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(UPM Raflatac, Tampere, April 13, 2010) – UPM Raflatac will be exhibiting several industry solutions at RFID Journal Live!, the largest and most comprehensive event for RFID technology in the world. The conference and tradeshow will be held April 14-16, 2010, at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida.
Visitors to UPM Raflatac’s booth (#334) will have the opportunity to interact with multiple demonstrations from UPM Raflatac and its industry-leading partners, including:
– Trakaid CyTrack, a tool from Technology Solution Partners LLC and UPM Raflatac, which optimizes the production, warehousing and distribution of industrial gas cylinders. The demo features curved, plastic-encapsulated UPM Raflatac UHF Belt RFID tags equipped with NXP’s U-Code G2XM chips, which were co-designed by UPM Raflatac and Technology Solution Partners LLC. The tags are affixed securely to metal industrial cylinders. Included in the demo is a comprehensive Cylinder Tracking System and a scanning application that uses a handheld RFID reader. Employees can use this solution to automate key processes including scanning tagged cylinders, taking inventory and completing orders, thereby reducing processing timeframes and errors due to human intervention.
– Two solutions from UPM Raflatac and Pittsfield ID Technologies: The first, a bulk encoding program, Batch Complete™, leverages Pittsfield’s custom software and UPM Raflatac UHF Dogbone RFID tags equipped with Impinj’s Monza™ 4 tag chips, to individually encode already-boxed items, improving inventory control and accuracy. Batch Complete™ is also fully compatible with UPM Raflatac’s UHF Belt tag as well as other UPM Raflatac inlays.
The second, Pittsfield’s InMotion™ retail marketing solution, uses RFID-driven sensor technologies, an RFID reader and server and an LCD monitor, paired with UPM Raflatac’s UHF Belt RFID tags, to interact with the customer and communicate the brand message through streaming video, direct links to brand websites or fixed ads. When customers pick up RFID- tagged goods, the tool captures movement and presents them with targeted advertising. Retailers can use the system to increase sales through proactive communication with the customer as well as evaluate which items are generating the least and most interest, using data to fine-tune marketing strategies and drive product sales.
– A bike shop demo, which is a replica of an actual deployment, featuring Freedom Shopping’s RFID-enabled FLiP system, UPM Raflatac UHF Web and ShortDipole RFID tags and merchandise from independent retailer Uptown Cycles. This solution enables small and midsized retailers to leverage the power of RFID technology to streamline critical inventory management processes and reduce shrinkage and theft.
UPM Raflatac is also supplying UHF Frog RFID tags that will be used in the event attendee badges as part of Lygase RFID Solutions’ real-time, RFID-enabled conference attendee tracking, lead capture and data analysis tool.
For further information, please contact:
Mr Jan Svoboda, Sales & Marketing Director, Americas, RFID, UPM Raflatac, tel. +1 805 312 4679
Mr Girish Gupta, Marketing Director, Technology Solution Partners, LLC, tel. +1 203 925 8388
Mr Frederick Bleckmann, Vice President of Development, Pittsfield ID Technologies, LLC, tel. + 1 603 435 8301
Mr Rob Simmons, Marketing Director, Freedom Shopping, tel. +1 828 994 0206, ext. 1001
About Technology Solution Partners
Technology Solution Partners LLC is a developer of RFID-enabled solutions based on EPC Gen 2 global open standards, which focuses on helping customers take full advantage of RFID technology in a way that is simple to use and offers the best value. TSP’s systems help companies use RFID technology to streamline operational processes, which translates into higher revenues and healthier margins. The company’s latest release, the Trakaid CyTrack system, enables industrial gas manufacturers and their integration partners to deploy an RFID- powered system that integrates easily with the manufacturer’s existing tracking system in a cost-effective manner. TSP has been an RFID solution developer since 2006. For more information, please visit www.trakaid.com.
About Pittsfield ID Technologies
Pittsfield ID is a global provider of brand identification and associated technologies. Providing Apparel Brand Protection (anti-counterfeiting), RFID solutions, EAS solutions and flexible RFID software systems, Pittsfield ID supplies major brands and high volume programs while maintaining the flexibility and personal customer service contact necessary to satisfy the needs of customers large and small. A range of innovative solutions includes patented RFID-embedded, sew-in labels, and interactive retail and supply-chain system solutions.
