I had an opportunity recently to talk to the awesome folks at Impinj and share some thoughts around the solutions we’ve been working on – check it out at http://www.impinj.com/blog/ and drop us a note if you have any thoughts / comments or questions,
Cheers!
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Tagged Anush Kumar, Carrier, impinj, RFID, RFID 2.0, S3Edge, Transfusion Medicine RFID
The Transfusion Medicine RFID Consortium today announced that S3Edge would exclusively be leading the commercialization* efforts of the Blood Center and Hospital applications that have been designed and built by the consortium members (BloodCenter of Wisconsin, SysLogic, Inc., S3Edge Inc., Carter Bloodcare, Mississippi Blood Services, the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, Mississippi Baptist Health System, University of Wisconsin Madison – RFID Laboratory, and Mediware Corp.) over the last 5 years.
The applications that have been piloted at the BloodCenter of Wisconsin & the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics with promising results will help Blood Centers & Hospital Blood Banks worldwide enforce compliance with standard operating procedures while improving operational efficiency across operations in Blood Centers and Hospital blood banks.
Some highlights from the Press-release:
“Thanks to the outstanding work of the entire consortium team, we have successfully piloted the new system to track blood products as they move from fixed and mobile donation sites, through the blood center and to distribution. After 24 weeks of running the system in a pilot mode here at the BloodCenter of Wisconsin, we have seen process efficiency and traceability gains, as well as marked improvements in reconciliation”, said Lynne Briggs, Vice President and Chief Information Officer for BloodCenter of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.
“This effort represents the culmination of years of hard work by the consortium members in bringing a much needed innovation to the market in a collaborative manner. We are pleased to see S3Edge taking the next steps to ensure that the cumulative efforts of the consortium benefit the transfusion medicine industry as a whole”, said Rodeina Davis who was the principal investigator for the STTR grant, and a luminary in the transfusion medicine field recognized for her role in advancing this new technology from idea to adoption.
“Today’s announcement solidifies our commitment not just to create compelling technology, but to realize the vision of creating a successful product for the transfusion medicine industry. We look forward to completing the requirements for the 510(k) clearance and facilitate the technology’s potential to transform current operations in the transfusion medicine industry for all end-users” said Tina Chang, CEO of SysLogic, Inc., a Brookfield, Wisconsin-based information systems consulting and services firm.
To learn more about the solution(s) please visit our website at www.s3edge.com , swing by the S3Edge booth (#579) at the AABB Annual Meeting & CTTXPO 2012 if you are in the Boston area from October 6-9th, 2012.or drop us a line at info@s3edge.com
Meanwhile, for the folks with a curious bent here’s a fun time-line of how this project evolved over the years and has become a beacon of successful public-private-academic partnerships can succeed with the right team…enjoy!
Until the post, take care and hope to see you in Boston!
Cheers
/a
*The RFID blood product tracking system is pending 510(k) submission and is not yet commercially available in the US
Posted in AABB, blood center RFID, Healthcare, S3Edge, Transfusion Medicine RFID
Tagged blood center RFID, blood center solution, BloodCenter of Wisconsin, hospital RFID, RFID, rfid healthcare, S3Edge, S3Edge Spotlight, Transfusion Medicine RFID, Transfusion Medicine RFID Cosnortium, University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics
Source: iStockPhoto
A marathon runner is what comes to mind when I think about what the year has meant to us – it’s been a while since I posted an update on all the activity out here in S3Edge land and I can tell you the last 8 months have been…well a marathon!
We’ve been heads down working away at deploying mission-critical auto-ID based solutions across verticals and I can tell you that the customers we have live in deployment this year are large enterprise accounts across Manufacturing, Logistics, Healthcare, Energy & Financial – a couple of which are Fortune 50 accounts – using our SW in a live production environment as their primary system, and tracking hundreds of thousands of assets across their operations.
Over the next few months, I hope to bring you more news / details about these deployments which I am extremely proud of and I think would mean a lot to the industry as a whole in terms of the benefits they are seeing. So stay tuned for more – we are as they say In it to win it and there’s lots of interesting deployments from the land of mission-critical auto-ID solutions leading the way in getting to the finish line!
Source: VentureBeat
Sad day for the industry earlier this week, but a day of remembrance and gratitude to a man who rarely gets talked about as the inventor of RFID; Hat-tip and kudos to behind-the-scenes inventors who have created entire industries and eco-systems that have in turn created countless opportunities for others!
Here’s the link to a great piece by Dean Takahashi from Venture Beat on Charlie’s story, and loss of a technology sensei:
Charlie Walton, inventor of RFID, passes away at 89
Rest in peace Charlie Walton.
Tagged Charlie Walton, RFID, RFID inventor, S3Edge, Venturebeat
Fresh off the presses (quite literally!) the latest book on BizTalk Server 2010 has been released to market and available now at your favorite online bookstore. It has been a year in the making, working with a veteran author crew (you can read Brian’s blog post here), and hopefully we managed to hold our own in authoring the 2 RFID chapter in this book 
(on BizTalk RFID Server and BizTalk RFID Mobile).
