RFID technology: enabling digitisation to increase competitiveness.

The digitisation of products and processes

In an increasingly competitive market environment, companies are called upon to respond to increasingly complex challenges: staying abreast of technological changes, optimising production efficiency, increasing operational flexibility and reducing the time needed to adapt to market changes, without ever losing sight of quality and customer service. Today, RFID technology is the best ally for meeting these new challenges: it is one of the most effective tools for collecting, monitoring and analysing real-time data on workflows, material movements and production, and then optimising both resources and business processes. We talk about this with Raffaele Cinaglia, CEO of Csolutions, a company based in Orero that specialises in guiding companies towards the adoption of RFID solutions through consultancy, design and development of customised hardware.

"RFID technology has enormous potential, but it must be modelled according to the specific needs of each company, so we always start with an analysis of the customer's needs, followed by a technical and economic feasibility study. Subsequently, a pilot project is developed to test the effectiveness of the solution before moving on to full-scale implementation. A crucial part of the process is the field analysis, which allows the best combination of tags and reading devices to be defined according to the customer's environmental and production process conditions. In some cases, as a result of this analysis, the need to design one or more customised hardware emerges, to ensure that the solution is perfectly suited to the company's requirements and objectives" explains Cinaglia.

The 4 drivers of technology adoption

For some companies, the motivation to adopt RFID technology is driven by the internal, operational need to accelerate processes and productivity. RFID also brings tangible benefits at the inter-company level, as the reduction in production time and the resulting increase in flexibility allow companies to better meet their customers' requirements.

Raffaele Cinaglia adds: 'While the vast majority of companies adopting RFID at the moment are primarily motivated by operational and inter-company drivers, the true potential of the technology will emerge as companies recognise its strategic and inter-company benefits. The promise is to connect the entire supply chain, offering benefits to all stakeholders and providing the end customer with greater traceability and transparency on the purchased product.

Customised hardware solutions and future scenarios

Csolutions has developed advanced hardware to improve the reliability of tag reading. Among them, the SmartGate RFID is designed for mass scanning to guarantee 100% accuracy, thus overcoming the problems of reading errors, one of the main obstacles to the adoption of the technology.

Paola Barletta, Business Developer at Csolutions, confirms: 'We have noticed that variability in tag readings is one of the main obstacles to RFID adoption by Italian companies. Ensuring devices that can read 100 per cent of tags means allowing companies to access the many benefits of the technology,' she says.

The SmartSpin RFID is based on the SmartGate RFID, and integrates a component that rotates up to 130°, solving the reading difficulties caused by signal polarisation. For picking operations, Csolutions has developed the SmartPick RFID, a system that quickly identifies the products placed inside it, simplifying the verification of items during order preparation.

RFID technology is rapidly gaining popularity and more and more companies are recognising the many benefits in terms of efficiency, productivity and competitiveness.

In conclusion, Raffaele Cinaglia summarises:

"The adoption of RFID enables the development of solutions that make Italian companies increasingly competitive, thanks to a technology that ensures an exact match between what is happening in the company and what is recorded in the information systems. The strength of the technology is to provide real-time data on which companies can make both operational decisions, optimising processes and increasing productivity, and strategic decisions."