Sun RFID Compliance Testing: Sun opens RFID test centre

From iT News, Australia ... Sun Microsystems this week opened a facility in Dallas where it will work with product vendors to test Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) compliance and ...

Sun's RFID Testing Approach:

Retailers recognize the potential for radio frequency identification, or RFID, technology to cut supply chain costs, increase operational efficiencies, speed delivery time, and minimize theft and waste. But mandates from Wal-Mart and the Department of Defense requiring major suppliers to adopt RFID by January 1, 2005, have ramped up deployment plans—and anxiety levels. Sun Microsystems will open state-of-the-art RFID Test Centers in Dallas, Texas, and Linlithgow, Scotland. At the centers, retail suppliers will be able to see that RFID can integrate smoothly into existing systems, and they can test deployments to ensure that all the pieces of the solution—from information integration in back-end systems to sharing data with supply chain partners—are configured for optimum results. The test facilities will also allow companies to evaluate various solutions before they invest in them.

The warehouse facilities provide a working environment that allows suppliers to see RFID in action, and perform a thorough analysis of their own manufacturing, warehouse, and distribution environments to ensure that their product-tagging plan is ready for implementation from conveyor and dock door stations to warehouse forklift portals. Test center users will also be able to work closely with Sun's RFID experts, who will share best practices, answer questions, and help users determine how to most effectively implement RFID in their businesses.

Sun's RFID Test Centers use a number of Sun technologies that simplify an RFID implementation. Sun's solution also facilitates secure and seamless integration with legacy systems and other standards-based enterprise applications and solutions. Sun's RFID Test Centers are just one part of Sun's overall RFID offering, which includes hardware, software, services, and partnerships. The centers will showcase RFID in action—providing working proof of the real benefits this technology can bring to the retail arena, which Sun is already exploring in its own business process.