Avery Dennison Corporation has launched its radio frequency identification (RFID) business in Asia Pacific and introduced its technology transfer initiative which is aimed at providing better capabilities and support for the region's RFID label converters.
Jonson Yue, Director of Business Development at Avery Dennison RFID Asia Pacific said that the major driving forces behind the company's decision to introduce its technology to Asia at this time include Greater China's innovative usage of the technology and the booming economy coupled with Hong Kong's position as a formidable trading and logistics hub for the region.
"While most of Hong Kong's manufacturing facilities have moved their operations north to the Pearl River Delta, their Hong Kong headquarters orchestrate the supply chain and directly manage the most valuable parts," he said. "Moreover, Hong Kong has reinvented itself from a sub-regional transportation hub to a major regional and worldwide trading and logistics hub by adding value to the goods flowing in the global supply chain that connects the Greater China region with the rest of the world."
According to Yue, the RFID market comprises two main segments. The first is high-frequency RFID, which has been widely used for almost a decade in a variety of close proximity applications from livestock tagging to mass transit tickets. However, HF RFID has a short range - a few inches at most - and is relatively expensive, ranging from $1-5 per unit.
The other segment - and also the newest trend in RFID – is ultra-high-frequency, which forms the basis for Avery Dennison's latest offerings.
"UHF RFID delivers longer range readability - up to eight metres," he said. "It also costs a small fraction of HF RFID. One of the most popular inlays, at high volume, can cost as little as US 9 cents per unit, which makes it ideal for many large scale applications."
The key to Avery Denison's contribution to the industry and its customers is the patented High-Speed Strap Attach process. In essence, the company has scaled up the RFID chip to about five-times the usual size, transforming an extremely high-precision chip handling and printing process needed to create labels and inlays into a far simpler, faster and cheaper operation.
"The end result is a process that is at least 10 times faster than previously possible and, in some circumstances, as much as 20 times faster! That means a massive increase in overall cost-effectiveness, which translates directly into lower unit costs. The potential for this new RFID offering and the variety of uses is simply staggering. The limiting factor is no longer technology or cost, but how creative the business can be in unlocking the power of RFID," said Yue.
Yue believes that the increasing value propositions and versatility of RFID technology is driving evolution, enhancing global logistics capabilities in the region.
"As RFID becomes more widely used in logistics, asset tracking, inventory management and beyond across various industries, new materials, more effective manufacturing process and converting processes will need to be developed to address the unique application in each business," he said.
"Avery Dennison has been operating in China since 1995 and our RFID business unit and technology transfer programme will address the needs for new technology materials, more effective production and efficient manufacturing processes that will need to be developed to address the China market as it expands at over 30% per year.
"The technology transfer programme demonstrates Avery Dennison's commitment to being the right partner with the right tools, to provide the region's converting industry with the right product and a strong value proposition to their customers. This initiative will free our partners in Hong Kong and mainland China to focus more on their core business and core competencies, with a much higher productivity and quality standard to support customers, secure in the knowledge that Avery is committed to support them with the latest RFID application inlay designs and in advanced high-speed, high-quality manufacturing process development."
China is one of the largest markets for RFID tags across horizontal application types and various vertical industries, and this RFID Strap Licensing initiative will bring Avery Dennison technology to the market to enable more local companies to provide products and services much faster and at a lower cost.
"In Asia, the application of RFID is much more diverse, and requires a wider variety of formats, different product characteristics, processes and materials," said Yue. "The RF IDentics acquisition provides us with broader capabilities to address these demands with more variety of product forms, and much faster prototyping capabilities for new customer application usages."
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