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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REUTERS: ORLANDO, Fla., Aug. 31 /PRNewswire/ -- Intelligent Global Pooling Systems(iGPS Company LLC), operator of the world's first all-plastic pallet rental service with embedded RFID (radio frequency identification) tags, is pleased to announce that their long-standing logistics provider, Ryder System, Inc., has been named the top logistics provider in the U.S.

Inbound Logistics readers from across the U.S. nominated and rated over 400 of their favorite third-party logistics providers based on superior service, low cost, and innovation in supplying business solutions. Ryder's unmatched capabilities in these areas put the company in the spotlight for this prestigious recognition.

"It is critically important to have a third-party logistics provider that you can count on," said Bob Moore, Chief Executive Officer of iGPS. "Ryder's consistent and reliable logistics and transportation solutions continually exceed our service expectations. Our long-term relationship has helped iGPS achieve the most advanced and efficient logistics operations in pallet rental services."

"Ryder is pleased to develop and manage a complete solution for iGPS that includes reverse logistics and transportation and inventory management to support the movement of up to 175 million, RFID-enabled plastic pallets annually," said John Williford, President of Supply Chain Solutions for Ryder. "We applaud iGPS for their innovation in revolutionizing the way unitized loads are being shipped throughout the U.S. and look forward to supporting their future growth and success."

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Security Park.NET: When IDTechEx first published the report “Apparel RFID 2009-2019”, it was able to profile 60 brand owners and retailers involved as well as detailing many uses throughout the apparel supply chain, including the widespread use of RFID in laundry. In 2009, however, adoption has accelerated, particularly for brands and retail. Avery Dennison has landed most of the tag orders in the past and it is involved in the trial at Harvey Nichols store in London which uses Motorola interrogators and in other UK retail trials.

However, many suppliers are seeing success in 2009 and the phenomenon is now truly global, with local system integrators usually involved. For example, US brand Ralph Lauren is trialling woven RFID tags in its merchandise in China as an anti-counterfeiting measure. Here are some other examples from the USA to Europe, Turkey, The Middle East, India and Japan and including shoes, jewellery, designer wristwatches and other accessories.

Krause outlet

Krause Outlet stores and sells off-season men's and women's brand-name fashions that it buys from retailers. In 2009, an RFID system now displays information regarding each garment in store windows, so shoppers can use mobile phones to reserve the clothes and then purchase them from a vending machine, instead of waiting two weeks as in the past.

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The Journal of Commerce: DENVER — Aug 31, 2009 — Fluensee , a leading provider of RFID-enabled asset management and supply chain solutions, announced today that Penske Logistics has selected Fluensee's Yard solution to provide real-time visibility and management of its trailers and yard assets.

Initially, Penske will implement the Fluensee Yard™ solution with a combination of passive Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) technologies at its Garland, Texas facility. The combination of RFID and GPS will provide Penske with real-time updates about the location, status and condition of company trucks and trailers.

Yard management solutions help reduce inbound and outbound trailer bottlenecks and allow companies to build effective yard plans, enhance their operating procedures and streamline their operations. Not all of them, however, can process the wide array of advanced automatic identification technologies available today. Fluensee Yard combines RFID and GPS technologies with advanced business rules and processes to automate workflow and events across yard operations. Fluensee Yard uses these automatic identification technologies to capture trailer information and automate the process of identifying and locating equipment within the yard and providing an on-demand, real-time inventory of all yard assets.

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MARKETWIRE via COMTEX: CAMBRIDGE, UNITED KINGDOM, Aug 28, 2009 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- "The introduction of the IBM/Ubisense system has resulted in accident prevention and overall employee safety improvement as well as adding to POSCO's reputation for innovation by leveraging UWB technology in a first-of-its-kind solution", comments Han Ku Park, project manager at POSCO in Pohang. "All the project objectives have been met on time and within the planned budget. The project team of IBM, POSCO and Ubisense have created the first of its kind in Korea and probably in Asia.
"The Korean version of Ubisense will allow us to satisfy the enormous demand we have witnessed since first introducing the product to research institutes in 2006", says HB Choi, General Manager, Ubisense Korea. "We already have deployments in 25 organisations and with immediate availability of a fully compliant product we will be able to satisfy the enormous pent-up demand we have seen from the Industrial and Manufacturing Market".
Korean Manufacturers include some of the highest volume automotive plants in the world, so the timing of the availability of Ubisense, already with a worldwide reputation at reducing costs and improving productivity for leading companies such as BMW, Honda and Caterpillar is pertinent, says, Simon Holloway of Manufacturing Consultancy, Bloor Associates.

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Market Wire: CHARLOTTE, NC and WILMINGTON, DE, Aug 27 (MARKET WIRE)
--
Patient Care Technology Systems (PCTS), a subsidiary of Consulier Engineering, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSLR), today announced that Christiana Care Health System, Wilmington, DE has selected the company's Amelior Tracker(R) system to automatically track and manage the hospital's assets throughout their two facilities. Christiana Care is one of the mid-Atlantic region's largest not-for-profit healthcare providers including Christiana Hospital in Newark, Delaware, and Wilmington Hospital in Wilmington, Delaware. Together, the hospitals have over 1,100 licensed hospital beds, support over 42,000 surgical procedures and admit more than 55,000 patients annually. Christiana Care will integrate the Awarepoint Real-time Location System (RTLS) to provide automatic location data capture to the Amelior Tracker end-user software. Awarepoint serves its U.S. healthcare customers through its exclusive distribution partnership with Skytron. Christiana Care has been a workflow automation partner with PCTS since 2004. Throughout the last five years, Christiana Care has implemented Amelior EDTracker(R) in both Christiana Hospital and Wilmington Hospital. The software's impact has allowed the combined emergency departments (ED) with over 160,000 ED visits a year, to achieve 100% real-time location of patients, as well as decrease wait time and increase patient and staff satisfaction.

