This forum attracted more than 100 who turned out to be a very attentive and involved audience!

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This forum attracted more than 100 who turned out
to be a very attentive and involved audience!
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Dr. John Hamilton, St. Louis University during a
special luncheon session
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Bar Codes Expected To Have A Long Life

October 21, 2004 Despite all the noise about
the impact of radio-frequency identification
technology on retailers and their suppliers,
well-entrenched bar codes will continue to play a
vital role for many years. That was the
consensus of executives attending a "Truth in
Technologies 2004 RFID and Bar Codes" conference
at Stony Brook University on Long Island
Wednesday, which was hosted by the AIDC 100, a
nonprofit organization of automatic
identification and data capture professionals.
For nearly 10 years, the U.S. Department of
Defense has been using Savi Technology Inc.'s
active RFID tags on freight containers,
consolidated air pallets, and large engine
containers shipped to its sites. Active tags,
unlike passive tags, have batteries built into
them. Now, as part of a mandate that takes effect
in January, the Defense Department is asking its
suppliers to affix passive RFID tags on cases and
pallets they ship to key receiving sites, the
Defense Distribution San Joaquin center in
California, and the Defense Distribution
Susquehanna center in Pennsylvania. The
department wants to take advantage of RFID's
benefits, including the fact that RFID tags can
be re-used and don't have to be positioned
directly under scanners, in line-of-sight
positions, to be read. Nonetheless, the Defense
Department says it will continue to use bar-code
technology. "We feel that bar codes have done a
good job so far, but we want the re-usable
read/write capabilities and the automated
visibility that isn't possible with bar codes,"
said Kathy Smith, special assistant of the Office
of the Secretary of Defense Supply Chain
Integration office with the Department of
Defense. "However, bar codes aren't going away
we'll just be using RFID in cases where line of
site is questionable, where read/write is
required, where unattended scanning is desired,
and during simultaneous reading and
identification of multiple tags." Smith told
conference attendees that the Defense Department
will require that two-dimensional bar codes be
used on military shipping labels in addition to
the RFID tags on cases and pallets.
Two-dimensional bar codes are more advanced
than traditional bar codes. They can store more
characters and don't require line-of-sight
readings. By 2007, the Defense Department will
require these bar codes on unique items such as
circuit boards, critical parts, and on items
valued at 5,000 or more, Smith said. All three
technologies--active RFID tags, passive RFID
tags, and two-dimensional bar codes--will
complement each other, Smith said. Similar to
the Department of Defense, the U.S. Air Force has
been tagging freight containers with active RFID
tags at the Military Ocean Terminal at Sunny
Point, N.C., for the past three years. Although
active RFID tags have proven successful, Mark
Reboulet, automated identification technology
manager of the Air Force Material Command, said
it's unclear how active RFID tags will behave in
the ammunition environment. The Air Force will
begin a project on Nov. 8 to test passive RFID.
But the Air Force isn't going to depend solely on
RFID. "Our hand-held readers will have a bar-code
capability and every RFID label will have a
readable bar code in the back of it. So, if an
RFID tag fails, we will have a bar code to fall
back on," he said.
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For its November RFID test, the Air Force has
purchased 5,000 class 0 tags from Matrics Inc. to
put on boxes shipped from the U.S. to a base in
Germany, where readers have been installed.
Reboulet said the Air Force is only purchasing
5,000 class 0 tags because it plans to use
next-generation RFID tags instead, as soon as
they're available . Energizer Holdings Inc. is
working with its third-party logistics provider,
Exel Logistics, part of NFC plc, to implement
RFID. Although Energizer has seen success with
class 0 and class 0 tags, the company isn't
expecting to see a return on its RFID investment
for a long time, Dick Pocek, director of
logistics at Energizer, told conference
attendees. Energizer won't change its use of bar
codes near term, he said, and the company's
internal projects will continue as scheduled,
using bar codes. "As we move product down the
conveyer line, we want to verify that the RFID
tag is a working tag and verify it against our
bar codes, which unlike RFID, have proven to be
100 successful," said Pocek. While the Air
Force and Energizer see RFID and bar codes as
co-existing technologies, Hospira Worldwide Inc.,
a specialty pharmaceuticals and
medication-delivery company, is still making a
transition from linear bar codes to reduced-space
symbology (RSS) bar codes and said it isn't ready
for RFID. Traditionally, Hospira has used
standard UCC.EAN-128 linear bar codes, but
they're too large to fit on injectable and
intravenous-solution products. The company
recently adopted the newer reduced-space
symbology for bar-coding those types of products
because it allows all information to fit in an
area as small as a pen cap. The technology has
been successfully tested now Hospira must
replace drug codes on injectable and I.V.
solution products with RSS. In the health-care
industry, RFID may be useful for patient
identification and for locating pumps, equipment,
and drugs. But there are plenty of hurdles. RF
waves could interfere with equipment such as
pacemakers, and RFID tags can't always be read
through liquid solutions, said Steven Braun,
marketing manager at Hospira. RFID tags still
cost too much, and the health-care industry,
known to lag behind others when it comes to IT,
may not be prepared for such a leading-edge
technology as RFID. "Hospitals aren't ready to
adopt RFID from a financial perspective and
because of the hospital IT infrastructure.
They're barely ready for bar-coding," said Braun.
"I see in 10 to 20 years bar-coding still being
used at hospitals, as opposed to RFID." A
complete transition to RFID will take between 10
and 15 years, according to Dr. John Hamilton,
assistant professor of management and management
information systems at the John Cook School of
Business at St. Louis University. That means
companies implementing the technology will need
to make important strategic decisions and not
look at RFID simply as the technology that will
solve supply-chain problems. "RFID implementation
will take a long time, which means bar codes
aren't going away. They both must co-exist in
order to serve different user needs," Hamilton
said. Richard Meyers, Chairman of the AIDC 100,
agreed. Companies implementing RFID shouldn't
look for ways to replace bar codes with RFID, he
told conference attendees. Instead, they should
identify the supply-chain problem and select the
technology that best solves that problem. "I
don't see an end date for the use of bar-coding,"
he said. "Bar codes are a viable, cheap
technology driven by standards and unless
standards change, bar codes will remain."



by Elena Malykhina
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Group Dinner for 60
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Elisabeth has Kevins attention!
Karen, Mike and Mark just chillin out!
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Sprague is trying to collect from Mike! Sure
looks like everything is ok!
Larry and Don feel no pain, but not sure about
Chuck!
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Now here are some very happy people!
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(No Transcript)
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The dinner must have been good!
What magic was Mark performing?
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Thank you one and all!
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Leadership Council dinner-meeting on October 19th
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Leadership Council dinner-meeting on October 19th
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Oh We also worked at our annual meeting on
October 21st!
Tom Miller and Dan Mullen of AIM presenting
a proposed relationship with the AIDC 100.
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(No Transcript)
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(No Transcript)
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Members in Attendance
Chris Kapsambelis Tom Kirkham Robert
LaMoreaux Mike Lowry Chuck Mara Brian Marcel Dick
Meyers Mike Ohanian Mark Reboulet Richard
Rees Larry Roberts Bob Rylander Dick
Sawyer Bonney Shuman Mike Weaver Ted
Williams Bruce Wray George Wright IV George
Wright Sr.
Sprague Ackley David Allais Francis Beck Paul
Bergé Chuck Biss Rick Bushnell David
Collins Gabriele Edgell Jim Fales Allan
Gilligan Teddy Goldberg Mike Guillory Craig
Harmon Peter Hicks John Hill Clive
Hohberger Chris Hook Cliff Horwitz Jack
Householder
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• Promotion/Publicity
• Rick Bushnell
• Rick Morgan
• Gabriele Edgell
• Flyer Production/Distribution
• Rick Bushnell
• Gabriele Edgell
• Paul Bergé
• Mementos
• Bonnie Shuman
• Paul Bergé
• Dave Allais
• Attendance
• Rick Bushnell
• Dick Sawyer
• Bruce Wray
• Logistics
• Stony Brook University
• - Jason Torre

Conference Materials Paul Bergé Treasury Sprague
Ackley Minutes LC Meeting Larry Roberts Forum
(Notes) John Hill Annual Meeting Bonnie
Shuman Photography Teddy Goldberg Robbi
Goldberg Bus Organization Chuck Biss David
Allais Sponsors Paul Bergé Website Larry
Roberts Registration Paul Bergé Larry Roberts
The Team That Made It Happen!
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Special thanks to Bonney and Gabrielle
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A TON of kudus to Teddy for all of the food
arrangements and to Robbi for all of the
wonderful photographs.
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For an outstanding job,
Jason Torre University ArchivistSpecial
Collections Department University
ArchivesFrank Melville, Jr. Memorial Library
Stony Brook University
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George Goldberg
A man with vision!
"The AIDC 100 is an important voice for automatic
identification and data collection, both for
members who are grappling with changing standards
and implementation challenges, and for businesses
that need these technologies and are looking for
an unbiased source of information. I look
forward to collaborating with the other members
to help the business community better understand
how these technologies can help them cut costs
and implement efficient supply chain
management.
Cliff Horwitz,
Member of AIDC 100
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Charles Wang Center
Truth in Technologies 2005 RFID and Bar Coding
Put October 26-27, 2005 on your calendar!