Almost three times the volume of RFID tags will be sold in 2006 than over the previous 60 years since their invention, claims The IDTechEx report, entitled RFID Forecasts, Players and Opportunities report.

Primarily this will be because retailers and military forces are demanding, for the first time, that suppliers fit tags to pallets and cases to save cost and improve service but many other applications will be growing very rapidly. This exponential growth will continue and, by 2015, the value of sales of RFID tags will have increased by thirteen times over the figure for 2005.

The IDTechEx report analyses the rapidly growing and diversifying market for Radio Frequency Identification RFID. The total value of this market, including systems and service, will rocket from $1.95 billion in 2005 to $26.9 billion in 2015.

The report reveals fast growth in billion dollar, billion tag niches as response to tagging about 30 billion pallets and cases for military and retail mandates is slow due to a range of technical problems at previously little used UHF frequencies. This is however being resolved with 0.5 billion tags being used for pallets and cases in 2006. Item level tagging (especially by pharmaceuticals) and tagging of baggage, animals, books, tickets and other non retail markets are strongly growing in value - in 2008 3.0 billion tags will be sold for such applications and 3.0 billion tags for pallets/cases, but the former tag value will be higher than that for pallets/cases.

The market for RFID interrogators is analyzed - reaching $0.87 billion in 2008 for EPC interrogators and $0.58 billion in the same year for other interrogators, such as Near Field Communication interrogators. Forecasts by territorial region show that by 2010, 39% of RFID tags by numbers will be sold in East Asia, followed by 36% to North America.

In addition though, many experts believe that manufacturers and suppliers will begin to see benefits in installing RFID. Such technology can be integrated to help suppliers go beyond compliance and realise investment returns within their own supply chains. This is a vital consideration to suppliers and manufacturers under pressure to realise better cost margins. A recent report carried out by Deloitte Research for Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (DTT), suggest that rather than taking a holistic, global view of their businesses, most global manufacturers focus on addressing the individual pieces of their far-flung global network ? the complex web of suppliers, production facilities, distribution centres and customers ? that comprise their supply chain.

….. Two days before Go-Live, you are walking through the warehouse with an RF device and an employee asks, ‘What’s that!’

….. Your customer service people no longer spend time calling to the warehouse to check stock. They go to the warehouse to check it themselves because they can’t get a warehouse person to answer the phone.

….. Your #1 customer, who is tired of waiting in will call, begins picking their own orders. And you realize they are faster at it than your pickers.

….. Your pickers have begun interleaving tasks. But when you return to your office you realize the software doesn’t allow interleaving of tasks.

….. Several of your overstock locations, for some fast movers, are physically full; the primary locations for those same items are physically empty. But systematically it is the other way around. However, the orders for these items are still getting filled.

…… Your CFO wants to know what is going on with the inventory and who is making adjustments! Because someone adjusted in $100k of an item! Then adjusted it the same item back out! Then adjusted it back in! Then back out again! All on the same day and all by the same person.

As humorous as these may be, they are a testament to the: drive, desire, compassion and will to win of warehouse people all across the country. They will and do, ?Make It Happen? every single day no matter what they are faced with.

Web application ‘ the internet-aided, second-category business model ‘ adopts an inward-facing approach. The web application model seeks to optimise business processes throughout the value chain and thus complements the outward-facing web publishing model. The web applications offered by software houses fall into three product categories: customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP) and supply chain management (SCM). CRM, ERP and SCM applications are confronted by the problem that IT structures in companies have expanded over time in most cases as stand-alone solutions and have seldom been rigorously integrated via

software layers and interfaces to form a comprehensive solution. In many companies the different IT applications can at best be described as a loosely stitched patchwork quilt. The use of proprietary program codes, the incompatibility of diverse software applications, Byzantine licence conditions and overloaded functionalities thus lead to inefficiencies and the limited adoption of these software solutions in the value chain.

System integration is gaining increasing importance for software houses given the inefficiencies generated by operating web applications side by side. In this regard the Enterprise Application

Integration (EAI) approach is the first area receiving special attention. Conventional EAI boosts process and resource efficiency by thoroughly reorganising corporate structures. Sales, materials management, production and accounting, and the CRM, SCM and ERP applications on which they are based, have to be geared towards the specifications of the EAI application.

Software is no longer merely the means for executing predefined processes; it assists in the structuring of these processes. On the one hand, this fundamental approach enables EAI to achieve the direct, seamless integration of business processes into the value chain. But, on the other hand, this approach is based on a capex budget that is higher than many companies can afford.

New strategies are needed given these inefficiencies associated with web applications. The big, international software houses are currently expanding their product ranges well beyond their original core activities. Comprehensive modular software applications are particularly attractive. The logical consequence is that the inexpensive system integration provided by web services will become a more important element of the offerings of software houses. The integration of IT systems that companies have hitherto operated side by side will become the dominant software trend. In particular the growing interaction between machines will substantially expand the scope of

applications. Even though web services have not yet managed to establish themselves in the commercial market, they are highly promising applications. For manufacturing companies and modern service providers, software houses are changing from product vendors into providers of comprehensive solutions.

