RFID NEWSLETTER

CAL POLY, San Luis Obispo, CA 93407

December 6, 2004

Successful Clean-up of RFID Research and Testing Lab

On Sunday November 21, 2004 Cal Poly students joined forces with Meathead Movers to clean out Room 112 of the ARDFA Building to make room for the new Cal Poly RFID Research and Testing Lab (RTL), a multi-disciplinary research lab on campus for Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID). The space was donated by the College of Engineering,

The move, organized by Tali Freed and Fred Abler who co-direct the RFID RTL, went extremely well and with the help of 20 students and several support staff from Cal Poly Facilities Management on campus, literally tons of metal, wood, and cardboard were recycled.

Volunteers Clean Up ARDFA Lab on Sunday Afternoon

Volunteers: David Chapin, Tim Leung, Anthony Randolph, Kellie Nold, Shab Mehtabudin, Rob Connelly, Eric Veium, Alexis Hultine, Rida Chan, Jim Packikara, Manay Malhotra, Brandon Wong, Jeremy Clarke, Jeff Samandari, Gordon Lai.

Staff and students worked effectively as a team, finishing the job in six hours.  Tim Leung, a fifth year Industrial Engineering student, said “It was an overwhelming task, but with the awesome team effort, the IE students worked tirelessly and efficiently, all while having a great time.” 

“Recycle Rich” Wagner from Cal Poly Facilities Management reported that 2,340 pounds of aluminum, 1.34 tons of cardboard and paper, 2.13 tons of trash, and approximately 4 tons of steel were removed and recycled.

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T&A Donates $10,000 to CAL POLY RFID Research & Testing Lab

Tanimura and Antle (T&A), Inc., located in Salinas, CA, is one of the world’s largest lettuce growers and one of Wal-Mart’s produce suppliers. T&A is currently addressing Wal-Mart’s mandate to have RFID tags on all products from its top 100 suppliers by Jan 2005. T&A is leading the way in RFID tagging of produce like lettuce and cauliflower, which have high water content, and therefore are uniquely difficult to tag and read reliably.

T&A is looking for an additional return on investment (ROI) with RFID that will help justify the cost of RFID tagging (currently about $.50 per case). With fresh produce, a highly perishable good, the heat history of the produce can be captured using sensors and active RFID tags, and trucks can therefore be routed to the processing plant more efficiently, improving product quality and shelf life. This additional ROI will help T&A transition to RFID tagged produce at the case and pallet level.

Cal Poly faculty, Tali Freed and Rollin Strohman (emeritus) are currently working on a proposal for RFID-based research that will help T&A with an initial capture of product data in the field, and subsequent input into plant processing and warehouse management systems.

Tom Casas, Vice President for IT at T&A

T&A has deep roots with Cal Poly. The owner and CEO - Rick Antle, the President and COO - Ken Silvera, and the Vice President for IT - Tom Casas, are all CAL POLY alumni. To support Cal Poly’s new RFID Research and Testing Lab and develop a close working and research relationship Tanimura & Antle, has donated $10,000 to the CAL POLY RFID Research and Testing Lab.

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Students Apply RFID Technology to Beer Kegs at Pacific Beverage

Currently all major brewing companies are experimenting with RFID tagging to reduce the number of lost or stolen kegs. Two graduating Cal Poly Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering seniors, Jayson Aquino and Greg Maita, decided to test the practical application of RFID technology for their senior project.

Jayson and Greg have been researching the applicability and cost benefit of RFID technology at Pacific Beverage’s Santa Margarita Warehouse. Pacific Beverage is an affiliate of Anheuser Busch, and has 4 distribution warehouses on the central coast from Ventura to Santa Margarita, CA. 

By tagging the kegs and pallets, RFID technology will enable Pacific Beverage to more accurately track their inventory, and ensure product quality. Using RFID product tracking will also substantially decrease order processing and fulfillment times, allowing Pacific Beverage to keep more current inventory and reduce both perishable loss, and loss from theft.

Jayson’s and Greg’s research has shown that RFID technology is not cost beneficial at this time for Pacific Beverage. RFID tagging of beer kegs cost two to five times more than traditional bar coding, however it may become beneficial in the future as tag prices steadily decrease.

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Lab Slated to Become A SUN Center of Excellence for RFID

On Monday Nov. 22, 2004, co-directors Fred Abler, Tali Freed visited Sun Microsystems in Menlo Park, CA for a day of meetings to present the Cal Poly RFID Research and Testing Lab to a team of SUN executives. The meeting was arranged by Sema Alptekin, a Cal Poly IME professor currently on sabbatical at UC Berkeley. During the day-long series of meetings, the directors presented their vision for RFID Research at CAL POLY, resulting in the RFID Research and Testing Lab being nominated to become the SUN Center of Excellence for RFID.

A SUN Center of Excellence is a formalized and documented relationship between SUN’s Global Education and Research division, CAL POLY, and external SUN business partners. All partners involved in the Center of Excellence bring special expertise of special importance to SUN. Typically the relationship will span anywhere from one to three years in length, and will vary according to the nature of the goals and objectives of the Center and educational institution.

“Becoming a SUN Center of Excellence will greatly enhance the lab’s access to emerging SUN technologies, and our ability to attract federally earmarked funds”, said Abler. The SUN Center of Excellence story will be the feature of our January edition of the RFID Newsletter.

ESCORT MEMORY SYSTEMS Donates Hardware to CAL POLY RFID Lab

Escort Memory Systems (EMS) of Scotts Valley, CA has been developing, manufacturing, and supporting RFID installations for supply chains around the globe since 1985. EMS has recently donated the first set of hardware, including an RFID interrogator and tags to the nascent CAL POLY RFID Research and Testing Lab. The donation was made by Rod Petrianos, Sales Manager for EMS and by Suresh Palliparambil, Director of Marketing.

Rod Petrianos will be visiting campus on Wednesday December 15^th for a presentation on EMS products and solutions. Location and time TBA.

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For questions of comments on this newsletter, please email Fred Abler at abler@calpoly.edu or Tali Freed at tfreed@calpoly.edu .