriks
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Page 159
Appendix K: IST Processes of Birkart
EDI
Birkart
WMS
Unloading
Inbound process
JM Hendriks
Breaking
down pallet
Scanning
MC
Sorting process
Pallet
building
Scanning
MC
Generating
master label
Mastering process
Prelabelling
Wrapping
Wrapping process
Scanning
pallet
Loading
Scanning
pallet
Outbound process
Page 161
Appendix L: SOLL Processes of Sony ATV Group
E DI
Birkart
WMS
E DI
IN FO D IS
Sony
WMS
R eceive:
Se nd:
Sen d:
R eceive:
Se n d:
Se n d:
Sen d:
Sen d:
Se nd:
Se nd:
Se n d:
R eceive:
Se n d:
Se n d:
Se n d:
R eceiv e:
Se n d:
Se n d:
Se n d:
• N um b er
of M C’s
• B undle
n um be r
• B undle
n um be r
• Pick
location
• 8-digit
cod e
• P allet
num be r
( H U)
• P allet
n um be r
(HU)
• F ull pallet
for
loa ding
• P allet
n um be r
(HU)
• W ra pp e r
n um be r
• P allet
num be r
( H U)
• S ta gin g
lan e
• A d dress
p allet
la b el
(blue)
• A d dress
p allet
la b el
(blue)
• S ta gin g
la ne
num be r
• Loa din g
re por t
• Ad dress
p allet
la b el
(blue)
• T ru ck ID
• F ull load
re port
• P rod uct
info
• P allet
n um be r
(HU)
• C ustom er
info
• P allet
typ e
• C ustom izing info
Prin ting
pick lab el
• N um b er
of picke d
M C ’s
Sortin g
pick lab els
Sc a nning
R eceive:
R eceiv e:
• C ustom izin g
num be r
Picking
M C’s
Sc a nning
Stickin g
ca rto n
lab el p e r MC
Sc a nning
• P hoto
• S upe rvisor
sig na tur e
• Ad dress
lab el
(blue)
• W ra pp er
n um be r
Closing
pallet
• Ad dress
info
Sca n ning
W ra p pin g
Sca n ning
Stic king
ad d ress
label (blu e)
Sca n ning
Sca n ning
Che cking
quality
Sca nning
Sca n ning
Sc a nning
Loa ding
M C p ick
Cap tu rin g
R FID d ata
W rap ping area
Staging lane
Sca n ning
Pickin g
FP
Sca nning
Sca n ning
Stickin g
ca rto n
lab el p e r M C
Sc an ning
Sc an ning
E AN -13
Sc an ning
SN
Sc a nning
E AN -128
Stickin g
2 R FID
lab els p er M C
C he c king
R FID
labels
M ieloo & A lexande r office
FP p ick
O rder rece iving area
JM Hendriks
Pick ing area
Custom izing area
Sony Au to ID
EDI
Birkart Auto ID
Page 163
Appendix M: Additional SOLL Processes of Sony ATV Group
SAP Auto ID
Input for
document ID
Input for
GTIN field
Input for
Sony client
SSCC field
Scan pallet
HU barcode
JM Hendriks
Scan
product 8-digit
barcode
Birkart client
Mieloo & Alexander
office
Scan
product SSCC
barcode
Print product
SGTIN tag
and attach
Automatically
start packing
Print pallet
SSCC tag
and attach
Scan
truck number
barcode
Drive pallet
through RFID
gate
Tag commissioning + Packing
Loading
Customisation
area Sony
Loading
area Sony
1
2
Page 165
Appendix N: Birkart Processes for Sony ATV Group
Birkart
WMS
Breaking
down pallet
Unloading
Scanning
MC
Pallet
building
Scanning
MC
Generating
master label
Prelabelling
Wrapping
Scanning
pallet
Loading
Scanning
pallet
Capture
RFID data
Inbound process
Birkart Auto ID
Sorting process
EDI
Mastering process
Wrapping process
Outbound process
Sony Auto ID
Mieloo & Alexander office
JM Hendriks
Page 167
Appendix O: Additional Birkart Processes for Sony ATV Group
SAP Auto ID
Birkart client Sony client
Mieloo & Alexander
office
Scan
truck number
barcode
Drive pallet
through RFID
gate
Unloading
Unloading
area Birkart
JM Hendriks
Page 169