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Wi-Fi Planet: Skyhook Wireless, known for its Wi-Fi Positioning System (WPS) and its hybrid positioning system (XPS), continues to quietly expand its user base. The company announced Tuesday a partnership with Geodelic, developer of the new Android mobile application, Sherpa.
Sherpa, which allows users to locate relevant information based on behavior recognition, a recommendation engine, and location-relevant information, was developed specifically for T-Mobile's myTouch 3G with Google. The app teaches itself what its owner likes based on behavior and user feedback, so it can prioritize the retailers, restaurants, and attractions it recommends. Geodelic also allows businesses (or brands) to create customized mobile content, such as promotions tied to their locations.
“Skyhook offers a major enhancement to the application’s location awareness,” said Rahul Sonnad, CEO and founder at Geodelic in a Skyhook press release Tuesday. “This allows Geodelic to more accurately target content for a user, whether they are in a mall or walking down the street. We developed Sherpa to give users a customized experience based on their location and interests. Skyhook provides the location performance that our application demands.”

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TMC Net: Bag-Claim.com, a company of RBD Consulting International, reportedly announced that it has introduced a brand new application, Bag-Claim, which connects a Bluetooth-enabled wireless speaker with an iPhone (News - Alert) and announces to the traveller’s iPhone that it is in close proximity and is approaching.
Officials at the company claimed that the Bluetooth enabled version 2.0 Advanced Audio Distribution Profile wireless miniature speaker must be attached to the baggage article and once it detects the traveller’s iPhone, it sends continuous alerts to the Smartphone until traveller turns off the app, presumably once the luggage has been collected.
“With a large percentage of people having iPhones and Bluetooth wireless speakers, this seemed like the perfect time to design and introduce something as useful and sensible as Bag-Claim,” said Robert B. Davidheiser Sr., founder of Bag-Claim.com.
Among smartphones, the iPhone is the most popular because it has captured nearly 50 percent of the U.S. and Canadian Smartphone market, and 33 percent of global Smartphone market.
And, among consumer electronic devices, smartphones are the gizmos that have a demand in the current down economy as evidenced by the following commentary: 1.21 billion mobile handsets, including 171 million smartphones, were sold in the year 2008 resulting in a 5.4 percent increase in sales over the previous year, and with other handset sales struggling to grow substantially, companies are ramping up their marketing strategy for selling smartphones. This, coupled with a reasonable consumer acceptance in Q408, bodes well for the future of smartphones. Additionally, consumers feel that they are getting a lot of devices and utilities rolled into one carry-anywhere- access-anything-use-anytime advantage

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PR WEB:
RFID Solutions Aimed At Increasing Visibility, Compliance Verification And Reduction Of Liabilities For Enterprise Clients.
Sparks. MD (PRWEB) August 17, 2009 -- AiRISTA, a U.S.-based provider of leading-edge auto-id, visibility & track and trace solutions (www.AiRISTA.com) announced the availability of its new and enhanced partner program in U.S and abroad. According to Sy Sajjad, CEO of AiRISTA, this new streamlined program was designed to encourage, benefit and empower mid-sized and smaller business partners all over the globe in addition to the company's traditional large system integrator partners. AiRISTA's most comprehensive and technology-agnostic solutions offer tremendous growth potential and business opportunities to our partners. AiRISTA continues to rely on the sales, service and the technical expertise of its partners to satisfy a wide range of customer needs both in U.S and internationally.
Frank Shirmo, AiRISTA's COO, adds that this new program introduces three levels of partnership designations and is structured to offer Partners with the maximum level of support based on their contribution, commitment, markets served and location of business. The addition of our latest international Platinum Partner, (our highest designation for a partner), ATNET Corporation Pty Ltd within the past few weeks in Sydney, Australia, speaks to the business value offered by this program.
Our philosophy is to never underestimate the importance of investing in innovative solutions that will improve our ability to understand, anticipate and address our customers' needs, said Tony Stefanovski, CEO of ATNET Corporation. AiRISTA is a strong partner that meets our customer's requirements for high-quality end-to-end RTLS, RFID solutions. It is my expectation that our solutions will strengthen the market positioning for both of our companies greatly.
Deployment of AiRISTA's personnel tracking solutions is planned for several of our enterprise customers within the next few weeks in Australia.

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Measurement Devices: Guangzhou / Guangzhou, China -- DAILY RFID has recently upgraded its UHF Long range RFID reader, Model DL910, to enhance the user experience and durablility, with promotion price price at $780USD.
It offers a long read range of up to 15m basing on different RFID tags.
This globally-compliant, high performance UHF reader, compliant with ISO 18000-6C(EPC Gen 2) & ISO 18000-6B standards, is ideal for installation in outdoor and industrial environments.
It is an autonomous reader that can be triggered automatically to read the tags with high identification accuracy even in a multi-reader environment.
For ease of use, the UHF Long range reader is designed with a unique keyhole bracket design and mounting bracket at the back to simplify mounting on counters.
It also has multi port interfaces such as RS232, RS485, Wiegand, TIP/IP.
The Model DL910 has an impressive read range of 8m - 15m based on different RFID tags.
The Long range RFID Reader DL910 has a variety of configuration options and can cater for the demand of rapid flowing asset tracking with compliant rate up to 100 km/h.
As a result, it is suitable for use in vehicle access control, warehouse management, process automation where tags are to be read and written to at fast moving speeds.
Please visit www.rfid-in-china.com/products_702_1.html or contact DAILY RFID for more infomation about it, Their wide variety of RFID Tags and other accessories

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