IBM and T3Ci Successfully Pilot Open Standard to Enable Manufacturers to Leverage RFID Data and Improve Supply Chain Processes

IBM and T3Ci Successfully Pilot Open Standard to Enable Manufacturers to Leverage RFID Data and Improve Supply Chain Processes

IBM (NYSE: IBM) and T3Ci announced they have successfully completed interoperability testing of a new RFID industry software standard. The standard is designed to help better enable retailers, manufacturers and organizations throughout the supply chain to overcome information overload and share information to improve business processes.

This milestone marks the first step toward delivering interoperability based on the Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS) for exchange and query of RFID data. IBM and T3CI are the co-chairs of the EPCglobal EPCIS Working Group. The objective of the Working Group is to create common interfaces among RFID software, allowing organizations to exchange and leverage RFID data independent of the applications in which data is created or stored. For organizations throughout the supply chain, this will deliver greater value by allowing them to inexpensively capture large volumes of detailed data at each stage of the supply chain and share that data among trading partners.

While retailers today can provide manufacturers with large amounts of data about RFID-tagged products, until now there has been no simple and standardized way for manufacturers to sort through the volumes of raw data and perform queries to use it to improve product introductions, promotions and distribution of new products. The new EPCIS standards-based ability to query RFID data will provide organizations with near real-time RFID data from their trading partners, for the first time giving manufacturers access to the precise information they need.

Read the complete Press Release