Radio-frequency identification or RFID tags have now be a staple of the high tech market. We have seen RFID used many ways such as for tracking livestock, to improve supply chain management, and for coupons.
What we haven’t seen, in terms of full scale market acceptance, are RFID tags that are washable. But that might be changing.
According to Fujitsu Frontech North America Inc., it has shipped more than two million of its WT-A521/A522 RFID tags in the first quarter of 2013. Sales of washable tags have been so robust that Fujitsu has doubled the production capacity at their manufacturing facility in Japan.
The rugged washable RFID tags are being used in both healthcare and the hotel/hospitality marketplaces. The small, flexible, RFID tags are sewn into, or attached to garments, linens, mats and accessory items allowing customers to scan hundreds of articles simultaneously to track their inventory anywhere in the hospital, hotel or at the warehouse. Industrial laundries also use washable RFID tags to reduce operational costs caused by inaccurate shipping and receiving counts and costly manual counting of assets and deliverable items.
Pat Cathey, senior vice president of Retail Products Group, Fujitsu Frontech North America, said the demand for new washable RFID tags in healthcare, hotels and hospitality as well as laundries has exceeded the company’s expectations.
Washable RFID tags are able to withstand more than two hundred washings, the harsh chemicals associated with dry cleaning, temperatures of 250 degrees Fahrenheit for drying and 400 degrees Fahrenheit for ironing, the tags are also designed to withstand the high pressure of water extraction systems up to 60 bars. The rugged, non-magnetizing nature of the tag’s design allow it to be used in MRI rooms as well as typical industrial Autoclave systems used for healthcare and hospital sterilization. The small tags are extremely flexible, soft and durable which makes them ideal for flat linen, garments, accessories and a wide variety of laundered healthcare items, Fujitsu Frontech said.
With a reading range of more than six feet and the ability to read hundreds of tags simultaneously, the washable RFID tags may become a cost-saving alternative to bar codes and other RFID systems, which require handling and single garment processing. The materials used in the Fujitsu tag, for example, are intended for long deployment cycles, allowing the tag to be reused into another garment linen item within the intended life-cycle time, reducing total cost of ownership.
The Foothill Ranch, Calif.-based Fujitsu Frontech works with channel partners to develop front-end solutions for big data and washable RFID tags may become a big part of that growing market.
