USPS Requirements for RFID

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USPS Requirements for RFID
United States Postal Service

• Presentation to
• NCITS Technical Committee T6

Orlando, FL February 19, 2002
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USPS - Who Are We?
65 BILLION DOLLAR INDUSTRY
15,000 commercial airline flights daily
202,000 vehicle (commercial/postal)

330 Processing Plants 34,000 Area, District and
Field Offices

800,000 career employees 100,000 part-time
employees
650 million pieces daily to 134 million delivery
addresses , including 20 million post office
boxes


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Vision
The USPS is implementing technology solutions to
capture and track information on mail. We will
move toward the ability to track every piece of
mail throughout the entire distribution chain,
from induction to final delivery.
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Strategy

• Create an information technology infrastructure
• to
• provide value added information to our
  customers, improve service, and efficiently
  manage our operating and logistics environment
• enable the USPS to expand its service offerings
  by effectively linking the physical and
  electronic attributes of the mail

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Why Track the Mail?
Status and location of mail within our system is
time critical information for many mailers,
business processes and postal operations
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How?
By Identifying every PIECE and UNIT LOAD
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Comparison of AIDC Technologies
Technology
Strength
Weakness
Mature technology Established standards Ubiquitous
Low implementation cost Human readable
Need clean line of sight Orientation
sensitive Human intervention Sensitive to
printing and abrasion Static data content
Barcode
Emerging technology Lack of standards Cost
moderate to high today Human readable codes
extra
Line of sight not required Passive data
collection Not sensitive to environment Contents
changeable
RFID
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AIDC Technologies
Bar code and RFID technologies are complementary
RFID tag

• Most suitable for containers
• Easy to use see through
• Passive data collection

• 24-digit tray label provides unique ID
• Mechanization allows passive data collection
• Allows RFID to emerge

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Unit Load Tracking Application
No one technology works for all applications.
Potential unit load tracking architecture will
have to use a combination of AIDC technologies
Possible Technology Knowledge Level
Operational Characteristics
24-Digit Barcode Tray Label RFID labels
Identity of tray
Tray label inserted by mailer and USPS
Barcode Label RFID Tag
Identify Container Container manifest(what trays
are in the container - Mail sacks, pouches,
hampers, pallets, rolling carts)
Mailings created by customers Mailing from USPS
DispatchRobotics operationsDispatch bullpens
RFID tag
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Unit Load Tracking Application (continued)
Data Carrier Knowledge Level Operational
Characteristics
RFID Tag Cellular GPS
Trailer Identification Trailer ManifestTrailer
Location(what containers are on the trailer -
USPS owned and commercial transport)
Containers tendered and re-tendered Source or
destination identified
Distribution Facility
24 -Digit Barcode Tray Label RFID Tag
Pre-assigned Assigned Loads tendered Trays
and sacks unloaded from baggage carts and
re-tendered
Container Manifest (trays in
containers) Tray / Sack Manifest
TENDER
AMC
RE-TENDER
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What Has Been Done

• Demo of RFID application in Harrisburg, PA
• Diagnostic capability
• seeding mail with RFID tags
• Local initiatives in various sites around U.S.
• Integration of international RFID tag program
• Active monitoring of RFID technology
• Participation in standards and regulatory
  organizations
• Development and promotion of unit load tracking
  strategy

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RFID Design and Implementation Issues

• Integration with existing infrastructure
• Selection of tag types
• Tag storage capacity / data warehouse tradeoff
• Sensitivity to metal shielding
• Tag collision resolution
• Lack of universally accepted standards
• Application specific standards with many
  proprietary protocols
• Conflicting frequency spectrum allocations
  (domestic intl)
• Numerous standard-setting organizations
• Determine and accept initial and recurring costs

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Specific Requirements of USPS

• Volume of tags and readers may exceed the
  production capacity of any single vendor
• USPS procurement regulation requires solutions
  that can be provided by more than one vendor
• Incoming international mail containers will have
  tags chosen by other postal administrations
• Containers from large mailers will have tags
  chosen by mailers and their supply chain partners
• All readers must be capable of interoperating
  with any tags in the system
• Potential need to read up to 50 tags located in
  containers, some of which are metal

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Elements of MSR Standard

• Several sets of open standard for tags
• Open standards for readers capable of reading and
  writing tags conforming to any above standard set

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Elements of Open Standard for Tags

• RF Frequency range
• Data storage format (coding scheme)
• Modulation scheme and frequency
• Read/write protocol
• Read/write speed
• Receive/send signal power and SNR
• Support for anti-collision
• Power source

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Elements of Open Standard for Readers

• Support reading/writing of all tags conforming to
  different adopted standards
• (See previous slide)
• Support anti-collision
• must support multiple tags of different types
• container holding multiple items, identical tags
• container holding multiple items, different tags
• speed of collision resolution
• Power source options to support fixed mount and
  mobile usage
• Environmental specs for indoor and outdoor use