So give the book a whirl (you can get it at Amazon by clicking on the image above) and let me know what you think – whether you are interested in building RFID applications only (which Microsoft has enabled via a stand-alone device mgmt and event processing platform on server and mobile devices), or if you’ve always been curious about the entire BizTalk story, I promise that you wont be disappointed.
Happy reading, and I will leave you with my acknowledgements from the inside cover of the book as well as an abstract from the back cover
Though I was only responsible for the two chapters on RFID, this would not have been possible for a first-time author without a stellar support cast in the background, starting with Ram Venkatesh, my colleague at S3Edge and the primary inspiration behind nudging me down the “authoring” path. The RFID chapters would not have been possible without your selfless help and guidance. So, many thanks, my friend! A big thank-you to Clint Tennill from Xterprise, and Gijs for their time and effort to review and provide invaluable feedback. To Brian and the rest of the veteran authoring crew, thanks for the opportunity to be part of this; you guys totally rock! And finally to Mark, Andy, Neil, and the rest of the crew at Pearson, thanks for your tireless efforts in getting us to the finish line; you guys have been consummate professionals all through the process, and just great to work with.
Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010 Unleashed is the 100% new, 100% practical developer’s guide to Microsoft’s most powerful version of BizTalk Server. Written by an expert team of Microsoft insiders and BizTalk MVPs, it reflects unsurpassed experience with all phases of BizTalk enterprise solutions development, from planning through deployment and administration.
The authors begin by introducing BizTalk Server’s architecture and key integration concepts. Next, they offer in-depth coverage of BizTalk’s foundational features, including schemas, maps, orchestrations, and pipelines. You’ll learn how to effectively utilize both standard and custom adapters; monitor integration services; leverage cloud computing via Windows Azure; implement operational BI solutions; and make the most of business rules and BizTalk’s Business Rules Engine (BRE).
The authors offer best practices and “in the trenches” tips for everything from managing deployments through implementing state-of-the-art mobile RFID solutions. No other book offers this much useful, pragmatic, and tested knowledge for successful BizTalk development.
Brian Loesgen is a Principal Architect Evangelist on Microsoft’s Azure ISV team. A six-time Microsoft MVP, he has extensive experience in building advanced enterprise, ESB, and SOA solutions. He has coauthored eight books, including SOA with .NET and Windows Azure. Charles Young, a principal consultant at Solidsoft, and Jan Eliasen, an IT architect at Logica, have each been honored repeatedly as BizTalk MVPs, and are highly respected bloggers in the BizTalk community. Scott Colestock, chief architect for Trace Ventures, specializes in using BizTalk to implement integration and service orchestration solutions. He is a member of Microsoft’s Architectural Advisory Board and a BizTalk MVP. Anush Kumar, CTO of S3Edge, served as Microsoft’s RFID business leader and was heavily involved in designing and architecting its BizTalk RFID offerings. Jon Flanders is an independent consultant, instructor for Pluralsight, BizTalk MVP, and author of RESTful .NET.
Cheers!
/a
![clip_image002[5]](https://rtvs.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/clip_image0025.gif "clip_image002[5]")
This year at RFID Journal, we are proud to be showcasing our Spotlight product and industry solutions at the Motorola booth (#404) as a key software / solutions partner.
We will focus on the tool and personnel tracking solution that we have begun deploying in production at nuclear power plants in the US, and a demo consisting of RFID hardware from Motorola, and mission-critical software from S3Edge to track tools, materials, components and personnel through their process lifecycle will be running at the PoD. I encourage you to stop by and speak to Mark or myself to learn more about how Spotlight can be used for your Auto-ID based asset tracking needs.
Look forward to seeing you at the show and drop me a line if you’d like to meet.
Cheers
/a
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Motorola, RFID, RFID Journal, RFID Journal Live 2011, S3Edge, S3Edge Spotlight, Tool tracking
Source: www.shutterstock.com
As another year in RFID industry rolls by (Year #5 going into #6 for me personally), it’s time to reflect and share some inner musings on what’s been learnt, and perhaps more importantly what to look forward to in the new year.
So w/o further ado, here are my top 3 things that transpired in 2010 with some thoughts for the season ahead:
#1: The march towards reliable, cheaper hardware continues & the innovation curve here will accelerate exponentially in 2011
Purport: 2010 saw Hardware vendors unleash a range of devices in multiple form factors (readers – esp. mobile devices, antennae and tags), with significant reliability and performance improvements, coupled with dropping prices – this can only mean good news for end-users and this innovation is expected to continue progressing at a torrid pace in the coming year.
