Pace of EPC/RFID adoption continues to accelerate

"Today more than 1,000 companies across the globe benefit from the standards that have been developed since our inception of EPCglobal in 2003, "said Raed Al-Samahiji, President of GS1 Bahrain the sole representative of EPCglobal Inc. in the Kingdom of Bahrain.

In all, 12 major industries and 51 industry segments are represented in EPCglobal. Although EPCglobal maintains strong ties to its first industry partner, consumer packaged goods, today our subscriber companies represent a wide range of industries from healthcare and life sciences to transportation and logistics, aerospace, automotive and high technology," said Raed Al-Samahiji.

In only three short years, the EPCglobal community has ratified seven global standards, which has accelerated the developments of hardware and software products for EPC/RFID implementations. More than 45 hardware and software products have been certified by EPCglobal and are on the market.

This year has brought with it several significant developments for EPCglobal. Among the EPCglobal accomplishments for 2006 are:

• The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) ratification of the UHF Gen 2 Air Interface protocol, published under ISO 18000-6 part C

• The formation of the HF Air Interface Working Group and the UHF Air Interface Group. The HF Working Group focuses on extending the logic and technology that is part of today's UHF Gen2 standard into the high frequency band. The UHF Working Group is developing extensions to the current Gen2 UHF protocol to add security features that are needed for item level tagging.

"At Procter & Gamble, EPC/RFID provides us with the means to see our products move from the point of production to the point of sale," said Dick Cantwell, EPC Team Leader, Procter & Gamble and Chairman, EPCglobal Board of Governors. "The technology allows us to watch every step between those two points, which results in more accurate, safer, and more secure supply chain."