Steel Guru (via RFIDJournal.com): Through the introduction of a real time location system, South Korean steel manufacturer POSCO is reducing accidents, improving employee and visitor safety and lowering energy consumption.

To ensure the safety of employees and visitors at the plant, POSCO has introduced its u safety management system, which utilizes ultra wideband radio frequency identification tags and interrogators to monitor all areas of the facility. Each person working in or visiting the plant is provided with a helmet fitted with a battery powered RFID tag, allowing managers to quickly locate that individual in the event of a serious accident, such as a fire or gas leak.

Mr Hanku Park, a senior master POSCO certified professional, said that his company previously had no means of tracking employees' locations throughout the factory. He added that "Ensuring worker safety at the plant is vital and we wanted a system that could track workers, visitors and even vehicles to monitor or limit their access to hazardous areas of the plant. We consulted with IBM Korea to find a solution that would best meet our needs. We conducted technical tests on the RTLS system and software that allowed us to determine the distance required between the tag and reader, given the iron and steel present as part of the production process, as well as determines tag and reader accuracy."

POSCO uses Ubisense's RTLS solution, with Series 7000 RFID tags affixed to personnel and equipment. The tags operate on a frequency of 6 to 8 GHz, beaconing once per second. The Series 7000 readers receive the beacons from the tags to determine position, and that information is then transmitted to the LAS middleware over a local area network.

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Earth Times: BOSTON, Sept. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Siemens Enterprise Communications Group (SEN Group), a premier provider of business communications solutions, and PosTrack Technologies have been chosen by Ottawa Regional Hospital and Healthcare Center (Ottawa Regional) to deliver a hosted unified communications (UC) solution. With the SEN Group OpenScape Voice Application and 24x7 monitoring and service desk and PosTrack ConnectPlus licensing, Ottawa Regional can enjoy advanced communications features without having to manage the system internally, making it easier to focus on their core business - healthcare.

While many healthcare providers have scaled back capital expenditures, Ottawa Regional continues to invest in patient care, adding a new cancer treatment and radiation oncology center, as well as an expanded diagnostic imaging center. Residents of LaSalle County, Illinois and surrounding communities benefit from a comprehensive range of healthcare services, including inpatient and outpatient medical and surgical care, emergency care, pre-natal and post-partum care, rehabilitation and physical therapy, behavioral health services, home health and hospice care.

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GPS Business News: A French start-up named Insiteo and specializing in indoor positioning has concluded the initial phase of a founding round valued at several million Euros. Investment has been secured from venture capital firm Emertec and a small group of private investors, including Anne-Sophie Pastel, former CEO and co-founder of auFeminin.com, with the support of ACTA Finance.

“The increase in capital will enable us to equip our first clients, including a major site in Paris attracted by the benefits of the Insiteo solution,” said Arnaud Masson, President of Insiteo. “Ours is indeed a disruptive technology able to deliver to most existing phones a perfect continuity of location services in environments where GPS is unavailable, including commercial centers, tradeshows, and industrial sites,” Mr. Masson continued.

Insiteo’s technology is an infrastructure-based solution that combines A-GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, and, in some cases, FM radio to provide indoor, sub three meter positioning. “We’ve identified sites where our clients place a sufficiently high value on being able to deliver location-based information that they can justify a modest investment in site-specific infrastructure”, explained Stuart Strickland, vice president at Insiteo. “Unlike many RTLS systems – which, in some respects, this approach resembles – we do not rely upon any customized user equipment, so anyone with a phone can essentially walk in and participate”, he added.

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PRWEB: Vancouver, B.C. (PRWEB) September 21, 2009 -- Rx Networks, Inc., a leading mobile location technology company, today announced its new XYBRID™ multi-mode positioning engine. XYBRID™ uniquely combines Cell-ID, WiFi signals with Assisted GPS ephemeris and coarse position aiding to yield fast and ubiquitous positioning for virtually any device.

"As a low-overhead, operator independent Assisted-GPS solution, XYBRID RT™, the first and real-time version of the solution, is optimized for service providers and device manufacturers - such as asset tracking companies - in need of fast global positioning, and for whom the lack of Assisted-GPS roaming or cost variances make it impractical to consider implementations across multiple operators", said Guylain Roy-MacHabee CEO of Rx Networks. "Also, in contrast with other GPS aiding solutions that can potentially expose user identity XYBRID RT™ contains no user identification mechanism and ensures security and privacy for applications that need it, such as tracking high value cargo."