About Freedom Shopping
Freedom Shopping, Inc. is the recognized leader in developing RFID-enabled point-of-sale, security, and self-service solutions for the retail market. The company’s systems help companies, ranging from independent retailers to global merchants, use RFID technology to streamline operational and customer-facing processes, achieving quantifiable gains that translate into higher revenues and healthier margins. The company’s latest release, the IntelliSuite Developer’s Tools, enables retailers and their integration partners to deploy an RFID-powered intelligent EAS system that integrates easily and cost-effectively with existing POS systems. Freedom Shopping has been an RFID innovator since 2005, when its customers used its technology to open the nation’s first 100-percent item-level-tagged stores. For more information, please visit www.freedomshopping.com.
About Uptown Cycles
Uptown Cycles, located in Charlotte, NC, is a premier regional bicycle retailer and training center carrying Giant, Canondale, Blue, and Electra bicycles and a wide range of accessories and apparel. In addition, Uptown Cycles provides a full-time, experienced coaching, sales, and mechanics staff on site, offering cycling enthusiasts and athletes the hands-on training and guidance they need to increase their enjoyment of – and expertise with – the sport. The store is conveniently located in downtown Charlotte near the Panthers stadium. For more information, please visit www.uptowncyclescharlotte.com.
Monza is a trademark of Impinj, Inc.
Indian oxygen and nitrogen supplier Kay Nitroxygen is using EPC Gen 2 UHF tags and readers to record the status of its reusable cylinders, resulting in increased productivity.
By Claire Swedberg
Mar. 30, 2010—Kay Nitroxygen Pvt. Ltd., an oxygen and nitrogen gas company in Satara, Maharashtra, owned by engineering firm Kay Group, has reduced its product turnaround time by using an RFID system to record the status of its reusable cylinders. Since October 2009, the company has been utilizing the technology not only to track which cylinders are loaded, shipped to customers and returned, but also to identify which need to be tested before being reused, in keeping with federal guidelines.
Kay Nitroxygen faced several challenges when it began seeking an RFID solution for its 135-pound steel cylinders, which are approximately 5 feet in height and 8 inches in diameter, and which cost about$300 apiece. Kay Nitroxygen’s facility fills empty cylinders with oxygen or nitrogen, and ships them to customers. After depleting the gas within the tanks, customers then send back the empties. It was the responsibility of staff members to read the ID number painted on the side of each cylinder as it was received from a customer, refilled with gas, or shipped back to that sender, and to write down that ID number, as well the event just completed—returned by customer, refilling, or shipping back to customer. Employees in the office would then input that data into a computer. By so doing, the staff could not only have a better understanding of where the cylinders were going and when they returned, but also track which cylinders needed to be removed from the supply chain and retested for leaks.
In fact, each cylinder’s ID number was typically recorded and entered into the system 18 times every month, including all check-in, filling and check-out events. What’s more, the process of recording ID numbers on paper required three employees to work eight hours apiece to receive and enter 1,000 cylinders into the system before they could be refilled and shipped to customers. The cylinders’ ID numbers were often smudged or unreadable, and the low lighting during the night shift made reading the painted ID numbers even more challenging. “Our goal was bringing efficiency in production, and getting accuracy in cylinder numbers going in and coming out,” says Yogendra Choudhary, Kay Nitroxygen’s manager.
Kay Nitroxygen purchased a solution from Technology Solution Partners (TSP), an IT consulting and services firm based in Shelton, Conn., to reduce the incidence of errors and improve the cylinders’ cycle time. TSP, with Kay Nitroxygen, then conducted a six-month pilot study involving 250 cylinders to ensure the tags could be properly read in the dusty, hot and highly metallic environment, before launching a full-scale deployment in October.
There were several challenges involving RFID usage in this industry, says Girish Gupta, a TSP consultant. The manufacturing floor and loading dock were hot, dusty and humid, and skilled personnel were not available to manage or maintain a complicated system, such as one with a fixed portal. In addition, the high volume of tightly packed metal cylinders made the reading of RFID tags even more challenging. Finally, tag placement would be difficult, as the tags needed to be accessible to RFID interrogators when cylinders were stacked on their sides, but could not be attached to valves, which are often replaced.
UPM Raflatac developed a tag containing a UPM Raflatac Belt RFID inlay made with an NXP Semiconductors U-Code G2XM EPC Gen 2 RFID chip. The tag is encased in an explosion-proof casing shaped in a curved fashion so that it could be taped directly to a cylinder’s round shoulder. This tag, used in conjunction with a Motorola 9050G handheld interrogator, offered the company a read distance of 2 to 12 inches. The group also found that when stacked upright on the loading dock, or when being filled, the cylinders need to be placed in rows of four to allow staff members to reach over their tops and read each tag with the interrogator.
