If you think RFID is simply a replacement for bar code think again

Although RFID has become a hot technology for inventory control and a supply chain requirement for companies such as Wal-Mart, it's not just an advanced version of bar coding.

'The worst thing that ever happened to RFID is that it got called 'bar codes on steroids,'' says Jeff Woods, principal analyst for RFID and Supply Chain Management at Gartner, Inc. 'For RFID, people should be looking at applications in which bar codes don't work today, such as chaotic business processes and complex business cases such as serialized invoice reconciliation.'

RFID, or radio frequency identification, is a system for tracking and identifying items through a combination of tags placed on the items to be tracked and readers that interrogate those tags (via radio waves) at appropriate points in a business process. RFID tags contain tiny integrated circuits that have small antennae for communicating with the RFID readers as well as the ability to store identification information. Although many companies are investing in RFID as a replacement or extension of traditional bar coding processes, there are many differences: RFID-tagged items hold more information, can be read in bulk (for example, a pallet of items can be read all at once), and do not require direct line of sight with the RFID reader to transfer information (because it's sent via radio waves).

'Oracle thinks of RFID as an enabling technology to allow our customers to connect the physical world to the information world, providing greater visibility into their assets, enabling better operational decisions, and helping them get closer to becoming a real-time business or enterprise,' says Oracle Vice President of Sensor-Based Services Allyson Fryhoff. 'For us, RFID is just one enabling technology in an initiative we call Sensor-Based Services, an information architecture for solutions that will enable our customers to realize a greater return on their assets. Combining information from RFID and other sensors will help enterprises get better visibility into what's happening in their world.'

One of the ways organizations are thinking strategically about RFID is by integrating other types of real-world sensor-based information besides RFID-sensors that can relay information such as temperature, moisture, or location. For example, in a perishable-goods industry such as grocery, a store needs basic inventory information about the identity of a box, crate, or pallet of bananas. But it might also want other information-such as the temperature at which those bananas have been kept, ambient air quality, or pallet locations.

'The true ROI will come from correlating the RFID data, which can provide identity, with information like location, temperature, moisture, or whatever is important for tracking that asset,' says Fryhoff. 'If sensor-based information is utilized appropriately, enterprises will have an incredible amount of intelligence about their operations and business processes. You need to think about how you can better capture, manage, analyze, access, and respond to the information or data being collected and turn that into intelligence about what is happening in your business.'

NASA Explores RFID Potential

NASA is one organization that views RFID as not simply a replacement for bar codes but as a transformational technology that enables it to manage data confidently. The ChemSecure project at the Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California is a good example of how RFID technologies can work in a broader context, along with sensor information from numerous sources that work together to let NASA improve operational efficiency, extend and optimize current business practices, dramatically improve safety and security, and eventually revolutionize the way it does business.

In phase 1 of the ChemSecure project, NASA collaborated with California Environmental Protection Agency representatives and local fire and police departments to assist in identifying critical data for responding to emergencies and help them develop ways to transmit the proper information in the event of a chemical spill or leak. ChemSecure is real-time automated management that connects the physical world with the information world to improve operations, enhance business operations, and reduce cost. 'We were able to demonstrate with RFID- and sensor-based services that if a highly hazardous material spills off-base, we can push that information via cell phone, handheld device, or remote-access computer to the local responding agency, so they know how to handle it before they arrive,' says Ralph Anton, chemical program manager for the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center.

Bob Waits, director of business development at EnvironMax, an Oracle partner working with NASA on the ChemSecure project, comments that RFID has enabled his company to audit, monitor, and manage what has to be done with regulated hazardous chemicals, with fewer people involved. 'Our customers can create a safer situation, because they limit exposure to the materials and can respond to events faster,' adds Waits. 'Site managers can better conserve chemicals, because they're monitoring inventories on a real-time basis.'

The ChemSecure system can automatically notify NASA's Anton and his response team if someone who's not preauthorized moves a container or makes an unauthorized change. A progressive ramp-up of security alerts escalates from Anton's team to security, to the Edwards Air Force Base police, based on where the container has traveled. 'We wanted to build in a progressive alert system so that there was no way chemicals could get into the wrong hands or be moved off-site,' says Anton.

