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CANADIAN INDUSTRY ONLINE - JANUARY 2012
practice in the industry, so our
customer base soon changed to
larger companies with bigger supply
chains.”
When companies are looking at
ways to automate certain processes,
whether in a warehouse or retail
setting, RFID has become the
technology that can best identify
items at a distance without human
intervention. By placing a tag on an
item the user is able to see what
manufacturing stage it is at, which
eliminates mistakes, increases pro-
ductivity because there is visibility
over it, and increases the amount of
inventory needed, ordering products
based on the status of manufactur-
ing.
“Since there is no human interac-
tion, there are no human errors,”
explains Palermo. “When 100 boxes
come in, it takes less than a second
for all boxes to be registered. The
receiving process is that much
quicker. It gives real-time inventory
control and visibility of what is on
the shelves. We are not reducing the
amount of people that have to do
that work, we are making themmore
productive and effective in the work
they are doing.”
AN EXPERT TEAM
Academia RFID has two teams at
its centre: a research team and a
technical team. The prior is made
up of PhD university professors, who
look at what is going on in the world
with the technology. The technical
team tests the equipment to see
what will be best for certain
environments. Palermo adds: “Then
both teams get together with their
findings, engineer a solution and
present it, initially as a feasibility
report, and then as a pilot project.
The next step is to deploy the
solution.”
The organization’s business model
is driven by its customers, each of
which give it more experience in its
respective sector, opening doors to
other companies. “We are technology
focused, which makes us very niche
and allows a lot of customers to
approach us,” says Palermo. “We are
not focused on one industry.
Because we are RFID-specific we
have applications from file tracking
in a law office to pharmaceutical
supply chain to airplane manufac-
turing to a conference-managing
system for government. We do not
limit ourselves to a certain sector or
industry, and we are not looking to
commercialize applications. An
application cannot work in every
single environment, which allows us
to constantly get different opportu-
nities.”
Academia RFID starts from
scratch which each customer to
make sure it can determine a
solution that works exactly for their
needs. “We are the company that
has the most RFID experience in
Canada by far, and in the top five in
North America,” says Palermo. “We
have trained over 4,700 people
worldwide and worked on over 350
projects. That gives us direct access
to people who are interested in RFID
and we are working on projects all
over the world. It changes our
experience when we come to the
table.”
WHAT’S YOUR TAG?
• Also referred to as a transponder, the RFID
tag is comprised of a simple silicon microchip
combined with an antenna in a compact package.
The tag is fixed to the object that needs to be
tracked. The tags can be as small as a grain of
sand or as big as a book.
• There are three main categories of RFID
tags used to classify them according to their
energy source and functionalities:
• Active Tags have a battery included in the
tag and transmit actively on longer distances
that can reach several kilometers. These tags
are larger, more expensive and more durable.
They are used for tracking trailers in yards and
containers on loading docks.
• Passive Tags extract their power from the
electromagnetic waves that the reader’s antenna
emits. You are already using passive RFID if you
use your ID badge at work or automatic access,
use the Speedpass to purchase gasoline, or own a
car that has an antitheft immobilizer.
• Semi-passive Tags are similar to passive
tags in the way that they extract their power
from a remote device for communication
purposes. However, they also have a built-in
battery that allows them to store data on the
microchip.
“
We have trained over 4,700
people worldwide and worked on
over 350 projects. That gives us
direct access to people who are
interested in RFID and we are
working on projects all over the
world. It changes our experience
when we - come to the table.”
-
Anthony Palermo
INDUSTRY FEATURES - ACADEMIA RFID