With the new system in place, when empty cylinders arrive from a customer, a worker utilizes the Motorola 9050G to read the tanks’ tags. The device, which emits a beep to indicate a tag was successfully read, stores data regarding each cylinder, including which customer used it most recently, and when its next test is due. To accomplish this, the handheld uses TSP’s Trakaid CyTrack Plant Mobile software, which also provides data to the user, such as an alert if the cylinder will soon need to be tested. The software also enables the staff to input information about a particular cylinder, such as any noticeable damage.
Data is stored on the handheld unit until a staff member places it in a USB cradle, at which time the handheld’s software uploads its information to the back-end Trakaid CyTrack Tracking software residing on Kay Nitroxygen’s Microsoft Windows 2008 database, via an interface also provided by TSP, known as Trakaid CyTrack Interact. Finally, Trakaid CyTrack Dsync synchronizes data between the interface software and the handheld device, thus enabling the handheld to validate data related to the cylinder tag being read.
As the cylinders are refilled, a worker enters information into the handheld indicating the type of gas, and then reads the tag, so that the software is updated to show that the cylinder is filled and ready for shipment. As it is shipped, a worker inputs the customer’s ID number into the handheld, then scans the tags on each canister prior to loading. The handheld software sends an alert either if the tanks have not yet been filled, or if they are filled with a type of gas other than what the customer ordered.
With the system in place, the company has eliminated the need for paperwork, thereby increasing the efficiency of data entry into the tracking system by 80 percent. The turnaround time for each cylinder has been reduced by 15 percent, the firm reports, thus increasing the quantity of production. What’s more, inventory information is now 100 percent accurate, and labor costs have been reduced by 33 percent. Because the company is now able to know exactly which empty cylinders have been returned by each customer, as well as which cylinders are missing, it has reduced the quantity of lost cylinders, thereby resulting in an expected savings this year of $18,000. In addition, Choudhary says, the incidence of shipping an empty cylinder to a customer instead of a filled cylinder has been eliminated.
“Production staff is very happy,” Choudhary says, “as this [RFID system] eliminated the laborious process of manually reading, writing and then entering data into the [computer] system three times in one production cycle.” While night-shift workers had complained in the past about their inability to read cylinder numbers, he notes, those complaints have ended with the use of RFID.
At some future date yet to be determined, TSP intends to provide a Bluetooth-enabled mobile printer that can receive instructions from the handheld reader, to print a receipt of delivery at the customer’s facility.
Helps Provide Timely and Accurate Delivery of Gas in Test-certified Cylinders
SHELTON, CT, NOVEMBER 3, 2014 – A comprehensive cylinder Logistics Solution has been engineered as an add-on to any cylinder management solution. Companies may implement the Solution on intelligent Auto Data Capture (ADC) devices, on a laptop or on a robust tablet with internet access. ADC technology is integral to automate date entry, as it eliminates errors encountered during manual data entry. Trakaid’s new Logistics Solution will be introduced at gasworld’s Industrial Gas Conference in Singapore.
“The new automated Logistics Solution gives companies the tools, via intelligent data at point of use, to be able to better provide reliable, safer and faster cylinder delivery, and achieve a higher level of customer satisfaction,” said Girish Gupta, President, Technology Solution Partners, LLC, adding, “Better accuracy and safety translates to higher profits.”
The Logistics Solution works as an add-on with cylinder management solution and works seamlessly with Trakaid’s CyTrack Cylinder Management Solution. CyTrack is a web-based tracking system which gives companies the ability to view a current status of critical assets and assess their impact on business processes from any location.
Using this Solution allows a logistics team to validate each customer’s designated cylinder before delivery, and offload that cylinder from the delivery vehicle. When retrieving cylinders from a customer, the logistics team can mark a cylinder as physically damaged, view cylinders that are due for testing and check to see if a cylinder has been recalled. The Logistics Solution ensures these cylinders are returned to a central location for servicing before they are put back into operation. Further, the Logistics Solution provides the ability to transfer instantly actionable data to a central office.
Through the introduction of the Logistics Solution, Trakaid continues to design products that give its customers the best cylinder tracking Solution available. This helps customers raise their return on investment and thrive in the current business environment. With the add-on Logistics Solution, CyTrack’s benefits encompass all aspects of the cylinder business including receipt, production, testing, service, invoicing, delivery, ADC and logistics.
