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Crown Equipment, a winner of over 50 product design awards, is using RFID to maintain a 24/7 tool crib for their employees. Under the system, employees can sign out equipment at any time during their shift. The equipment crib no longer needs someone assigned to it 24 hours a day, just a few short shifts for restocking tools. The soft costs include reduced labor costs, less downtime, improved productivity, and more [via Reliable Plant]

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Robert Brandewie, a former US defence director, gave a talk in Australia about smartcards. Brandewie is a former director of the Defense Manpower Data Centre, which provides info services to US DoD's military personnel, employees and contractors. Under that role, he oversaw the implementation of 11 million smartcards. Australia is implementing smartcards that will tie their Medicare and other programs, at a cost of Aus$1B over two years, and Australian Minister for Human Services was being briefed by Brandewie. [via Computer World Australia]

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Printronix Inc., who are involved radio frequency printer solutions, etc., are promoting a new training program, RFID Edge. Under the program, Printronix would train and support solutions providers. The week-long program is endorsed by "12 prominent RFID manufacturers", so I assume training would not be Printronix-specific. [via RFID Solutions]

Given the shortage of skilled workers in the industry, and a dearth of college and university programs (at least in the US), this sounds like a good alternative. Hopefully more vendors will consider adding programs, maybe as a collective. If they don't approach colleges and universities to set up degree programs.

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IT Jungle points out an interesting tidbit of information about Wal-Mart's suppliers: they are mostly "OS/400 shops". OS/400 is related to AS/400, an IBM mainframe computer operating system for which it's actually difficult to find programmers. As I understand it, "real programmers" wouldn't take a job in AS/400. Then again, AS/400 shops, in my experience, tend to be extremely fussy about who they hire as programmers. Not sure, but if OS/400 shops are the same way, it might actually account for why the IT departments of Wal-Mart suppliers are so reluctant to move forward with RFID.

I'm only speculating, but if you are the IT director of your company and you have a hard enough time finding staff for your current technology, then your boss comes along telling you that the biggest client wants them to convert to RFID tracking, for supply chain management... Well, I can see how some directors may feel some reluctance, especially in a new arena such as RFID. And if this is indeed the case, maybe all it would take is a few more pep talks by Wal-Mart, before a supplier enters the actual conversion process. Just some thoughts.

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Frost & Sullivan have presented their Product Innovation Award, in the RFID supply chain market, to Savi Technology. Savi, a division of Lockheed-Martin, has been focused on solutions for managing military consigments for coalition defense forces. Their solutions are able to capture data from several technologies including bar codes, sensors, passive and active RFID, and GPS. [via Sys-Con] One of Savi Technology's many gigs was with the Spanish Armed Forces earlier this year.

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TraceAll and Symbol have teamed up to offer solutions for companies that have to comply with food safety requirements by tracking ingredients throughout the supply chain. The solution will use TraceAll's Traceability software and Symbol's RFID readers. A few select European countries will be part of the first phase. [via Food Production Daily]

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FSBO Media Holdings (FSMH) plans to acquire TOTALtrak's business product line. The latter company makes a variety of technologies, most of which are focused on law enforcement, security and defense applications. The product line will be marketed to the military by Presidential Holdings, a military/ defense consulting company which FMSH acquired last week. [via Yahoo Biz/ Finance]

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Label-maker and office products company Avery-Dennison announced the purchase of RF IDentics, as well as the start of some RFID initiatives. The company, who has been involved in RFID for several years, is the only one in the industry to have a high-speed RFID inlay production process, achieving speeds of over ten times that of competitors. [via RFID Solutions Online]

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Omron RFID is purportedly using aluminum in their HF (High Frequency) RFID inlays due to customer complaints about their copper inlays - particularly in regards to environmental issues. Omron will continue to manufacture copper RFID inlays as well. [More RFID via RFID Blog]

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