RFID TECHNOLOGY
2.2 SELECTION GUIDELINE ON TAGS, SERVERS, AND MIDDLEWARE
2.2.4 Middleware Selection Criteria
The key to your selection of one or more middleware products is how they integrate or optimize businesses and event-driven processes in the RFID
technology infrastructure. You should also consider how fast the executives can receive the alerts on environmental and physical changes in the RFID- enabled supply chain.
Another factor you should consider is to determine whether to have the RFID technology infrastructure as an open architecture or part of a closed-loop information system that would expedite turnaround times for pallets and cases.
This depends on what the size of your organization is, how complex your legacy, ERP, and SCM systems are, and how the presence of offending materials in your warehouse or another facility can affect tag reads. It also depends on how an RFID infrastructure can fit into the existing floor plan of your ware- house, what equipment you use to transform a product in various stages, and what the optimal number of cases and pallets is to fulfill customers’ orders.
If you opt for an open architecture, the Savant Web servers (see Figure 2.2) are recommended as it is a software technology that acts as the central nervous system of the EPCglobal Network (see Chapter 1) or another net- work infrastructure. It turns any desktop running Windows 95 or above into a server as long as you have an Ethernet connected to it. You can download it for free from http://savamt.sourceforge.net. You will need to determine which middleware products can support the Savant Web server, how they can be integrated into and affect your existing IT infrastructure, and whether more costly server software packages will do a better job of tracking pallets, cases, and items; integrating business processes; and optimizing the number of tags to be read per second, while not slowing down the server.
RFID middleware market indicates there might be at least these categories:
RFID plug-and-play RFID SCE applications
RFID platform-dependent legacy systems RFID integration hubs
2.2.4.1 RFID Plug-and-Play
Some packages are platform-dependent and others are more platform- independent. Some packages offer a library or reusable codes and compo- nents for software customization whereas others do not yet provide con- figurable options.
Some packages provide almost virtual walkup to physically change the configuration of reader tags whereas others give visual representation of the objects on the screen. Some packages offer broad filtering options and others do not at all. Regardless, the main point of this middleware type is to send the data to an enterprise system.
For instance, ConnecTerra’s RFTagAware Edge Server gets incoming data from the tags affixed to the items, cases, or pallets. The core of the RFID TagAware server is the console that is used to filter, aggregate, transform
data into a common format, and monitor it. Then the filtered and reformat- ted data is exported via Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) into Supply Chain Management (SCM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Warehouse Management System (WMS), Logistics, and other EAI applica- tions. Any of these systems can be developed as a .NET application, Java application, a Web service, or another type of application.
GlobeRanger takes a different approach; it’s more of an open architecture yet more platform-limited than ConnectTerra. GlobeRanger is built entirely on a .NET Framework whereas ConnecTerra exports data from the server into a Web service, Java applications, .NET applications, and .NET Framework.
GlobeRanger’s iMotion running on the Edgeware platform, provides a library of reusable codes and components for device adapters and standard- based integration that the third-party developers can use to develop appli- cations to suit a RFID organization’s requirements. The developers can also customize visual workflow management to identify critical events and send alerts not only to developers but also to executives who wish to keep informed of all events. Users can customize business rules as the basis of the workflow management to manage the device network of hybrid tech- nologies (bar codes, RFID readers and tags, and sensors). iMotion supports the integration of multiple RFID protocols on one application.
OATSystems’ OATmw, running on a Java platform, has the walkup interface to configure deployment of readers, label printers, alerts, and filters, and even change locations. It also allows you to administer and monitor reader networks, such as enabling or disabling readers, turning antennas on and off, and adding, changing, or deleting algorithm parame- ters. OATmw also has the capability to manage RFI interferences by sched- uling algorithms, changing priority and proximity, and setting limits.
EPC Middleware enables data exchange between an EPC Reader or net- work of readers and business information systems. EPC Middleware manages real-time read events and information, provides alerts, and manages the basic read information for communication to EPC Information Services (EPCIS) or the company’s other existing information systems. EPCIS enables users to exchange EPC-related data with trading partners through the EPCglobal Net- work. It may be used as a bridge to other middleware products that have workflow and other features that EPC Middleware does not have.
