It wouldn’t be a total shock to see Stanley Black & Decker make a big splash in the RFID sector. In 2010, Stanley acquired WinWare, the creator of the RFID-enabled CribMaster tool management system. No purchase price was disclosed for that deal. Other industry sources have indicated that Cisco was also involved in the bidding for Aeroscout.

Stanley Black & Decker acquired WinWare, which operates the CribMaster brand, in 2010.

An interest in Aeroscout may indicate that the WinWare deal has worked out well for Stanley Black & Decker, prompting the firm to make a bigger push into RFID. Additionally, it could spark a larger round of consolidation within the highly fragmented RFID sector.

According to Isreal-based Globes, Stanley Black & Decker will likely acquire AeroScout through Stanley Healthcare Solutions, or its subsidiary InfoLogix, a partner of AeroScout. It is also possible that the acquisition will be made for more industrial purposes, fields where AeroScout is less active, and where its location technology can be integrated into a range of industrial products made by Black & Decker.

AeroScout’s solutions mostly utilize active RFID and RTLS and cater to industries that need to locate employees, tools, customers, or equipment quickly and accurately.

Here’s an excerpt from the Globes story:

AeroScout said in response, “The company does not comment on rumors.”

Several recent US government tenders indicate that the real-time location services market AeroScout’s business is thriving. The tenders include a $550 million tender by the US Department of Veterans Affairs, published in late 2011, for the installation of real-time RFID-based location systems at its 152 hospitals and 1,400 clinics.

AeroScout CEO Yuval Bar-Gil founded the company in 1999. AeroScout originally developed Bluetooth technology under the name Bluesoft, before switching to radio frequency identification (RFID) technology and changing its name in 2004. The change in technology also involved a change in target market to consumer products and private users.

Aeroscout has raised $85 million to date; its last financing round was in October 2010. Current investors include Intel Capital, Menlo Ventures, Evergreen Venture Partners, Pitango Venture Capital, Star Ventures, Greylock Partners, and Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO).

Click here to read the full story from Globes.

Savings: $1 Million-plus

Submitted by ThingMagic

Disney is relying on RFID to make the Magic Kingdom even more enchanting – especially for its cast members. The theme park has deployed an RFID solution from ThingMagic to track $100 million worth of costumes worn by the likes of Cinderella, Mickey Mouse and others.

By streamlining the tracking process for these garments and making them easier to locate, Disney has saved more than $1 million. The primary benefit has been reducing inventory counting times from approximately 180 hours (for large costume storage areas) to two hours or less.

In addition, the system has improved the accuracy of inventory checks from 85 to 90 percent to nearly 100 percent. And since the need to staff checkout counters has been eliminated, personnel have been freed up for other tasks. The entire solution paid for itself in less than 12 months.

Under the system, a Disney cast member walks through rows of costumes at one of the 25 storage areas, selects the desired costume garments and proceeds to a kiosk powered by an integrated ThingMagic RFID reader. The cast member swipes an ID badge through a bar-code reader at the kiosk, where the member’s face and name are displayed on a video screen.

The RFID reader captures the garments’ tag IDs and feeds that information to the Disney garment management software, and cast members are off and running to greet fans without a moment’s delay.

When the cast member is done for the day, the costume is placed into a laundry chute where another ThingMagic RFID reader captures the tag IDs. The status of the garment is updated, including when it entered and exited the laundry area.

Disney also uses RFID-enabled inventory cycle count carts to expedite inventory counts in their costume storage areas. Before RFID, it took 15 to 20 employees nien to 12 hours to manually scan barcodes. Now, one or two workers complete the task in about 60 minutes.

The development is seen as a major advancement in the pulp and paper industry, similar to the current movement to get apparel suppliers to tag items at the source. RFID will be introduced at all Metsä Group’s pulp mills and most loading ports this spring.

“The RFID system we have developed for pulp has been open to [everyone] in the industry right from the start,” says Ari Harmaala, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Metsä Fibre, based in Finland.

“The real benefits will only be achieved once the main pulp suppliers use a common standard. We have shown the way and now the extensive introduction of the system in the pulp industry can begin.”

