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Friday, January 19, 2007
Pratima Harigunani
What is lacking, in the opinion of Ashim A Patil, CEO of Infotek Software & Systems (P) Ltd, is an RFID System Integrator and adequate boldness on the part of organisations to get rid of the old ways of doing things and embrace the transparency, speed and efficacy that RFID can bring.
Excerpts from an interview:
What is the progress on RFID adoption in India? Any interesting RFID applications that open up more business verticals?
It's limitless. We have just explored RFIDs embedded glass capsules for buffaloes that will help address the problems of misreporting (as only photographs of dead animals used to suffice till now) for insurance companies. Human cards can be used for senior citizen security and welfare tracking by government, kinship and police. Scams can be controlled to a large extent with the use of RFID security stamps for certifications. It's not about technology. It's about the willingness to break out of rigid and conventional processes. Be it banks, PSUs or auto companies, the problem is that no one is ready to take bold steps, may be because they challenge unfair and short-term means of erstwhile gains by some unscrupulous parties.
What is your current vertical mix spread score?
In education, we have 150,000 standard IDs, in library management we have 800,000 tickets. In manufacturing, we already have anti-counterfeit (brand protection) besides pallet and batch tracking, pilferage checks, shelf and warehouse management. Toll collection, parking management, ticketing are areas under public utilities while lab samples, blood bags, medical record tracking are healthcare applications. For defense, soldier IDs, weapon identification, ammunition tracking and confidential documents are vital deployment areas. Some new and interesting RFID uses span across laptop identification, jewelry, museum artifact, animal identification and crowd management.
Are we talking about completely contactless RFIDs?
Yes. RFID systems have an antenna air interface through which a transponder communicates with read/write unit. Hence, point of contact is not needed for data capture or identification.
Would RFIDs replace bar codes completely any time? How does RFID score over a bar code?
Yes, in the years to come, we can see significant replacements. Enterprises can get a real-time view on location and integrity of their assets and inventories with RFID. Bar code is a read-only, single-item scan technology that needs visible contact with the reader and database look-up. Besides, stock verification is manual and time consuming here. For RFID, however, no line of sight or contact is required and multiple items can be read simultaneously given the anti-collision feature. It can read and write, with item attendant data or mobile data-carrier. Compared to limited lifecycle of bar codes, RFID's life is warranted for up to 10 years.
Is the regulatory availability of spectrum in India substantial? Are you operating in the active RFID range too?
Yes. We are present in four bands: the LF which is less than 135 KHz and is used for animal identification, the HF which is 13.56 MHz, a worldwide standard that has an orbit of one metre, the UHF which is what government de-licensed some time back in the 865 to 867 MHz range and which finds usage in supply chain and logistics areas. The 2.45 GHz is the active RFID spectrum, which gives a read distance up to 30 feet and high speed that is used for automatic vehicle identification and container tracking. As of now, the spectrum available is adequate. What we need however is some more channels, licences and mandates (for instance in case of butcher houses and banks for RFID applications).
Are prices per tag still prohibitive for commercial RFID deployments?
To some extent, yes. It ranges between Rs 25 to 50 per tag depending on frequency, type, volume and size. In cases of close-loop circulation like library management, where a tag comes back and keeps rotating within the organisation, the ROI is justified as RFID data retention is for ten years with a write-endurance cycle of 100,000. As a company we just do the conception and education part while it's up to the client to ascertain the financial rationale and long-term ROI. We offer them the complete platter.
Are customised vertical versions on the anvil?
Tags generally are available irrespective of the vertical. We have standards to determine appropriate tag selection. But some middleware on the customised side is coming up.
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