'With Oracle, EnvironMax, and Intermec [a provider of RFID tags and readers], we've taken sensor-based management beyond the simple replacement of bar codes to the point where we're using the Oracle database and application servers' sensor-based management and event-driven architecture to create new security business rules allowing for the unmanned monitoring of high-threat materials,' says Waits.

The system, whose development started in May 2004, was operable by September, when the team was able to create notifications if any monitored chemicals were moved-by authorized or unauthorized individuals-or went through the wrong gate.

The real challenge for EnvironMax and NASA was not simply to create an RFID-enabled notification for tracking chemicals or inventory containers but to rigorously create security business rules for driving event elements across the Oracle and EnvironMax applications. 'We selected 12 significant situations requiring NASA-created business rules for this pilot application,' says Waits. 'NASA was the key in being able to tell us and the Oracle technology team how the software needed to respond-such as this e-mail needs to go out or we need to alarm on this condition-based on what was happening with the sensor-based information.'

Having this kind of control takes more than just RFID tags and validates the approach Oracle is taking by focusing on the broader category of sensor-based information. As part of its solution design, NASA uses RFID events as triggers for a sensor-based network that can provide more information to personnel than the RFID event alone. 'If you have a container with an RFID tag and it moves through a gate, it doesn't give you much information other than that the container was moved,' says Anton. 'But if you know that the orientation of the container changed or the container left the controlled-temperature network or the security camera's detected movement, you have other information feeding into the chemical-monitoring system.'

Oracle Sensor Edge Server, a component of Oracle Application Server 10g, was an important part of the solution. 'Without Oracle Sensor Edge Server, multiple systems would have had to track different things,' says Anton. Unifying previously disparate groups and interests was a key solution component. 'To create a complete solution, we needed to work closely with other groups, such as security. We broke down the boundaries, worked with our security and logistics partners, and identified the best ways to manage the chemicals to protect our communities.'

Once the decision on how to leverage RFID and sensor data has been made, the next thing to consider is implementation. 'Based on our experience, I think it's important for DBAs and technologists to understand that Oracle's core product is set up for RFID- and sensor-based management input to drive information into or out of applications,' says Waits. 'If a container is moved by a person lacking an authorized RFID-enabled ID card, the system captures the inappropriate event and the manager is notified by cell phone, e-mail, or other specified means.'

'In exploring Oracle Database 10g and Oracle Application Server 10g, we've found that Oracle has added many features and functions that make our job of creating RFID-enabled applications easier,' says Larry Adamson, CTO and general manager at EnvironMax. 'For example, the features and functions that let us communicate through cell phones, SMS and text messaging, automated e-mail notification, and the like have greatly simplified creating a complete RFID-oriented application.'
Leveraging the possibilities of RFID and sensor-based information requires altering business processes and perhaps working more closely across departments. 'Because our budgets were being reduced, it was important to leverage the infrastructure we already had in place. We saw that the security group owned sensor cameras and access-controlled doors/gates, that the environmental group had temperature sensors, and that lots of information we needed was readily available-just broken down into individual systems controlled by many departments,' says Anton. 'We had Oracle Sensor Edge Server examine all those systems and consolidate the information for the big picture.'

Oracle brought in partner Intermec, which helped ensure a read rate of close to 100 percent for the RFID tags, even under difficult conditions. 'The only way to get a 100-percent read rate is not to rely on RFID alone but to rely on a sensor network to fill the gaps,' says Anton.

And as powerful as these technologies are, using them effectively typically requires rethinking business processes. 'If you don't think more deeply about what RFID lets you do, you're missing the point,' says Waits. 'We examined our software and our customer's needs and asked fundamental questions about how to regard hazardous-materials management-how we could get more unmanned control and access to safety issues and what types of processes we could institute to deliver more information to first responders and environmental managers.'

McCarran Leverages Oracle Database

Although it's not managing hazardous chemicals and storage conditions, Las Vegas' McCarran International Airport deals with something that's equally important to the people it affects: lost or misrouted luggage.

