Vision and Challenges for Realising the Internet of Things

of far field and near field UHF tags. Particular challenges were the difficulties in reading tags
in regions with high concentration of products on the sales area (several thousand tags).
For the textile pilot, the initial focus was on business processes within the retail store and the
warehouse, including the distribution centre of one international textile supplier, with tagging
at the manufacturer DC and the retailer warehouse, using detachable RFID paper labels. The
second step involved successful source tagging at manufacturer factories, with minimal adaptation
to existing processes. Staff working in sales area of retail store found RFID to be a real
improvement of their working conditions, especially by reducing time spent on inventory
counting for stock control by around 80-94%. The textile pilot involved Belgium, France and
China, using UHF/EPC technology.
The goal of the book tagging pilot was to re-use infrastructure from the textile sub-pilot, including
adaptation of the mobile trolley reader. Improvements were demonstrated in reverse
logistics and in general productivity of between 74% and 92%. The book pilot also involved a
collaboration with UPC and Keonn to evaluate smart shelves developed in WP1 within the live
environment of a retail store. Their smart shelf solution gives a quasi real time inventory and
product shelf location, with potential for improved customer service through improved availability
based on advanced interactivity.
In summary, RFID tagging at item level has been found to require low effort for adapting existing
processes, so the potential of industry rollout is high, although the costs of infrastructure
and its management are still important variables in decision-making.
2.10 Training and Education
This work package began by investigating training requirements from various stakeholders to
assess topics and preferred delivery mechanisms for each target audience. Particular emphasis
focused on provision of training for SMEs, either locally or electronically and in local languages
and blended learning solution on EPC / RFID were therefore developed combining
classroom material, webinars, e-learning and other training delivery mechanisms.
BRIDGE developed five training courses, publicly available in both classrooms and e-learning
formats, beginning with an introduction to the basics of EPC and RFID, followed by 3 advanced
courses covering business, technical and implementation aspects of EPC / RFID in
more detail. The final course is targeted at senior managers and demonstrates how EPC/RFID
impacts the business processes of the supply chain, as defined in the Supply Chain Operations
Reference (SCOR) model.
All courses have been tested live and thoroughly reviewed by additional experts. The training
requirements analysis and final version of these training courses are publicly available from
the BRIDGE website.
2.11 Dissemination and Adoption Tools
WP13 developed tools to enable any interested organization to inform and educate their
stakeholders about the findings and results of the various BRIDGE work packages, as well as
the impacts and benefits of EPC/RFID in general. Six concept animations were developed,
consisting of multi-media learning objects (in Macromedia Flash), that can be used for elearning
courses, presentations etc. to clearly present key applications of the technology. A
portable demonstration software tool was also developed to show how the EPCglobal network
works in real supply chain conditions and to simulate the kind of information each trading
partner would see as goods are transferred between trading partners. WP13 also prepared two
impact reports - a market sizing study forecasting the market for passive RFID in Europe for
the next fifteen years and a report evaluating the impact of RFID technology on the European
economy. A conference package was also prepared, consisting of brochures, white papers,
reports and a demonstration setup and presentation material. It can be freely reused by any
organization hosting an EPC/RFID related event or wanting to learn more about the findings
of the BRIDGE project.
To help with consumer acceptance, WP13 has contributed to the development and translation
of the website www.discoverRFID.org to help consumers understand the basics of RFID and
EPC and how the technology helps companies, institutions and organizations to make their
life easier and safer. WP13 also developed and maintains the BRIDGE website www.bridgeproject.eu
, where all the adoptions tools are publicly available.
CERP-IoT – Cluster of European Research Projects on the Internet of Things
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