Invengo has signed a contract with USA ID, a division of consumer product giant Conair, to provide at least 20 million RFID labels per year. The contract represents the biggest deal yet for Invengo outside of China, and will help Conair and Invengo launch new services for apparel and garment tracking.

Invengo will design and manufacturer the labels for worldwide distribution. The current inlay design utilizes the Impinj Monza 3 chip, but plans are being drawn up to convert to Impinj’s new Monza 4 chip, unveiled in February.

The inlay was developed by Invengo with outline designs provided by USA ID. The labels will be manufactured at Invengo’s headquarters in Shenzhen, where they will then be distributed around the world.

Conair is a leader in RFID adoption, and its own subsidiary, USA ID, was formed to design RFID best practices for the Conair supply chain. Conair has been using tags from this unit on its own product lines — including Cuisinart, Conair and Waring Pro — for several years. RFID has helped Conair’s supply chain to become more efficient and secure from the point of manufacture to the retailer.

USA ID offers RFID inlays and tags to other suppliers, manufacturers, and retailers worldwide.

“Conair has always viewed the use of RFID as a key technology, which is set to bring major cost savings and security benefits to the logistics and inventory tracking processes,” says John Mayorek, president of Conair/USA ID. “It did not take us long to prove the benefits of RFID tagging within our own Conair operations, and to decide to open our own subsidiary focusing on RFID. From there we looked to develop a tag that would fit the performance and price targets required for tagging products that would move across the globe; from the point of manufacture to the retail store point of sale.

“Although USA ID is more than capable to manufacture its own RFID products, we still felt that it would be prudent to work alongside an established global RFID manufacturer such as Invengo. We were seeking a company that could point to a solid financial record, displayed evidence of strong RFID innovation, could work to very high quality standards, and was able to produce the products to the performance levels and in the quantities that we need and demand.”