'I haven't had my bags lost or misrouted for about 10 years now, yet I can remember every detail of the flight when it happened,' says Samuel Ingalls, assistant director of Aviation, Information Systems at McCarran Airport. 'It was a really difficult experience for me, and that's the last thing we want our customers to experience when flying from Las Vegas.'

With an average of 65,000 bags flowing through the airport daily, McCarran is turning to RFID to streamline baggage security screening and routing-no small feat. To maximize space in the passenger terminal, McCarran is adding six sorting areas: multistory buildings encompassing more than 225,000 square feet and about 4 miles of conveyer belts. 'Those baggage-sorting buildings are the nerve center of the system, but the RFID chip embedded in the baggage tag is its heartbeat, in terms of driving bags through that complex system,' says Ingalls.

A longtime user of Oracle technologies, McCarran knew that it needed a scalable system to accommodate its scalability and security needs. 'We've found the Oracle database and architecture to be flexible over time, as we've gradually integrated additional applications and services into the Oracle database,' says Ingalls. 'Virtually all our applications touch an Oracle database, and it's served us well over the years, so Oracle was the obvious choice in moving forward with an RFID project. I think Oracle is on the front edge of the RFID wave.'

At McCarran the RFID transmitter is embedded in the white, bar-coded baggage tag wrapped on a bag's handle when the bag is checked. 'The tag doesn't look any different from what passengers are used to seeing on their bags, but the tiny RFID transmitter lets the bag be directed very precisely, with almost 100-percent precision,' says Ingalls.

The system is expected to be online with a few screening nodes and live operations with the airlines in mid-2005. Although the airport is still constructing the massive sorting buildings, it has completed the screening node at the air cargo center and has been running tests on different types of luggage and their interaction with RFID. McCarran's read validity rate target for the overall project is 99.8-percent accuracy, and tests consistently demonstrate that the airport is obtaining 99.9-percent accuracy. 'We had one test with 3,000 bags where we had only one misread-something like 99.97-percent accuracy,' says Ingalls. 'That's a far leap ahead of the 80 to 90 percent read rates airlines are seeing with bar-code-type scanners.'

Unlike RFID tags containing lots of information, the RFID tag in McCarran Airport's baggage tags will contain just one unique identifying number associated with all the appropriate information through a centralized, secure Oracle database. 'The first read on the tag occurs inside the printer, so it can store the identifying number in the Oracle database and the system can associate the other information-such as passenger name and flight record-in the database too,' says Ingalls. For any particular bag or set of bags, the system keeps a complete history of time stamps and routings.

Ingalls' team needed to consider the security implications of RFID-tagging baggage. With the information on the tag limited to a single number, all anyone who reads the tag outside the airport system will see is a 3-letter airport code and a 10-digit identification number. The number means something only when associated with the information back in the database. The tag is also algorithmically related to the date of travel, so that if bags come through with older tags, the information on the tags is simply automatically discarded.

'We really tried to make it a flexible system for future possibilities we hadn't thought of initially, but we also needed it to be secure,' says Ingalls. 'We have a lot of confidence in Oracle's security track record, and we've had Oracle databases in place for years and just never had problems in that regard.'

Making sure the system is secure and flexible enough to meet the airport's needs satisfied McCarran's technical requirements, but the real benefit of the system is personal. 'For all the technical nature of this project and its complexities, it really gets down to the customer experience. It's critical for us that customers have a positive experience in the airport and that their bag arrives at their destination correctly. This RFID project is something that will enhance the customer experience, and that's what we're all about.'

Putting RFID to Work

A successful RFID-based solution needs to include a concerted effort to make sure that you're both taking the full potential and business process into consideration and laying the right kind of enterprise IT foundation. 'When deploying RFID, make sure you think about the architecture issues, the scalability issues, and the security issues, besides looking at RFID readers and hardware,' says Gartner's Woods. 'Don't let the enterprise architecture get underfunded just because the hardware is sexy.'

With the Oracle Sensor Edge Server and integrated support for RFID and sensors across its product line, Oracle gives organizations a practical, scalable road map for RFID- and sensor-enabling the enterprise.