"XYBRID RT™ is a perfect fit for Fastrax offerings and more importantly, for our customers. There is a continuous need to improve fix availability and TTFF in "impossible" environments in almost every asset tracking application. With our XYBRID RT™ based offering we serve our tracking customers as well as our GPS module customers even better than before and we expect this extended service to be greatly appreciated", said Fredrik Borgstrom, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Fastrax.

Rx Networks supports flexible business models and XYBRID RT™ can be licensed on a usage or a lifetime subscription basis. Rx Networks provides a XYBRID RT™ mobile client compatible with most mobile operating systems and most GPS chipsets. XYBRID RT™ will be available for commercial use in December 2009.

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PR.com: Uherske Hradiste, Czech Republic, September 20, 2009 --(PR.com)-- RTLS technology can be used everywhere, where is useful the knowledge of the exact current location of a tracked object: in the healthcare to track the location of mobile equipment and to increase patient safety; in logistics for tracking goods, shipments, containers and monitoring of transporting conditions; in the automotive industry for tracking in car manufacturing as well as distribution or in retail for shopping carts tracking and analysis of customer behavior. The system also supports efficient data collection based on wireless sensors, the tags are equipped with.

The project is now at the stage of testing. It will be commercially available in the fourth quarter of this year. Further development of this product will be realized in the company Westico Technologies, Inc., which was established with the aim of a close technological and commercial specialization in this product.

This project was conducted with financial support from the state budget through the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

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Equity Bulls: Hyderabad, September 14, 2009 : Bartronics India Limited (Bartronics), one of India's largest bar code and RFID technology companies today announced that its subsidiary, Bartronics Asia, has been selected for a RFID project from Avitar Group, in which Bartronics Asia will aid and manage the Avitar initiative to automate the distribution process using RFID technology.

Avitar, a Singapore-based group with operations around the world, is focused at its core in the wholesale and distribution of mobile phones, including software products, with a focus to expand into related businesses in the international arena.

Bartronics will develop an application specifically aimed at mobile phone distribution warehousing, where each mobile phone box is tagged with an RFID label and each label in turn associated to an International Mobile Equipment Identity (Unique IMEI) number of each phone via a handheld RFID reader. The Bartronics application involves automatic scanning and reading of mobile phone boxes stacked up on a trolley for outbound dispatch.

The RFID application detects and reads mobile phone boxes en masse when a trolley is pushed through a Gantry RFID reader at exit doorway to ensure physical outbound quantity matches actual quantities dispatched.

"Bartronics is delighted to add Avitar to its list of clients in the RFID space, where we are emerging as strong space leaders. Our work on this RFID application is a great example of our thought alignment – making business work. Avitar operates in a fast-paced business of phone distribution and moves close to 40,000 mobile phones per month. Our RFID system would help streamline its processes and improve delivery turnaround time, enhancing overall customer service level," said Sudhir Rao, Managing Director, Bartronics.

Bartronics Asia aims to work closely with Avitar to productise the application and others to follow to jointly market the solution to the region, Sudhir Rao added.

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PR.com: Guangzhou, China, September 07, 2009 --(PR.com)-- DAILY RFID, a Chinese leading producer of RFID tags, has recently unveiled its latest UHF Gen2 RFID laundry tag-06 for industrial laundry environment. The laundry tag has been tested to survive after 200 times laundry process in industrial laundry.

Under industrial laundry process, most of RFID laundry tags available in the market can be reused only for 30-50 times. And DAILY's laundry tag can be reused for 100-200 times under harsh industrial laundry conditions since it is made of PET and copper to meet all endurance requirements in terms of heat and chemical resistance.

This ultrathin RFID laundry tag is designed in 0.7mm thick for easy attachment to linen, such as garment, towel and bed sheet. With strictly technique, it can work accurately when subjected to the harsh laundry conditions, including high temperatures, pressure and aggressive chemicals.