The inside scoop: A broader alignment of objectives across various partners to come together and provide a solution of value to end-users is resulting in more turnkey hardware solutions i.e. Partner expectations are lining up based on the type of markets they are targeting and this is being reflected on the hardware being produced, which is a good thing esp. for end-users customers who in turn are gravitating towards enterprise-grade software (middleware) platforms to integrate and take advantage of these numerous HW innovations over time.
#2: Packaged solutions with sustainable value for various verticals are here & this trend will only continue to accelerate in 2011
Purport: Solutions where RFID & Auto-ID are key enablers for real-time visibility and control in existing business processes have surfaced in vertical markets such as Healthcare (blood-bag tracking), Energy (tool-tracking), Financial Services (IT Asset Tracking), Discrete Manufacturing (Assembly line error-proofing, auto-ship), and Retail (item level inventory) given their ability to justify value, and investments in an Auto-ID based automation system.
Expect this trend to solidify and expand as vendor expertise – to deliver on turnkey solutions addressing customer needs for specific vertical scenarios – increases in the coming year.
The inside scoop: What we are seeing is a slow but sure march towards towards end-end, packaged solutions in vertical markets where RFID & Auto-ID technologies are making a deep impact in enabling a new level of automation to reduce errors, and improve operational efficiency (vs. current / manual processes). To do this, users are moving away from 1-off solutions to integrate real-time data into their business processes (given the cost and complexity in extending these solutions while incorporating new requirements or hardware) – and gravitating more towards enterprise-ready, scalable asset tracking solutions to build out these solutions.
And finally, here’s the ‘going on a limb’ prediction 
#3: Mission critical Auto-ID solutions emerged in 2010 and will become the gold-standard for deployment in 2011
Purport: Customers are looking at Auto-ID based solutions as part of their mission-critical enterprise (i.e. five 9’s in terms of reliability / uptime), and the factors that influence these are going to become more and important from a production-readiness perspective as we enter 2011 – and this will need to cover all parts of the solution being deployed (Hardware and Software).
The inside scoop: This is great news overall both for the industry and for adoption– good for the industry because we’ll see a set of total solution providers separate themselves from the rest based on their ability to deliver deliver on the requirements a mission-critical / scalable enterprise application demands, and good from an adoption perspective as an end-user betting on a mission-critical solution implies business criticalness of technology being used.
Hope you enjoyed this post, and would love to hear your thoughts on the above!
Cheers and Happy New Year!
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As a follow-up to the Blood Center solution video, below is the companion video that details how RFID (and Auto-ID technologies such as barcodes and sensors) can be used to enhance and improve patient safety at bed-side point of care – though the video demonstrates transfusion medicine, the solution itself is flexible enough to extend to other medication as well, helping reduce and eliminate bed-side errors.
Enjoy the video and drop me a line if you have any questions, comments, or feedback – And do check out the ‘How it Works’ section in our Transfusion Medicine RFID website to learn more!
Cheers!
/a
“RFID, via Toll‟s REAP platform, is a key technology that we believe will take our supply chain into the future today. This innovation is going to be a game-changer for Toll. It will differentiate the way we do our business. In addition, it will enable us to stay ahead of competition and become more integrated to our customers.”
Wayne Hunt, President & CEO, Toll Global Logistics
“The new system provides an additional failsafe layer for us and our customers by ensuring that pallets do not get shipped to the wrong destination as a result of manual errors. This results in reduction of expenditure associated with missed shipments, damages and reworks by up to 80 percent. In addition, we should expect to see a reduction around 6 minutes of handling time per pallet cycle, which in turn will translate into significant savings for a warehouse that handles hundreds of thousands of pallets per annum.”
James Chan, General Manager of Innovation, Technology and Operations Development, Toll Global Logistics
Customer Profile
Toll Global Logistics is one of Asia’s leading logistics service providers. Its strength and credibility rests on the ability to provide total integrated logistics solutions, backed by innovative technologies and world-class processes.
Business Situation
Toll Global Logistics wanted to take warehousing technology to the next level of visibility and productivity.
Solution
Toll Global Logistics invested in S3Edge’s Spotlight technology, the first packaged Real-Time Visibility & Control System (RTVS) built ground up on the Microsoft BizTalk RFID platform, to develop REAP. The REAP solution tracks and controls material movement in warehouses resulting in better, faster, error free and near real-time warehouse operations for end-users.
Benefits
Click here to download and read the entire case-study.
See the video here.
Enjoy!
Cheers!
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At Microsoft’s RFID Journal keynote today, an example of how the base capabilities of the Spotlight product has been customized and deployed by an industry leader in the 3PL industry – Toll Global Logistics – was showcased.
If you haven’t seen it already, I’d urge you to invest 3.5 mts on this great video to see how a leader in the logistics space has invested in technology to leapfrog competition and drive more value out of the supply chain for their customers.
Enjoy!!
Cheers!
/a
P.S> For those of you who made the connection, yes this was the customer I was referring to in this earlier post 🙂
Real-Time Visibility & Control Systems 