Headquartered in Shelton, Connecticut, Technology Solution Partners LLC (TSP) is an information technology (IT) consulting and services company providing comprehensive and cost-effective onshore and offshore software development, management and monitoring services. For 27 years, TSP has designed, developed, integrated and implemented end-to-end solutions for leading businesses.
TSP eases the challenge of escalating costs and helps businesses keep pace with emerging technologies and standards which create significant challenges for software and IT departments. TSP employees are highly-skilled professionals who deliver alternative, cost-effective approaches to help companies attain competitive, technology-based business solutions.
With its experience integrating innovation and technology, TSP’s comprehensive and collaborative approach covers all aspects of the solution, offering customizable business models, a lean philosophy and the innovative “IMPACT” Delivery Model. TSP delivers unique and timely solutions that are simple to use and manage and meet evolving business challenges, while offering cost reductions.
For more information, please go to TSP’s website at: www.tspllc.com
Focus on Trakaid’s CyTrack Solution
SHELTON, CT, JANUARY 3, 2011 – For the first time, Technology Solution Partners, LLC (TSP) will participate in the All India Industrial Gases Manufacturers’ Association (AiiGMA) Show in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, January 19 to 21 at the Hotel Sunway Resort.
Featuring information about the Company’s TRAKAID CyTrack cylinder tracking solution, TSP’s booth will be located at Stall Number 16. The CyTrack solution uses the latest RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technologies to help companies with tracking, product movement and asset inventory of gas cylinders.
Girish Gupta, of TSP, said, “We are thrilled to participate in the AiiGMA Seminar on Industrial Gases. It will allow Technology Solution Partners to showcase our cylinder tracking solution, TRAKAID CyTrack, and guide customers through the solution in its entirety. Having a presence at this seminar will give us the opportunity to show how our solution can help companies increase operating efficiency and accuracy, provide better asset visibility, make data entry less repetitive and help reduce pilferage – all with a quick return on investment to our customer.”
TRAKAID’s experience ensures companies craft solutions which integrate the latest technologies including RFID, Biometrics, Mobile Computing and Web-based Data
Access. TRAKAID designs solutions that are intuitive, easy to use, remotely manageable and provide a high cost to value ratio.
In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the TRAKAID CyTrack cylinder tracking solution, TSP will offer a TRAKAID CyTrack show special, including the CyTrack solution, a fixed reader and interface, 2,500 RFID tags and 90-day support
For more information on TSP’s TRAKAID CyTrack Cylinder Tracking Solution, please go to: www.trakaid.com or e-mail TSP’s Girish Gupta at ggupta@tspllc.com.
Headquartered in Shelton, Connecticut, Technology Solution Partners LLC (TSP) is an information technology (IT) consulting and services company providing comprehensive and cost-effective onshore and offshore software development, management and monitoring services. For nearly 25 years, TSP has designed, developed, integrated and implemented end-to-end solutions for leading businesses.
TSP eases the challenge of escalating costs and helps businesses keep pace with emerging technologies and standards which create significant challenges for software and IT departments. TSP employees are highly-skilled professionals who deliver alternative, cost-effective approaches to help companies attain competitive, technology-based business solutions.
With its experience integrating innovation and technology, TSP’s comprehensive and collaborative approach covers all aspects of the solution, offering customizable business models, a lean philosophy and the innovative “IMPACT” Delivery Model. TSP delivers unique and timely solutions that are simple to use and manage and meet evolving business challenges, while offering cost reductions.
For more information, please go to TSP’s website at: www.tspllc.com
CyTrack is a total solution for the industrial gas industry that uses RFID technology to provide 100 percent accuracy and complete traceability of gas
from manufacturing, refilling to end use. The new cylindrical solution has resulted in increase in cylinder rotation.
New regulatory mandates are coming that require individual cylinder control with permanent tamper-proof identity.
Cylotrak cylinder management and tracking solution automates data acquisition of cylinder identity using 1D / 2D bar Code, QR Code, and RFID technologies.
Cylotrak uses and auto generates permanent tamperproof QR Codes for cylinder identity.
Cylotrak offers fast track implementation to get you up and running within a week. You provide us your cylinder data and other information and start using the solution using any Android smartphone.
Innovative Solutions Using the Latest Technologies with Dependability and Integrity to Survive, Thrive and Automate Customer Trust