The company is utilizing almost 2.5 million UHF tags to track of 2.4 million tons of pulp. It delivers several different pulp grades and qualities to its customers globally.

At Metsä Fibre’s pulp mills, RFID tags are encoded and applied inside every pulp unit between bales, which hold one ton of pulp. Tags may be scanned with forklift readers, gate readers or handheld readers at any point in the logistics chain.

The RFID tags include the product’s lot number, grade name, the date of manufacture and the manufacturer itself. Pulp with an RFID tag meets product safety requirements and is suitable for food use.

By deploying RFID, pulp lot information will be known in real time at both the pulp storage location and ports. The change will enable savings in pulp flow management for all actors in the logistics chain.

By automating its processes with an RFID solution from Vilant, the company has a more efficient logistics processes and better customer service, and allows Metsä Group to find new ways to utilize its raw materials more efficiently.

One of the biggest benefits of deploying RFID comes from the assurance that Metsä Fibre’s customers have in knowing that they will receive products on time and in the right quantities. Metsä delivers several different pulp grades and qualities to its customers globally, for whom on-time delivery of the correct pulp product is a mission critical activity for continuous production.

To ensure uninterrupted production, many of Metsä Fibre’s customers keep extra stock on hand, which means higher costs. Deploying RFID means fewer shipping errors and a more efficient supply chain, giving customers the ability to keep less buffer stock. Metsä Fibre also improved the traceability of pulp units throughout the supply chain, allowing customers to trace material flow on arrival to customer mill sites.

“RFID supplements our range of technical services,” says Harmaala. “Accurate data on pulp characteristics enabled by RFID technology provide our customers with new opportunities to improve production effectiveness.”

Click here to view an in-depth video on how RFID is being used in the pulp industry.

Queen Elizabeth II witnessed RFID in action during a tour of the University of Exeter.

The Queen was introduced to Dr Andrew Treen, Matt Biginton and Professor Roy Sambles, who are all part of the Knowledge Transfer Account (KTA) project, which is known as Arkiris. The project is part of an initiative funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), and is an example of industry working with academia and a model that can be successfully replicated elsewhere in the academic sector.

The Queen was also given a demonstration of how RFID can be used to track blood samples as they travel from the hospital or surgery, through testing in the clinical laboratory, before returning the results to the patient. The new system has the ability to improve accuracy and minimize problems experienced within the current system, significantly simplifying how services are currently provided.

Andrew Treen, who is seconded from QinetiQ to lead the Arkiris project said, “It was a great honour for us to be able to tell Her Majesty what we have been doing. We have formed a close collaboration with the University over the last few years and we are hopeful that in the near future we will be able to make the underlying research and development a commercial reality through a spin-off company.”

Tagging assets like telephone poles and generators at substations is just beginning to take off in the utility sector. The market is a large one, with 135 million poles in use in the U.S., not to mention millions of high-value assets at substations and storage yards.

RFID can help utilities to deploy faster reporting and recovery of joint use revenues related to third party agreements with cable providers and cell phone companies.

Utilities are turning to RFID to recover additional revenues from cable companies and from the government after storm-related restorations.

In many cases, utilities are unaware that cable firms or cell providers have placed equipment on their poles, and even when they are aware the billing process can often be slow. The RFID-generated data from each pole can help to automate billing processes, resulting in better cash flow, and can greatly speed up the ROI for installing an RFID system.

In addition, the increased visibility gained from RFID can help utilities to generate more accurate claims from storm losses, often leading to greater cash flow. In many cases, utilities recover some of their labor and parts costs from the federal government after a major storm or disaster.

However, utilities currently have very little visibility into the unmanned storage yards where poles and other assets are located, and usually only can provide an estimate to the government when it comes to recovering losses for assets used during a power restoration project. RFID can provide highly detailed information about those assets, allowing the utility to recover a greater amount of capital.

“A lot of times inventory goes in and out without anyone knowing who took it or when it left the door,” says Barry Brede, of Sustainable Management Systems (SMS), which provided Orangeburg with its RFID system. “That becomes very evident during a response scenario when they need to respond very quickly but don’t have great visibility into their supply chain. If they don’t have a system to track it, it’s guesswork when it comes to recovering what they deserve to.”

