Monday, February 26, 2007

RFID national standards pilot extended

SUPPLY chain electronic standards body GS1 Australia has been given additional funding from the Federal Government to extend its national RFID/Electronic Product Code (EPC) pilot program.

Called the National Demonstrator Project (NDP), the pilot aims to develop a full business case and clearly show the return on investment for EPC/RFID for electronic proof of delivery by individual Australian businesses.

GS1 Australia general manager John Hearn said the project extension would run until the end of April to test the concept of paperless delivery and electronic proof of delivery (ePOD). It has been part funded by the federal Department of Communications, IT and the Arts (DCITA).

RMIT University and GS1 Australia will jointly manage the project and provide technical advice, while Telstra will continue to provide EPC communications through its Adaptive Asset Manager RFID solution and networking infrastructure for the project team.

Companies on the project team include Capilano Honey, CHEP. Franklins, Linfox, Masterfoods and Procter & Gamble. Retriever Communications will RFID-enable their application at CHEP and provide a scanning application for RFID readers, integrated into the Telstra systm.

“This extension will be useful to illustrate how EPC standards facilitate the interoperability of different pieces of technology, allowing companies to achieve complete integration of EPC information into their business process,” said RMIT University’s head of Manufacturing and Materials Engineering Dr John Mo.

The team expects that the pilot will provide quantifiable results about the benefits of using RFID technologies and EPC standards to facilitate paperless delivery and electronic proof of delivery (ePOD).

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