SATO Leads the Way at Pan-European RFID Symposium

SATO held a highly successful symposium in Brussels this March 15-16 to enable its customers and partners throughout the supply chain to learn about the latest developments in RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification). The Symposium demonstrated SATO's leadership in the vital RFID arena, drawing on the company's 25 years of experience as a pioneer in automatic identification and data capture.

Speakers from RFID technology and systems pioneers including IBM, Philips, SAMsys and X-ident were joined by end-users such as Kuehne & Nagel to look at RFID issues from a 360-degree perspective. A fully engaged audience of 120 represented a wide range of European companies from the UK, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany etc.

Presentations, covering everything from RFID chip-making to end-user applications were divided into three concurrent sessions examining the technical environment, RFID systems theory and practice, and specific applications respectively.

"Our objective was to provide not only a timely update on the state-of-the-art in RFID technologies, practices and market drivers, but also practical, actionable advice for enterprises in various industries on the possible migration paths to RFID-enabled supply chains," said Victor S. Barczyk SATO's Vice President, Business Development.

"As a market leader in the industry, it is central to our role to provide proven, real-world technical solutions, and vision for the industry."

Responses to the Symposium were uniformly positive: "Now it is much clearer, that the RFID solutions will come to have an effect on all of us in the marking and printing business," said Bjarne Hansson from EME Etiketteringsmaskiner ApS from Denmark. "I went home with the impression, that SATO is dedicated to support us in the coming requirements for solutions from potential customers and this makes SATO a very good partner for us."

Gran Karlsson, Managing Director, Part-Supply System Gran Karlsson AB from Sweden, said, "SATO had prepared applications ranging from healthcare to logistics which demonstrated RFID in real-life. SATO has very interesting solutions to offer to different markets and we truly believe that SATO is dedicated to RFID."

The automatic identification and data capture market promises to offer increasing value across the supply chain in the coming years as RFID technologies are developed to complement established barcode systems.

SATO, a leader in barcode printing since introducing the first thermal transfer barcode printer in 1979, has been supplying high frequency (HF) RFID solutions for some years. SATO fully supports the Uniform Code Council's (UCC) Electronic Product Code (ePC) initiatives and the recent Wal-Mart and Metro mandates, requiring their Top 100 suppliers to embed RFID tags at the case and pallet level by 2005. Many of Wal-Mart's and Metro's Top 100 suppliers are longstanding SATO customers who look to SATO to help satisfy their RFID requirements.

"Ultimately, the coming RFID revolution will come about because of business needs driving technical development and implementation," said Victor Barczyk. "As a leader in the realities of automatic identification and data capture, SATO is the natural partner for suppliers, retailers, logistics partners and shippers alike, throughout the global supply chain."