| UKITA and the EU RFID Project |
| Friday, 30 April 2010 13:16 |
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UK & EU SMEs poised to profit from RFID technology - UKITA selected as UK delivery partner The European Commission wants to boost the adoption of new technologies by small and medium-sized companies. A new project promises to measure the return on investment in RFID for SME's - RFID-ROI-SME Project (www.rfid-roi-sme.eu) A new EU-funded project, which started in April 2010 and runs for two years, will help European SMEs in understanding and fully leveraging the potential benefits of RFID technology. RFID systems allows automated real time data collection without physical or line of sight contact, using radio frequency identification of tags. Managed by the UEAPME (the European craft and SME employers’ organisation) the “RFID-ROI-SME” project will deploy and co-ordinate eight pilots targeting multiple sectors across six European countries, including the UK through UKITA – The UK I.T Association (www.ukita.co.uk). The main goal of the project is to boost the adoption of RFID technology by SME communities, while at the same time creating business opportunities for innovative RFID solution providers within the EU. The aim is to demonstrate tangible benefits of RFID technology across many different sectors and business cases. These benefits will then be disseminated to wider SME communities in the form of case studies, best practices and blueprints. “The potential benefits of RFID technology are vast and businesses are becoming more and more aware of these”, said Mr Sebastiano Toffaletti, co-ordinator of the project. “However, the adoption of RFID on a large scale by European SMEs has not materialised yet. The goal of our project is to facilitate this transition, by raising awareness of the potential benefits with practical examples across different countries and sectors. Not only for individual companies, but also for the European economy as a whole is it important to remain at the forefront of this technological change. We trust that our project will contribute to this end”, he continued. Price considerations play a key role for the uptake of RFID. While investments in the technology have increased six fold in the last five years, this growth is mostly led by expenditures from larger corporations. SMEs often lack the equity to invest. “Prices of RFID equipment have been falling over the last years but have still to go beneath a certain threshold to reach the mass market. Once they do, the changes could be similar to the shift in business practices after the mass changes to broadband access and provisions”, explained Mr Toffaletti. The project will deal both with the potential benefits and threats coming from RFID. RFID is the Technology to: TRACK, TRACE, AUDIT & CONTROL. RFID = Automating the collection of data about assets, bringing these benefits: 1.reduces costs 2.increases accuracy 3.speeds information flow 4.security (of areas/access and products) 5.efficiency and regulation To ensure European SMEs’ competitiveness in a knowledge-based globalised economy, the European Commissions’ Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (FP7) has singled out eight companies in six different countries to run pilots on the introduction of RFID at SMEs. UEAPME, as co-ordinator, manages the consortium to ensure the quality and standardisation of the reporting on the pilots work. With such diverse sectors as construction, logistics, packaging, plastics, archiving, apparel, security and e-ticketing involved, the project takes a horizontal approach. Every sector shall learn whether an investment in RFID is profitable and what technological architecture is best suited for them. A website, www.rfid-roi-sme.eu, will inform about the project and post monthly updates on each pilot’s progress. The UK also has a Facebook page, twitter account and LinkedIN Account for this Project and for UKITA . NOTES: UEAPME is the employers’ organisation representing exclusively crafts, trades and SMEs from the EU and accession countries at European level. UEAPME has 84 member organisations covering over 12 million enterprises with 55 million employees. UEAPME is a European Social Partner. For further information: http://www.ueapme.com/ |
| Last Updated on Friday, 30 April 2010 13:53 |