Bringing RFID to the Classroom

Manhattan Associates is participating in the latest curriculum at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business in Bloomington. The school has built a scale model of an RFID-enabled supply chain in its lab, using trains and trucks carrying items equipped with RFID.

"Companies are looking for employees who have experience with RFID technology," says M.A. Venkatarmanan, Chairperson of the Kelley Undergraduate Program and a professor in the Operations and Decisions Technologies Department. "By using actual RFID equipment in the classroom, students can understand the technology's role in helping companies track goods through the supply chain, see into inventory, and eliminate out-of-stocks - ultimately increasing revenue."

"Indiana University is staying at the forefront of this technology, and it is exciting for Manhattan Associates to be able to take part," says Eddie Capel, Manhattan Associates' Senior Vice President, Product Management. "Indiana University is empowering its student to enter the market equipped with knowledge about this latest technology and its place in moving products through supply chain."

Stratum Global also announces a collegiate hands-on RFID lab at the Oakton Community College in Illinois. It will allow students to study the dynamics of how RFID infrastructure, readers, tags, and software logic can be used to solve business problems. The equipment needed to get this lab and curriculum on their feet is being provided by Stratum Global, William Frick, Intel, and Intermec Technologies Corp. Stratum Global's TagNet® RFID solution suite will serve as the software application foundation. William Frick, a specialist in tag and labeling solution offering from Libertyville, IL, will help to develop the tag curriculum. Enterprise data will reside on an Intel® based P4 and Xeon Server infrastructure. Intermec will provide the hardware.

"As RFID continues to emerge, Chicago and suburban businesses will need employees with tangible skills in this growing field," says Robert Sompolski, Acting Dean, Mathematics and Technology, Oakton Community College. "Students will not only learn the technology, but also be able to communicate the business value of an RFID implementation."

Zebra Technologies has become a key supporter of the new PolyGAIT (Global Automatic Identification Technologies) RFID lab at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, CA. It was conceived in 2003 when two major companies in the produce industry (under compliance mandates) came to the university looking for information on RFID applications specific to their industry, which presents unique challenges to RFID implementations. The lab supports experiments with a variety of readers and tags and houses a specially designed 600-feet per minute conveyor.

At Xterprise's RFID Solution Center, Zebra Technologies is the sole smart label printer/encoder provider. Xterprise, which has successfully implemented more than 30 RFID compliance tagging applications for customers, uses its 6,000-square-foot facility to demonstrate RFID solutions in a variety of usage environments, and to evaluate products from multiple vendors.

Avery Dennison Printer Systems is an official laboratory sponsor of the RFID Research Center at University of Arkansas, and recently supplied the university with leading-edge Gen 2-Capable RFID Systems. Avery Dennison supplied Gen 2 capable 6400 Series RFID systems to academic researchers at the Research Center in Fayetteville, AR. The 7,800-square-foot center studies the application of RFID and other wireless technologies throughout the retail supply chain.

The Web sites for the above mentioned companies and schools are: Manhattan Associates, www.manh.com; Indiana University, www.bus.indiana.edu; Stratum Global, www.stratumglobal.com; Oakton Community College, www.oakton.edu; William Frick, www.fricknet.com; Intel, www.intel.com; Intermec, www.intermec.com; Zebra Technologies, www.rfid.zebra.com; California Polytechnic State University, www.calpoly.edu, and the University of California, www.uci.edu; Avery Dennison, www.ris.averydennison.com; University of Arkansas, www.uark.edu.