The other major benefit of tagging utility poles is for asset management and tracking maintenance programs. Utilities spend $177 billion annually in operation and maintenance costs to maintain the 135 million poles operating in the utility distribution network. So even a 10 percent reduction in maintenance costs would equate to a savings of more than $17 billion annually for the utility sector.

In order to keep its costs down, Orangeburg DPU has hired college interns to place RFID tags on up to 5,000 poles this summer. The utility hopes to have all 33,000 poles in its network tagged within three years. Eventually, poles will arrive at utilities pre-tagged. Cox Industries, one of the biggest providers of utility poles, has deployed SMS’ RFID-based yard management system to keep track of its  finished goods inventory and work-in-progress across multiple plants.

The yard management solution provides Cox with a comprehensive means to track all inventory in a real-time environment, while also providing its customers with critical data concerning order delivery status, available inventory and other key business metrics.

Cox anticipates the ability to extend the value of RFID tracking to its utility customers by providing those utilities equipped with RFID-based technology the ability to automate the receipt and/or release of tagged inventory at both manned and unmanned yard facilities.

Like the retail industry, which is pushing apparel tagging all the way to the source of manufacture, the utility sector is following a similar path. Greg Campbell, chief operating officer at Cox Industries, says he has already had conversations with sawmills about tagging.

“What we hope to do in future is to push this up stream and have our sawmill vendors apply the RFID tags,” says Campbell. “They already apply the bar codes on the poles.”

For now, Campbell says that Cox applies an RFID tag to the butt end of the utility pole to provide inventory visibility at its yards. However, that tag is useless to the utility, as that end of the pole is buried in the ground during installation. Cox is paying about 25 cents per tag, although it is experimenting with tags that can withstand its pressure treating process. Those tags cost about $5 apiece.

The USSA announced this week that its Gold pass, which provides unlimited, transferable access to National Ski Areas Association resorts coast-to-coast, will become the first pass in the world to fully integrate RFID, scanning and other lift access technologies into one pass.

The 2012-13 USSA Gold ski pass will be RFID enabled.

The single pass will integrate HF, UHF and barcode-based ticket solutions for access control, and will be accepted at 250 resorts that participate in the Gold Pass program in 35 states. Two-thirds of those resorts are already outfitted to allow guests direct-to-lift accessibility via RFID technology. The USSA sells about 400 of the special passes annually.

The Gold Pass is one of the largest fundraising tools to support Olympic skiers and snowboarders, generating over $3 million annually for athletic programs.

Ski resorts are continually turning to RFID-enabled ski tickets to allow skiers to communicate with other skiers and friends through social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Vail Resorts has one of the most advanced programs in North America, combining RFID-enhanced tickets with social media.

“It’s just another reason to come to Vail Resorts,” Robert Urwiler, chief information officer for Vail Resorts, told RFID 24-7 last year. “By going to all hard card media, that will drive more social media impressions in a big way.”

For the 2010-11 ski season, Vail Resorts received 275,000 social posts on Facebook and Twitter and more than 35 million social impressions (based on Facebook’s estimate of 130 friends per person) through its Epic Mix program, which integrates with the RFID-enabled ski passes.

“Our resorts are making huge strides to enhance the experience of skiers and snowboarders through technology,” says Michael Berry, president of the National Ski Areas Association. “This year’s Gold Pass is an amazing demonstration of how far we’ve come by integrating multiple systems into one pass offering not only direct to lift access for pass holders but also the premium tracking services being put into place at leading resorts.”

At the start of each show, teams are given $1 million in cash — 40 bundles containing $25,000 each, and must answer eight multiple choice questions to keep the money.

RFID is being used to track $1 million in cash on the Million Pound Drop.

The game consists of four trap doors that correspond to each possible answer. Players have 60 seconds to place the cash bundles in the drawers they think correspond with the correct answers. If a contestant answers incorrectly, money placed in those drawers tumbles into a trap door. The contestants win any money remaining in the drawers at the end of the eight rounds.

During the show, viewers at home and in the live audience are provided updates on the amount the teams have lost. Prior to RFID, The Million Pound Drop relied on six on-stage cameras and behind-the-scenes personnel to count how many bundles of money players placed on each trap door. However, sometimes camera angles were unreliable and the show had to have the host manually count the bundles of money on each trap door, which slowed down the speed and excitement of the game.

Cat and Mouse, the providers of the real-time graphics technology for The Million Pound Drop and other shows including Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, approached systems integrator Harland Simon to see if RFID technology could speed up the pace of the game by tracking the cash.

Harland Simon’s solution relies on an Impinj Speedway Revolution reader connected to four antennas custom-designed to fit under each trap door. Each bundle of money is tagged with a UPM Frog 3D RFID tag containing an Impinj Monza 4 chip with True3D antenna technology. When contestants place money bundles on trap doors, the readers register how many tags are on each trap door.

Harland Simon then calculates the dollar value and feeds the data back to the displays, communicating how much money contestants have saved or lost. All of the money is reliably accounted for in real-time, eliminating the need for the host to count it manually.

The show is able to show more interesting graphics of the money being moved and stacked on different trap doors, all in real-time. The Million Pound Drop has also reaped an unexpected benefit from the technology — insurance rates have been reduced because the show has better control of the money during the show.

Savings: $3-4 million

Airbus has always been a leader when it comes to RFID innovation. As of last year,  Airbus has deployed nearly 20 industrial projects in the “non-flyable” category, ranging from warehouse logistics to tooling management and work-in-progress tracking.

According to a recent issue of Fast 47 magazine, which is produced by Airbus and distributed to its suppliers and airline partners, all of the projects have shown “very strong financial benefits in the order of millions of Euros per year.” (We’re guessing that the actual figure is likely 10 times higher across all Airbus operations using RFID.) In most cases, pay back periods are less than one year, with the most notable benefits being a higher level of automation including a reduction in inventory and capital assets, improved productivity and quality.

Here is an excerpt from the article in Fast 47 magazine:

The results from an opportunity and pilot analysis across a range of in-service processes with key airlines and MRO partners were found to be better than expected. All the projects had a payback period of less than 12 months with medium to strong savings. But one of the critical enablers for these savings was the high memory UHF (Ultra-High Frequency) passive RFID tags on parts.

As a result of this analysis, Airbus became the first aircraft manufacturer to request its suppliers to add permanent RFID tags to approximately 3,000 parts on each of its new A350 XWB aircraft. These RFID tags are designed to remain with the parts throughout their entire lifecycle, in order to enable process automation and enhance the process visibility for airlines, suppliers and MRO organizations.

For example, consider the line side maintenance domain. When a mechanic replaces a faulty unit with a replacement unit, he will be able to digitally scan the faulty and replacement units in order to complete his work order via a mobile RFID handheld reader. He will also be able to remotely upload this information into his Maintenance Information System (MIS) without the need to fill in any paperwork and later type it into his MIS. As a result, the overall process is much faster, the quality of data in the databases significantly improved and there is less administrative work

As previously reported in RFID 24-7, RFID has been deployed at several Airbus locations in Europe. In Hamburg, Germany, Airbus turned to RFID to keep track of 800 container shipments. Airbus utilizes just-in-time manufacturing, so there is typically little or no reserve stock for many parts.

“We needed to make sure each container was delivered to the right place, the first time and every time,” said Carlo Nizam, Head of Value Chain Visibility and Auto-ID Program Airbus Information, Communication & Technology.

By using RFID and installing 100 readers at the facility, Airbus was able to reduce the number of containers by eight percent. “That pays for the project and puts money back in our pockets as well,” said Nizam.

Airbus is also using RFID to provide visibility for tool management. The manufacturer uses more than 500,000 tools company wide, and each tool is required to be booked-in and booked-out when in use. Lost tools need to be hunted down, often a laborious process. In addition, tools need to be repaired and calibrated, which is done manually with bar codes.

“Visibility is not reliable and we don’t know how many times a certain tool has been used from a calibration standpoint,” said Nizam. “So we repair them every four months regardless of how often they are used, and that costs lot of money. Using RFID allows us to book-in and book-out tools and to use more of a fixed time basis for repair and calibration based on a usage basis.”