Northrup Grumman launched its Illuminos RFID software-development kit, a light version of RFID middleware. It delivers data from RFID applica- tions in the format each application requires without any filtering or other additional functionality.
2.2.4.2 RFID Supply Chain Execution Applications
In this category, application vendors focus on SCE applications on business operations and rules to transform the way the information has been collected,
filtered, and distributed from readers to SCM, other EAI, and database sys- tems in the RFID technology infrastructure. SCE applications include WMSs, Transportation Management Systems (TMSs), Logistics Management Systems (LMSs), and Supply Chain Inventory Visibility Systems (SCIVSs).
SCE applications focus on performance management based on the inte- gration tradeoffs between the demands from the customers and the supplies from trading partners in the supply chain, but do not involve procurement activities characteristics of the SCM. SCE applications also may extend and synchronize business processes to trading partners across the network in the supply chain.
Some vendors treat this type of middleware as a separate application, integrate it into a larger part of the SCM, or add it as a module to a SCE application. Further SCE applications may be part of a SCM system or be considered as separate from it as RFID-centric. The SCM system that contains SCE applications may also include other supply chain applications such as Supply Chain Planning (SCP).
If a SCE application is external to a SCM system that a company internally runs, it will require appropriate interfaces. Some vendors integrate SCE appli- cations to Supply Chain Performance Management (SCPM) applications to send alerts on various events. Even if the vendors do not integrate, SCPM applications may be available as separate packages from other vendors or part of the SCM system. Some vendors provide support for collaborative messaging exchange between Web services and non-Web services involving the use, filtering, and deployment of RFID data collected from RFID tags.
As of this writing, Provia, Manhattan Associates, RedPrairie, SAP, and High- Jump Software are the major players in SCE applications. Each has its own benefits and advantages of running an SCE system, application, or module, as middleware. They give you an example what to look for when you compare application vendors, even those vendors that are not mentioned in this section.
ViaWare WMS is the core of Provia’s platform independent SCE solution and coexists with RFIDAware to leverage the visibility of RFID items in warehouses. This database-independent (Oracle, SQL, Informix) system includes Yard Management functionality (ViaWare YMS) of tracking carrier performance, scheduling dock doors, and doing other things to improve performance. Also included in the SCE solution are ViaWare TMS and ViaWare Optimize. Provia’s FourSite, as a stand-alone or part of the ViaWare suite targets toward managing customer inventories in many warehouses.
Manhattan Associates offers WMS as part, not as a core, of its Integrated Logistics Solution™. Like WMS, Manhattan Associates also offer other supply chain applications as a separate package or with an integrated whole. They include Transportation Management, Performance Management, and RFID in a Box™ to enable RFID connectivity with existing systems. Unique to Manhattan Associates are Trading Partner Management, Reverse Logistics Man- agement, and Distributed Order Management. Trading Partner Management
aims at synchronization across the trading partner network whereas Reverse Logistics Management automates the process of product returns.
RedPrairie offers RFID-MAX™ to enable RFID technology within its SCE suite of products including WMS, transportation management,and labor- productivity management. This makes the SCE RFID-centric, although WMS is not the core of the product suite. Unlike Provia and Manhattan Associates, RedPrairie integrated RFID-MAX with its Supply Chain Process Management to manage events, send alerts on various events, and improve performance based on the information gained from the events.
Included in mySAP SCM is the SAP RFID application running on SAP NetWeaver that provides interoperability with Microsoft .NET, Java 2 Plat- form Enterprise Edition (J2EE) and SAP’s ABAP. It provides RFID supply chain networking, planning and coordination of EPC-compliant RFID read- ers, tags and other products SCE including data warehousing, and enterprise asset management.
SAP RFID application also provides event/exception management via SAP Event Management, the goal of which is to support an adaptive supply chain model that is responsive to changing demands and supplies. Through the SAP Web Application Server, SAP provides the interoperability of Web services technologies. SAP also provides open integration technologies to support messaging exchange between Web services and non-Web services.
ERP adaptors are provided for integration into existing SAP R/3 supply chain execution processes.
Supply Chain Advantage, HighJump’s RFID technology-enabled product suite, includes advanced, tightly integrated solutions for warehouse man- agement, yard management, transportation management; supply chain vis- ibility, event management, trading partner enablement/collaboration, and automated data collection.
