Zebra was a double winner, including for best new product
Apr 11, 2024The RFID Journal Live show held its 17th Annual Awards presentation today, with the big winners being Zebra Technologies, UPS and Yamaha.
RFID Journal first created the annual awards program in 2007 to acknowledge and applaud the best RFID implementations across multiple industries. RFID Journal readers around the world submit entries this year that provided details on their deployments. RFID solution providers were asked to submit information for the Best New Product award. In total, there are six categories in which awards were handed out on April 11.
Winner for the Best New Product, given to the company that exhibits the best new RFID product or service at RFID Journal LIVE! 2024, was Zebra Technologies for their FXR90 Ultra-Rugged Fixed Readers. FXR90 RFID readers are built to perform reliably in a wide range of harsh environments and feature read rates of 1,300+ tags per second.
Collaboration with Yamaha
Zebra was on stage as well for its work with Yamaha in the Best Industrial IoT or Manufacturing Implementation category.
Yamaha G3 Boats was cited for the their use of RFID technology to facilitate real-time tracking and automated data collection, thereby enhancing the manufacturing process, and providing complete visibility into the production operations.
"We are honored to be recognized by RFID Journal," said Michael Fein, director of product management for Zebra Technologies. "We are passionate about RFID and the idea of moving it forward."
UPS Honored
The awards ceremony started off with UPS being announced as the winner of the Best Large-Scale Deployment. The UPS Smart Package Smart Facility is one of the largest RFID deployments in the U.S. and is reducing operations cost, improving productivity and radically elevating the customer experience with pinpoint location accuracy and speed of decision making.
"Our brand and this award is centered around UPS’s best assets, they wear shoes. They are called UPSers," said Jon Gurney Bell, Strategic Innovation, Advanced Technology Group at UPS. "This award is due to the dedication of 500,000 UPSers around the globe."
The runner up was Northrop Grumman, who in partnership with Factory Sense, has integrated state-of-the-art RFID technology across their extensive Space Park facility. This initiative was aimed at revolutionizing the way they track critical assets and tools, setting a new benchmark for industry excellence, streamlining production processes, and reinforcing their leading edge in aerospace technology.
Goodwill Hunting
For the Best Retail or Restaurant Implementation, Goodwill Industries of Southern New Jersey and Philadelphia received the honors. Goodwill was cited for using RFID to enhance the customer experience at their retail locations, while improving inventory management, reducing labor costs, and enabling better loss control.
The online retailer Mercado Livre was recognized for using RFID to improve the management of Returnable Transport Items (RTI) to optimize inventory processes in one of the world's largest e-commerce logistics operations.
The winner of the Best Logistics/Supply Chain RFID Implementation went to Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein. The Brazilian hospital used RFID technology to track when the linens are used, laundered, and returned to cabinets to ensure adequate stock and efficient replenishment. And the hospital is doing it in a fraction of the time required with the manual system, saving approximately $300,000 yearly.
Loma Linda University Health was honored as well. A world class academic hospital in California, it was recognized for successfully using RAIN RFID technology to achieve full visibility and tracking of all medical products, which has resulted in significantly improved patient safety. Recalled products are now traced to patients in seconds, expired devices are never placed in patients, required products for procedures are guaranteed to be available and electronic medical records are always accurate and complete.
Disruptive Winners
Microgroove was the winner of the Best Use of Disruptive Technology to Enhance a Product or Service or Improve Business Operations for pioneering technology for minting physical objects on the blockchain. The use of the Microgroove minted-NFC tag enables blockchain traceability and authentication, allowing for a new degree of physical object provenance.
Texas A&M University/Decklam Technologies placed second. The university sponsored the research conducted by Decklam to make the case for RFID-enabled traceability in cash movements, proving organizations can provide better service at a lower cost, and garner operational savings using the technology.
The awards ceremony concluded the three-day show for 2024. Show organizers announced that RFID Journal LIVE! 2025 will return to Las Vegas next year, held at the Paris Hotel from May 6-8, 2025.