The solution, which helps to manage the mandated tool maintenance schedule, was initially used to tag tens of thousands of tools at an Airbus plant in the UK, and is now being duplicated at plants around the world.

But liquor and consumer goods aren’t the only products being tagged with RFID. Last week, the first fully-monitored container shipment of soybeans from Manitoba, Canada, arrived in Chongqing, China.

A shipment of soybeans from Manitoba, tagged with RFID, arrived in China last week.

“The successful arrival of the soybeans means that all systems are go,” said Diane Gray, president and CEO of CentrePort Canada Inc. “Now that our trading platform and RFID-tracking system is operational, the next step is to work with Manitoba and Canadian companies to identify other products that can be sold and shipped using our system. Our business mission will help identify some of those opportunities.”

Gray said part of CentrePort’s role is to show Canadian and Manitoba exporters how RFID technology can be used to protect their supply chains and brand integrity in an easy, cost-effective manner. There are a number of different RFID applications available, including container tags, and product tags and labels, which will allow the security and tracking system to accommodate different types of cargo.

“We are fortunate to have some very good partners in China who are willing to work with us and Manitoba companies to turn new ideas into new business,” Gray said. “Consumer markets are growing in China and high-quality products are in demand. Our job is to help our companies access these new markets and make overseas trade easier and cost effective.”

CentrePort Canada Inc. and the Province of Manitoba are leading a business mission to China, which also includes stops in Qingdao, Beijing and Shanghai. The delegates include several Manitoba-based agricultural-related businesses as well representatives from the supply chain and transportation industry. While overseas, the delegation will be exploring ways that CentrePort’s new cargo security and tracking system can be used to bring other homegrown products to Chinese markets.

The business mission is the latest step in an ongoing initiative that began last year with the May 2011 agreement to increase the export of Manitoba food products to Chongqing for further distribution. The agreement was struck by CentrePort, Canadian National Railway, Canadian Pacific Logistics Solutions, Minsheng International Freight Co. Ltd., and Invent IOT Technology.

The partnership’s first project was the shipment of 250 tons of soybeans provided by Manitoba-based Delmar Commodities.

CentrePort’s new cargo security and tracking system was first showcased in February in Chongqing during Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s trade mission to China. The demonstration involved a shipment of Manitoba pork utilizing a passive RFID tag that was placed on the container as it was locked as well as a RFID label on each package of pork to ensure the integrity of the cargo from shipper to consumer. The RFID tag system contains identifying information and is read at origin with the captured data sent to a back-office system. The tag is read again at destination and the information retrieved must match in order to be verified. The RFID system can be accessed through a portal on CentrePort’s website.

“The RFID-based Global Internet of Things Supervision System and Food Tracing System developed by Invent I.O.T. Technology Inc. have facilitated the development of logistics, trade, financial and technology between China and Canada and made global tracking and tracing of Canadian agricultural commodities possible, thereby ensuring safety, authenticity and uniqueness of Canadian agricultural exports,” said Jack Sheng, president and chief technology officer, Invent I.O.T. Technology Inc.

Nationals Park is equipped with 24 RFID-enabled turnstiles, where fans scan their smartcard ticket instead of waiting to scan traditional tickets by ushers using handheld readers. With the RFID system, park officials say fans moved through the turnstyles in less than three seconds, as opposed to eight to 10 seconds when ushers were required to scan tickets.

Sports stadiums are interested in tracking who their largest spenders are during games. In addition, RFID-enabled ticketing opens up all kinds of opportunities for engaging with social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. (Read RFID 24-7′s coverage of how NBA and MLB are pursuing social media and RFID.)

Here is an excerpt from the Sports Business Journal story:

The quicker and easier fan entry into Nationals Park has helped boost the club’s per cap merchandise and concession sales, club officials say. On Opening Day they were up 27 percent compared with the start of 2011.

“The early returns on the RFID system have been very encouraging,” said Nationals Chief Operating Officer Andy Feffer. “Fans in our market are very accustomed to scanning tickets themselves and self-entry with things like the Metro system. With the simpler entry into the ballpark, and promotions like our bobblehead giveaways, there’s no question we’re already seeing fans spending more time inside the gates before games, and a lift in areas such as our per caps.”