Data Collection Advantage from HighJump Software, a 3M company, allows you to configure the collection of RFID-enabled data. It is designed to be integrated into any ERP system (including PeopleSoft, soon to be merged with Oracle), Oracle, MAPICS, and SAP), With Data Collection Advantage, you can tailor predefined transactions to meet the unique needs of your enterprise.
2.2.4.3 RFID Platform-Dependent Legacy Systems
This middleware category focuses on the way the big names’ platform- dependent legacy systems are used to transfer RFID data from readers for filtering and deployment to an integration hub of back-end SCM, ERP, other EAI systems, and database systems. This includes RFID middleware plat- forms, solutions, or even a council using existing technologies.
Some software giants “have baked” RFID into their mainstream applica- tions and servers whereas others developed a middleware platform for use with mainstream applications and databases. One relies on a strategy
approach for a flexible approach to installing, testing, implementing, and deploying the RFID technology infrastructure. Another uses a partnership alliance approach to using the mainstream applications and databases.
Depending on your existing technologies and organizational strategies, you may make the choice that suits best with regard to ROIs: short term and long term whether you are required to comply with RFID mandates or you wish to reorganize logistics operations to realize performance and asset visibility gains from transitioning to the RFID infrastructure.
In this section, we cover Sun, Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle. For each, specific technologies used in their RFID technology infrastructure to run a RFID middleware platform or solution are highlighted. A middleware plat- form is not the same thing as middleware software. The middleware plat- form is platform dependent whereas middleware software packages may be platform independent.
For some potential customers who may be smaller companies that need to comply with various RFID mandates, investment in RFID deployment can be high depending on the size and complexity of increasing asset visibility in real-time. For this primary reason, the big names have offered potential customers RFID strategies, software trials, test centers, and other means of testing and evaluating middleware platforms, software, and tech- nologies for the RFID technology infrastructure.
2.2.4.3.1 Sun Microsystems: RFID Middleware Software
Sun Java System RFID software is the Sun’s middleware platform based on open industry standards included those defined by EPCglobal. It consists of two components: the Java System RFID event manager and the Java System RFID information server. Both are available for download.
The RFID Event Manager in the role as the supply chain event manager processes large amounts of EPC data coming from readers into the system.
The Event Manager then transfers the data to the supply-chain back-end systems such as a SCM or an ERP system and to the RFID Information Server to log EPC data and events. The information server stores and aggregates associated business data regarding various EPC events using the following platforms: Solaries 9/SPARC, Solaris 9 (x86) 12/03 and RedHat Enterprise Linux 3.0. Sun has deployed The Dallas RFID Test facility as the first in the series of Sun RFID Test Centers for the purpose of allowing the companies to test and evaluate various configurations before investing in RFID tech- nology infrastructure.
2.2.4.3.2 Microsoft: RFID Council
On April 5, 2004, Microsoft RFID Council was formed to look at RFID require- ments and how Microsoft technologies can be used in the RFID infrastructure
to increase asset visibility in the supply chains. The Council has several partners including Accenture, GlobeRanger, HighJump Software, Intermec Technologies, Intellident, Manhattan Associates, Provia Software, and Reqio.
Microsoft technologies used to collect, filter, transform, integrate, and store RFID data and events include Microsoft Windows CE, SQL Server™, and BizTalk® Server. Also included are Visual Studio® and Web Services Enhancements (WSE) for Microsoft .NET to create Web services-enabled RFID solutions.
As of September 2004, Jack Link’s Beef Jerky, a U.S.-based, midmarket segment international snack manufacturer worked with Microsoft. and part- ners ABC Computers, Avery Dennison (smart labels and RFID label com- pliance services), SAMSys (readers and antennas), and SATO America (RFID label printers) to implement RFID. As an example of good project planning and management process, the company decided to start early on RFID implementation, even though the deadline for trading partner mandates would be at least 2006.
This early start enabled the company to plan for a project of four phases.
Completed in less than three weeks, the first phase involved tagging cases and pallets for selected beef jerky items destined for the Wal-Mart distribu- tion center in North Texas.
