Vision and Challenges for Realising the Internet of Things

ased solution still remains a feasible option for building up shipment tracking services for
customers.
Figure 4.4-7: Inclusion of a TraSer-based solution in the IT architecture of Itella—combination
with peripheral middleware and user interfaces.
3.2 Technical and Business Lessons
3.2.1 Tag readability issues
In some cases, the extreme application conditions present challenges where previous experience
with other RFID applications is of little help. One of these hard-to-solve situations was
the application pilot at Itella where one could as well consider the entire environment downright
“RFID-hostile”:
the tracked roll cages themselves were of metal, and at least the usual stacked handling of
empty roll cages would impair tag readability;
the common construction of recent warehouses uses corrugated metal sheets that are certain
to cause ambient reflection;
neighbouring gates are so close to each other that cross-talk phenomena could occur;
the roll cages are exposed to rough treatment which the tags must also endure.
Itella embarked on an extensive series of experiments with a variety of tags and gate reader
antennas—eventually resulting in UHF tags being developed especially for their needs. As
mentioned earlier, pre-filtering of raw RFID readings was also needed to overcome occasional
read errors experienced especially with gate readers, and to generate discrete events that provided
raw readings with a low-level interpretation.
While these readability issues were peripheral from the point of view of the TraSer software,
another case proves that handling them is essential for the successful introduction of a complete
track-and-trace solution. Elis Pavaje SRL, a Romanian manufacturer of concrete pavement
elements, envisaged to cope with replacement losses of damaged stock, and track its
output pallet-wise (approx. 250 pallets per day) through the entire delivery process to the
vendors. Preliminary studies suggested RFID as a favourable method of identifying the pallets—later
tests, however, showed that none of the RFID solutions provided by local vendors
delivered satisfactory results. Having no financial means for proprietary solution development,
as pursued by Itella, the deployment of a track-and-trace solution did not take place at
this time.
3.2.2 Coping with technological and financial barriers
In many cases, the exclusive use of RFID may present a serious barrier to introduction of
track-and-trace solutions. While it is well understood that the price of RFID solutions is still
too high for most of the small enterprises, another factor also surfaced during the introduction
of several TraSer pilots: reluctance to adopt RFID due to the pressure exerted by identifier
solutions already in use at the adopting company/companies. This was the case, for example,
with the one-tier pilot conducted at Disher Kft., where optically readable identifiers were already
employed for box-wise identification of products. Here, the existing solution was “piggybacked”
by the new functionalities for tracking, so that participants were not forced to invest
in new AutoID solutions. Consultation with piloting partners often revealed that cur-
CERP-IoT – Cluster of European Research Projects on the Internet of Things
121