WM RFID Centre

The pilot aims at showcasing to SMEs in the food sector what is needed in terms of technology, business processes, skills and management for an RFID implementation delivering in-house business value and identifying which food information is required to fulfil society's, citizens and/ or organisations needs.

Related to this call for pilot projects, the European Commission funds through the FP7 RTD programme, the project ASPIRE29 which develops new middleware software solutions for RFIDs that will be distributed to SMEs under open source and royalty free conditions. This should lower the total cost of ownership of RFID applications and SMEs will no longer have to bear the costs for acquiring licences of software proprietary systems for RFID.

In general, pilot proposals might take advantage of ongoing EU research in this area. The network of excellence EuroFIR, funded under the EU FP6 'Food Quality and Safety Programme' acts in the field of food information and will therefore have importance for this project. The objective of the European Food Information Resource Project (EuroFIR) is to develop and integrate comprehensive, coherent and validated database providing a single, authoritative source of food composition data in Europe.

The food business is one that provides huge potential for demonstration of return on investment for RFID. The technology has been proven to provide a return: By providing authentication of the origin of foodstuffs, thereby increasing customer confidence and allowing access to premium markets By reducing wastage and optimising logistics costs by increasing quality of goods to the customer.

However, it is hard for SMEs to realise this return. Unlike major producers and retailers, they do not have control over the whole business process, and therefore cannot deploy the technology, along with the ancillary data systems, to allow the RoI to be realised.

Participants

Coordinator: UNIVERSITY OF WOLVERHAMPTON, UNITED KINGDOM

Participating partners: