Supply Chain RFID Solutions

The Problem    The Solution   
The Parmod® Advantage – Today       The Parmod® Advantage - Tomorrow

The Problem

In supply chain management there is a need for information on the source of goods, their status in transit, the location of inventory, inventory obsolescence, inventory cost, shrinkage or pilferage, real and perceived stock outs, selling price, sale location and other metrics that would result in better management of the supply chain and all businesses in the supply chain.

Addressing these supply chain inefficiencies with traditional technologies was generally not deemed to provide a sufficient return on the capital and personnel required.  Bar codes required human or machine intervention with a line of sight scanner and manual input of the unscannable often resulted in inconsistent results. Other trials were hampered by human error or delays resulting in incorrect or untimely decisions. 

The RFID Solution

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is an orientation independent (non-line of sight) automatic data management technology well suited to supply chain management.   The advent of RFID and its decreasing cost can enable highly advanced supply chain management solutions.  Today, RFID UHF transponders are now approved in most countries and have read distances of up to 10 meters.  Their relatively low cost has driven adoption by retailer ‘mandates’ (Wal-Mart, Target, Tesco, Metro, others), the Department of Defense and other initiatives. 

An RFID implementation deploys a transponder and a reader/transceiver, often called an interrogator.  At the start of the supply chain, the manufacturer places RFID tags with Electronic Product Codes (EPC) on products or their packaging.  These EPC’s are then included in or onto cartons or pallets for shipment, tracking, and advanced arrival notification to the recipient.  Throughout the distribution system, visibility, location, and time can be provided to users of the system. Retailers know when the goods are in their distribution centers, when they move to retail stores, and through retail checkout to the consumer and even for post-sale returns.  This powerful system is, however, only possible if all the trading partners collaborate on its adoption and use.  IDTechEx estimates that pallets and cases in 2010 will consume 10 billion labels and item level tagging will consume 27 billion tags or labels.

How do we supply 40 billion RFID transponders?

UHF RFID transponders provide the cost and read distance desired by most RFID supply chain management systems.  Problems with the reading of liquids and metal are being overcome by product placement and packaging.   The manufacture a UHF antenna is straightforward.  It is generally a dipole antenna printed in one step with Parmod® inks by screen printing, rotary screen, flexographic printing or rotogravure.   The IC chip is usually attached in the center.  Chip attachment may be by ‘pick and place’ using a conductive adhesive or using a strap attachment process where the chip has been mounted on a small substrate with connecting leads and the ends of the strap are attached to the antenna. 

The billions and billions of labels needed in the next few years will move the industry to the lowest cost manufacture of antenna, notably those using Parmod® VLT conductive inks and the higher speed rotary screen, flexographic, and rotogravure processes. 

The Parmod® Advantage - Today

Parmod® VLT conductive ink technology doesn’t use polymer resin to disperse precious metal particles. This eliminates the insulating dielectric coating on metal particles and provides for circuit traces with three to five times more conductivity and 30-40% lower cost than competitive conductive inks.  Parmod® inks can be printed onto paper or polyester and create one, two or three piece labels:

• A three piece label is created when the Parmod® antenna is printed onto polyester, a chip is attached, and the resulting ‘inlay’ is inserted into a label (between the face stock and the adherent surface/release stock).
• A two piece label can be created when the Parmod® antenna is directly printed onto the backside of the face label stock.  A chip is attached and the polyester inlay process is eliminated as well as the polyester itself.

 

The Parmod® Advantage - Tomorrow

In the industry’s continued quest to lower costs the next step is to eliminate the label and print directly on the paperboard or corrugated box.  Parelec Parmod® ink has already done this!   In a demonstration trial, Parelec’s Parmod® ink was printed onto corrugated packaging board using a flexographic press.   The RFID transponder with a chip attached is shown below. 

Finished UHF RFID Tag – First tag ever to be printed directly on corrugated paper

Upon completion of the trail, the direct-to-corrugated solution compared to printed and etched RFID labels and the results were evaluated.  The performance equaled that of a standard RFID transponder label. 

For more information about UHF transponders call your Parelec Technical Representative at 609 279-002 or info@parelec.com or one of Parelec’s Certified Printer Partners.