Manhattan Associates, unveiled that it has developed and begun delivering all of its solutions on its Logistics Event Management Architecture (LEMA application platform. The company is the first in the supply chain industry to develop and implement this type of strategic platform for logistics as a leveraged basis for supply chain and logistics operations, which includes the breadth and depth of its Integrated Logistics Solutions LEMA leverages Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and business process orchestration as part of a common application platform and data model for these source-to-consumption supply chain solutions and enables Manhattan Associates’ customers to benefit from enhanced integration, lower total cost of ownership and reduced upgrade time and cost.

LEMA will provide companies with a comprehensive services-oriented supply chain platform that delivers database independence, a common data model, single sign-on functionality across solutions and an event-driven, long-running transaction processing environment critical to effective management of supply chain and logistics operations. When combined with Manhattan Associates’ Integrated Logistics Solutions, which manages business processes from source to consumption, this architecture provides companies with a comprehensive, technology-agnostic platform for logistics.

Manhattan Associates claims continues leadership by being first in the Supply Chain Industry to move all solutions to single platform and common data model. LEMA-based solutions have been implemented at clients including Armstrong Worldwide Industries, Coles Myer Ltd., Honeywell, PPG, Revlon and RiteAid.

The 2005 WMS RFP Template, created and endorsed by leading supply chain consultants, is the end result of intensive research and interviews with hundreds of logistics professionals. With so many WMS solution providers to choose from, The 2005 WMS RFP Template is critical if your company is requiring all vendors to prove the true value of their solutions BEFORE a buying decision is made.

Overcrowding at Southern California?s largest ports, rising fuel costs and a lack of legislative action are creating a logistics nightmare. It’s the equivalent of Starbucks and every other coffeehouse opening at the crack of noon. Downstream, everything is suddenly different. Productivity plummets. People rush to find different sources. Some make do without.

Such is the case at Southern California’s largest ports?Long Beach and Los Angeles?where products headed for manufacturing plants and retail shelves are backed up dozens of ships deep. These ports, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, handle 75 percent of the total dollar value of products imported to the West Coast.

Accenture author Al Delattre assesses the problem and offers some strategic supply chain moves that companies can use to weather the storm and accelerate their evolution to high-performance businesses. His leasons learned are focussing at:

* Ship more in less space

* Be specific with suppliers

* Be less emotional with forecast

* Re-examine your outsourcing programs

* Pay extra (occasionally)

China is apparently moving with extreme caution towards a modest revaluation of the renminbi. The government continues to drop hints that there will soon be a new fix some 5-10% higher than the longstanding Rmb8.3 rate. It fears the effects of a more dramatic move on the Chinese economy. But the caution may be counterproductive.

The government’s economic and political logic is certainly plausible. A big revaluation would probably provoke China’s exporters to cut jobs and wages. And that could spur social unrest in a country that has a huge supply of underemployed labour.

But financial markets have their own momentum. Traders would know that a 5-10% revaluation cannot do much to reduce China’s trade surplus with the US. Political pressure for another move would start almost immediately. And the traders would have hard evidence that the Chinese were willing to move. The likely response would be a flood of hot money into the renminbi.

Of course, China has capital controls to keep speculators out. But they are rather like the Great Wall - not quite as formidable as they look. China welcomes inward investment, especially from overseas Chinese. Filtering the “good” from the “bad” is already hard. When speculators have seen one inadequate move, they would be likely to try harder.

In short, an attempt to shift the currency a little bit might end with the Chinese authorities capitulating. Fair value for the renminbi is estimated to be 15-30% higher than the current level. But in such a scenario, it would probably overshoot.

Far better for China to act decisively and revalue the currency properly in the first place. That would mean shifting the rate by about 20%. A jump of that magnitude would not only calm down the US, which is threatening trade sanctions if there isn’t a revaluation; it would also take the wind out of the speculators’ sails.

There is, of course, no indication that Beijing is contemplating such a bold move. But, then, surprise is crucial to such a shock strategy. If that were the government’s intention, it would not be letting

Copyright ? breakingviews Author: Edward Hadas

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Context News

The US Treasury said that China could be liable to trade sanctions as a currency manipulator if there is no revaluation in the next six months. It called the fixed Chinese exchange rate “a substantial distortion to world markets”. The US Senate voted on April 9 in favour of retaining an amendment to the foreign affairs bill that threatens China with the imposition of a 28% tariff on all direct and indirect imports.

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RFID offers strong prospects for mobile operators in Europe, say new research. Opportunities expected in the longer term ? Operators need to devise appropriate strategies.

Although by no means a new technology, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is generating increasing interest in Europe due to its many advantages over the currently used trace-and-track technologies, according to a new report from Frost & Sullivan. RFID projects are proliferating in a variety of markets such as retail, transportation, pharmaceuticals and livestock, propelling companies and suppliers to adopt the technology in a bid to cut down costs in the supply chain while enhancing productivity.