The second phase used Microsoft Navision, a middleware, to leverage RFID for manufacturing tracking. RFID tags were attached to totes and racks in a closed-loop system; they automated recoding ingredient lot and fin- ished products tracking. The third phase of the project extended the process to raw-material supplies, to record lot information as part of the receiving and picking processes.
The fourth and final phase involved the use of RFID technology to track the movement of inventories from the company’s manufacturing sites to its central distribution center. During each of the last three phases, any prob- lems that would surface were analyzed, evaluated, and corrected long before the 2006 mandates.
2.2.4.3.3 IBM: RFID Middleware Strategy
IBM’s approach is to develop a flexible RFID middleware strategy using a middleware to accept incoming data from readers, filter it, and then send it into business processes and enterprise applications. The strategy includes SCE and SCP as two of the four business processes for a flexible framework according to the customers’ requirements, strategies, and technologies.
As of December 2004, IBM’s Sensor and Actuator Solutions business unit introduced two new WebSphere-based servers to help enterprises to auto- mate business processes using RFID and middleware for retail store oper- ations. They are IBM WebSphere RFID Premises Server and IBM WebSphere RFID Device Infrastructure.
METRO Group used an IBM RFID middleware based on the IBM Web- Sphere RFID Premises Server in its initial deployment in November 2004.
The software aims at integrating RFID tags and RFID readers in networks with customers’ IT systems. This provides the retailer with a virtual view of RFID-tagged pallets and cases shipped to its distribution centers. IBM Web- Sphere RFID Device Infrastructure is designed for RFID manufacturers who need a platform for integrating RFID data collection.
In conjunction with these two software packages, IBM WebSphere Remote Server aims at managing, for example, retail store locations. Retail- ers can link new or current in-store RFID-enabled applications and Point- Of-Sales (POS) systems with one another and the enterprise.
2.2.4.3.4 Oracle: Sensor-Based Services
According to Oracle, RFID is just one type of sensor-based technology;
others include moisture, light, temperature, and vibration sensors. Increas- ingly, Oracle is combining RFID tags with sensors and tracking technologies such as Global Positioning System (GPS) to give companies greater visibility into their supply chains for reduced risk and optimized business processes.
GPS is used to calculate the position of a GPS receiver anywhere on the earth as long it is used in the open and semi-blocked areas. It, however, may fail in urban and blocked areas. We are only concerned with RFID, not GPS, readers with regard to SCE applications.
Oracle builds RFID into its mainstream applications making it a platform- dependent middleware platform. It draws sensor-based RFID data includ- ing location and temperature from primarily Oracle Database 10g, and Oracle Application Server 10g. Using Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g, and Oracle E-Business Suite 11i, Oracle integrates sensor-based information into the enterprise systems. Oracle’s solution includes a Compliance pack- age, an RFID pilot kit to help companies connect r eaders to Oracle applications.
2.2.4.4 RFID Integration Hubs
webMethods focuses on the integration of event-driven components into the Services-Oriented Architecture (SOA). TIBCO takes a different approach by overlapping its Event-Driven Architecture (EDA) on the SOA.
2.2.4.4.1 webMethods: SOA RFID Middleware
Prior to 2005, the U.S. DoD told its suppliers to start using RFID so it can track the goods it receives. It has used webMethods to put the data in a common format from more than 30 enterprise systems it operates. webMet- nods integrates heterogeneous home-grown applications by integrating
them into a service-oriented architecture. This gives the DoD high levels of asset visibility.
webMethods’ Enterprise Services Platform, a component of webMethods Fabric combines proven application integration capabilities and event- driven technology with a distributed service-oriented architecture to create an integration infrastructure. The Enterprise Services Platform can incorpo- rate all Web services, including those exposed using proprietary integration products from other vendors, application servers, and SOA modules being developed by packaged application vendors.
2.2.4.4.2 TIBCO: EDA Middleware
TIBCO’s Track and Trace Solution gives managers and executives a real- time view of order and inventory information by incorporating EPC and business information across organizations and their network of suppliers and distributors. This enables them to better monitor the changes in supply and demand.
Behind this solution is TIBCO’s Event-Driven Architecture (EDA) that TIBCO overlaps with SOA in an architectural framework to increase asset visibility across the supply chain. This framework is particularly important for better inventory control and management based on faster turnaround times of alerts in real-time on problems with tracing and tracking the cases and pallets.