There are NFC CARD so many options in terms of tags; it might look like a standardization nightmare. Not so, says Professor Kary Främling of the Business Information and Technology Research Centre at Aalto University in Finland. "Today, there are standards for item management, logistics containers, fare cards, animal identification, tire and wheel identification, and many other uses. For supply chain management applications, we're nine tenths of the way there when it comes to standardization."
The International Standards Organization (ISO) and EPCglobal regulate RFID standards most relevant for the supply chain. Of notable popularity is EPCglobal's Gen 2 standard, which facilitates the use of Electronic Product Code™ (EPC) numbers that provide both RFID technical specifications and a numbering system for unambiguous identification, especially useful in processes when RFID readers are not involved at every step.
Professor Främling first tested the robustness and functionality of RFID tags in a 2001 research project: tracking power plant parts through their journey from Scandinavia to South America. Working in conjunction with Kvaerner Pulping, a Finnish power plant manufacturer then a part of the Norwegian industrial service provider Aker Kvaerner, Främling's team made use of RFID tags-barcodes being too fragile for this application-to ensure that the thousands of component parts were accounted for when hundreds of workers showed up to put the plant together. "It was a very successful real life experiment using an emerging technology," says Främling. "Not only were we able to quickly reconcile all parts against the manifest, but the project were able to continuously trace all tagged parts over the course of the project. And since the RFID middleware developed for the project was connected to Kvaerner Pulping's existing project management software, changes in the project and shipment schedules could be detected early on and reacted to proactively."combo cards
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