RFID & Quality Verification

I have a client that wants to add RFID reader/writers to its RFID label production lines to verify quality. Do you have some companies that could help? Regards,

There are two possible answers to your question.

1. If your client is producing rolls of labels by marrying RFID inlays and label stock in a high volume production operation, I suggest that you contact reader manufacturers (e.g., Alien, AWID, Sirit, Symbol, Tagsys, etc.) to discuss application details including RFID inlay type(s), frequencies, line speed (labels/second), alternatives for "bad" tag handling (a "sticky wicket"), etc. At least a couple of high volume producers do individually mark "un-encodable" tags during production, but to my knowledge no one has yet come up with a way of automatically removing them from the roll.

2. As you probably know, most of the RFID printer/encoders on the market do verify the tag after encoding and before printing human-readable information on it. For example, if a Zebra printer/encoder fails to verify a tag's data content after encoding, it prints a void error message over the entire face of the tag. The printer/encoder then advances to the next tag and attempts to encode it. Users can select the number of times they want to try to encode a given data set on a tag and the printer/encoder usually sends error messages to the host system. Encoders can also be set up to stop printing when a bad tag is detected and send an error message to allow for user intervention.

Check out Managing Automation's RFID Products Directory for a list of printer/encoder manufacturers.

I would welcome feedback on the results of your investigation.

John