In an effort to boost RFID deployments in manufacturing environments, item-level RFID infrastructure vendor TAGSYS recently announced what it claims is an industry-first Quality-of-Service (QoS) performance program aimed at pharmaceutical manufacturers. Called the Six Sigma Performance Program, TAGSYS provides a guarantee of fewer than four failures in 1 million read opportunities in the item-level RFID track-and-trace process.
The promise of RFID has been "over-hyped and under-delivered," says John Jordon, president of sales and worldwide field operations for TAGSYS. The company's intent is to encourage RFID adoption by shifting the focus from protocol or frequency debates toward providing measurable data that can clearly demonstrate ROI. "If you can monitor and measure data, then you can make guarantees," he says.
The Six Sigma Performance Program is available on a subscription basis, for which customers pay a flat monthly fee for an agreed-upon level of service. If system performance falls below that level, TAGSYS will tune or reprogram the RFID system as necessary, at no charge. An optional automatic technology upgrade feature is also available through the program, allowing customers to use new readers and tags, as they become available, without incurring upgrade fees.
The Six Sigma Performance Program is available only for pharmaceutical customers, which consistently face stringent regulatory, liability, and general supply chain requirements. Jordan doesn't rule out the eventual availability of similar QoS programs for other manufacturing verticals with strict performance requirements.
TAGSYS partner companies already involved in the Six Sigma Performance program include ODIN Technologies, a maker of RFID optimization software; SYSTECH International, a provider of packaging execution systems for the pharmaceutical industry; Alcan Packaging; West Pharmaceutical Services; and the RFID division of Europe-based semiconductor manufacturer NXP.
Jordan also noted that the Six Sigma program is available for use only with item-level high-frequency RFID technology, as opposed to the ultrahigh-frequency technology commonly used in case-and-pallet applications. A Venture Development Corp. report on the 2005 RFID reader market, released late last year, stated that the "overwhelming majority" of the readers sold that year were for low- and high-frequency applications. The research firm expects the market for RFID readers to reach $1.18 billion in 2010, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 30% from its $320 million mark in 2005.
The QoS performance program rollout follows TAGSYS's recent release of e-connectware, a software suite that provides remote management for global RFID networks, which also enables QoS capabilities, including centralized deployment, proactive monitoring, and on-the-fly performance tuning.
"Clients expect automated systems to be like water, power, and phone services -- always up and running," Jordan says. "We want to see RFID get there."
This article originally appeared in the May 2007 issue of Managing Automation.