You’ve shelled out hundreds of thousands of dollars, and you’re now the proud owner of a radio frequency identification system. What do you do with the mangled data it’s spewing out? Many companies, it appears, are asking that question. A comprehensive study from Venture Development Corporation reports that 58.9% of firms using or planning to implement RFID are “highly concerned” about the quality of the data captured by the technology. For example, VDC says, some pilot installations miss up to 30% or more of the transponders passing by readers, producing a high volume of false negatives. Meanwhile, the readers keep reading several times a second, piling up questionable data. This is just one instance of emerging problems with RFID data collection, integration, and evaluation.
Another issue is the overwhelming amount of data that AIDC technology—whether bar code or RFID—generates. Most companies are running legacy systems that simply can’t handle this information. A sizable number of respondents (54.8%) to the VDC survey are also highly concerned about data synchronization.
A highly effective way to clean up RFID-generated data, according to a white paper written by VDC analyst Michael J. Liard, is to deploy middleware. What it does is serve as a “traffic cop” for RFID data, says Liard. Middleware monitors the flow of information, extracts and transforms it from all types of AIDC input technologies, filters and combines it, and routes it to the appropriate program, such as a warehouse management system. Liard writes in his report that “users are looking to feature-rich RFID middleware offerings that satisfy their requirements and address potential problems that may arise from the operation of an RFID system (particularly for supply chain applications).”
Although one of the hottest new markets to watch, RFID middleware isn’t a huge one—yet. Currently amounting to $16.4 million globally, the market is projected to top $43 million next year and soar to $135 million by 2007, accounting for about 3% of all RFID systems revenue by that time. As for who’s going to be selling middleware, you guessed it: Just about everybody’s jumping on the bandwagon, from the WMS biggies to ERP providers to large and boutique systems integrators. For more information, contact Michael J. Liard at 508-653-9000, ext. 130, or at [email protected].