UPM Raflatac, Impinj and Zebra Technologies Collaborate to Deliver Cross-Industry, RFID-Enabled Concept for Item-Level Tagging and Validation

UPM Raflatac, Impinj and Zebra Technologies announced the availability of a first-of-its-kind, RFID-enabled solution concept to optimize item-level tagging and validation for process-intensive industries, such as electronics manufacturing, retail manufacturing, healthcare and pharmaceuticals and third-party logistics.

The new concept, which leverages UPM Raflatac’s UHF Trap tags equipped with Impinj MonzaTM 3 tag chips, Impinj Speedway readers and reader antennas and Zebra Technologies’ short-pitch RZ400 printers, enables business users to validate the contents of a package prior to shipping and monitor package components even after boxes are sealed.

Many industry companies lack real-time visibility into their manufacturing and packaging processes and suffer from a high rate of process failures, such as an inability to locate required items, incorrectly packed or shipped orders, excessive customer returns, counterfeiting and shrinkage. By introducing this new item-level tagging and validation solution concept, companies can easily authenticate, verify and control shipments of valuable merchandise while achieving efficiency gains of 20 to 50 percent in high volume production environments. In addition, the system enables companies to streamline product recalls and handle them earlier in the distribution process, reducing the high costs of recalls borne by both manufacturers and consumers.

“Process-intensive industries achieve a wide array of business benefits from implementing RFID-driven systems to tag and validate manufactured goods,” says Mikko Nikkanen, business development Director, RFID, UPM Raflatac. “By automating critical inventory management processes such as pick-and-place operations, companies develop real-time data insights they can use to improve production and distribution, while driving down costs due to human handling errors.”

“As companies seek to differentiate themselves in today’s markets, RFID-based tagging and validation systems can provide them with competitive advantages,” says Kerry Krause, vice president of marketing at Impinj. “Additionally, the business gains achieved with RFID technology flow through to down-stream customers and improve their satisfaction.”

“The new RFID-enabled solution from UPM Raflatac, Zebra and Impinj provides companies with a low-cost, highly effective approach to streamlining item tagging and validation,” says Carolyn Ricci, senior product manager, RFID, Zebra Technologies. “Companies that deploy this solution concept in high volume production environments should be able to achieve ROI within six months.”