Frost & Sullivan estimates that spending on RFID-related hardware, software and services in Europe will exceed EUR5 billion in 2007. While the retail and government vertical markets are likely to lead this spending, transport and logistics as well as manufacturing are also likely to contribute significant shares.

Currently, the high prices of transponders or tags are a major obstacle to the mass adoption of RFID. Manufacturers need to price these components more realistically for RFID to enter the mainstream and realise its true potential in the supply chain. Although this could take time, tag costs are already dropping. Further price decreases are likely to positively impact manufacturers’ unit shipments and encourage them to attempt more large-scale projects.

As far as the opportunities for mobile operators are concerned, Frost & Sullivan believes that RFID holds great potential for operators seeking to increase average revenue per user (ARPU), especially revenue from the low-margin data services.

“European operators have a key role to play in the transport of RFID data from field locations to the back office for at least either one of these two reasons,” notes Frost & Sullivan ICT Consultant Mr. Andrew Tanner-Smith. “First, it is the best technology to allow remote access on a large scale, and second, through the process of fixed-mobile substitution, it replaces fixed telecommunications lines where these have been the preferred data transport method in the past.”

While Frost & Sullivan does not expect significant opportunities in RFID projects to materialise until 2007, it recommends that mobile operators start developing and putting strategies in place to take advantage of these opportunities. It believes that the market will start gaining traction around 2007 due to the ongoing fixed-mobile substitution

Currently, the extent of the operator’s role in a RFID implementation seems to be confined to acting as a conduit for mobile and data traffic. However, many larger European operators are beginning to realise that their contribution to the market could be significantly higher.

“For example, by developing mobile applications, operators are beginning to add value to the mobile enterprise,” remarks Mr. Tanner-Smith. “In the future, Frost & Sullivan expects operators to increase the range of applications they offer to include those that may make use of RFID data, with some companies perhaps beginning to offer enterprise mobility services in this area.”

As the market develops, mobile network operators and wireless local area network (WLAN) providers are likely to gain over fixed telecom networks in terms of carrying increased RFID data. Frost & Sullivan expects the volume of data generated to increase tremendously - to the point where mobile operators could well be transporting volumes of RFID generated data that could be measured in terabytes through their networks in 2009.

“This is not an insignificant amount of data, and operators need to ally themselves with key participants in the RFID industry to turn this projected scenario into a reality,” says Mr. Tanner-Smith. “They need to identify the right vertical markets for their organisations to target and be realistic about the pricing of their data transport services.”

Frost & Sullivan further believes that there is a huge base of potential end users seeking the most economical way of transporting data from the field to the back office. Mobile operators can successfully convert these end users into RFID clients by offering attractive pricing structures and bundling voice and data services into one cost-effective option.

Radio Frequency Identification is reportedly generating increasing interest in Europe due to advantages over trace-and-track technologies.

RFID projects are proliferating in a variety of markets, such as retail, transportation, pharmaceuticals and livestock. That interest is propelling companies and suppliers to adopt the technology in a bid to cut costs while enhancing productivity, according London-based consulting company Frost & Sullivan.

Frost & Sullivan estimates European spending on RFID-related hardware, software and services exceed EUR5 billion in 2007. While the retail and government markets are likely to lead in such spending, transport and logistics as well as manufacturing are also likely to contribute significant shares.

Currently, the high prices of transponders or tags are a major obstacle to the mass adoption of RFID. The consulting company said manufacturers need to price such components more realistically for RFID to enter the mainstream and realize its larger potential in the supply chain.

Copyright 2005 by United Press International

China on Wednesday rejected U.S. pressure for quick action toward revaluing its currency and criticized U.S. and European curbs on surging textile imports as unfair. China is standing its ground in the high-stakes trade disputes, responding to U.S. and EU pressure by accusing its critics of failing to follow through on their own market-opening pledges.

Europe and the United States dragged their feet on carrying out promises to open markets before a worldwide quota system ended Jan. 1, Commerce Minister Bo Xilai said Wednesday in comments carried by the official Xinhua News Agency. That led to a surge of inexpensive Chinese textile exports flooding Western markets this year, he said. “But now the United States and the EU blame China for such rapid growth, and (have) tried to set restrictions on China’s textile products. It’s unfair,” Bo told a group of international executives attending a conference in Beijing held by the U.S. business magazine Fortune. Rich countries should not insist that their trading partners open their markets while keeping their own markets closed in fields where they lack a competitive edge, such as textiles, Bo said. “Such activity is obviously in violation of the WTO principle of ‘free and fair trade’,” Bo was quoted as saying.

Officials here have repeatedly warned that moves to limit Chinese exports could undermine confidence in the World Trade Organization, which Beijing joined in late 2001 after pledging potentially painful market opening reforms in many areas, including banking and agriculture.