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Earth Times: GRAND RAPIDS, MI and SAN DIEGO, CA -- 09/01/09 -- Skytron today announced the addition of Skytron Asset Manager, powered by Awarepoint, to its agreement with Premier Purchasing Partners L.P., the group purchasing unit of Premier Inc. Premier members will now have access to pre-negotiated pricing on margin improvement tools to create new revenue streams and reduce expenses. Skytron Asset Manager (http://www.skytron.us/s-asst-mgr.htm) is a perfect complement to Premier members, providing a way for hospitals to get more productivity while spending less.

"Skytron is extremely excited to partner with Premier in bringing RTLS solutions to their members' hospitals," said Mike Breslin, Skytron Corporate Accounts Director. "Skytron Asset Manager will have a direct impact on each member's bottom line and allow them to utilize their limited resources to provide the best healthcare possible. Premier took notice of an opportunity to help their member hospitals and has moved to capitalize on those real dollar savings quickly."

Skytron Asset Manager is specifically designed to boost productivity, lower equipment costs, improve workflows, and optimize utilization of critical assets. Skytron Asset Manager utilizes Awarepoint's patented ZigBee (www.zigbee.org) wireless sensor network technology that is easy to use and install, without disruption to patient care or existing IT infrastructure. Sensors simply plug into electrical outlets to form an enterprise-wide wireless network. Low-power active RFID tags are attached to equipment, which can then be located through the enterprise with one to three meter in-room location accuracy. A comprehensive reporting suite provides business intelligence about the location, status, movement and usage of mobile medical equipment. Skytron offers its RTLS as a fully managed service, providing hardware, software, installation, maintenance and ongoing support.

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Reuters (Business Wire): REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Sep 02, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Premier Purchasing Partners, L.P., the group purchasing unit of the Premier healthcare alliance has selected AeroScout's healthcare visibility solutions as the exclusive Wi-Fi-based RFID solutions for Premier's member hospitals. Premier, a quality and cost improvement alliance of more than 2,200 U.S. hospitals and 63,000 other healthcare sites, awarded a three-year contract to AeroScout as a preferred provider for RFID Asset Tracking and Management Solutions. AeroScout solutions provide visibility into the location, status and condition of assets, patients and staff throughout all hospital departments. AeroScout is already the chosen solution for hundreds of hospitals and is exclusively endorsed by the American Hospital Association.
"Premier is proud to offer RFID solutions that drive key benefits for hospital organizations, such as ensuring regulatory compliance, improving patient safety, reducing capital and operational expenditures, increasing staff efficiency and enhancing patient care," said Mike Alkire, President of Premier Purchasing Partners.
AeroScout's healthcare solutions include real-time Asset Management, Equipment Maintenance, Humidity & Temperature Monitoring, Workflow & Resource Management and Patient & Staff Safety. These applications all employ AeroScout's industry-leading technology that leverages clients' existing Wi-Fi infrastructure and integrates with most healthcare IT software systems. AeroScout solutions serve the needs of clinical staff, IT management, clinical engineers, biomedical engineers, materials management, laboratory staff, pharmacy personnel and many other hospital users.

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Newswise: A new study on the use of radio-frequency identification tags on individual retail items shows that inventory accuracy decreases or diminishes over time with conventional systems that rely on barcodes and/or human counting to track inventory. The research, conducted by the RFID Research Center at the University of Arkansas, also demonstrated that the use of an RFID-enabled system could improve inventory accuracy by more than 27 percent over a 13-week period. “This project was part of a larger research effort to demonstrate and quantify the business value of RFID item-level tagging for day-to-day operations in a retail environment,” said Bill Hardgrave, director of the research center and professor of information systems in the Sam M. Walton College of Business. “The results can guide companies as they investigate whether, and to what extent, to implement RFID. The findings provide insight on how RFID can help retailers increase efficiency and thus significantly reduce expenses, which is always important but even more so in this tight economy.” The investigation included two Bloomingdale’s stores – a test store with an automated, RFID-enabled system and a control store with Bloomingdale’s inventory-management system – in a major northeastern metropolitan area. The 13-week project focused on two departments – men’s denim jeans and women’s denim jeans. To establish baseline information, physical inventory counts were taken three times per week for the first five weeks by workers using both RFID and barcode readers. For the remaining eight weeks, physical counts by workers using both types of readers were conducted two times per week.

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