INTERVIEW
JAN SVOBODA
Sales & Marketing Director, Americas, RFID, UPM Raflatac
JAN SVOBODA
Sales & Marketing Director, Americas, RFID, UPM Raflatac
1. What does UPM Raflatac do?
UPM Raflatac’s RFID business area specializes in the cost-effective high-volume production of high-frequency (HF) and ultra-high frequency (UHF) tags and inlays with an emphasis on quality, product yield and performance.
UPM Raflatac is a wholly owned subsidiary of UPM. UPM Raflatac is a globally leading supplier of pressure-sensitive label stock and manufacturer of RFID (radio frequency identification) tags and inlays. Label stock from UPM Raflatac and new-generation Rafsec RFID products meet the needs of demanding applications in a vast array of end uses.
UPM is a global forest products group with core businesses in printing papers, specialty papers, label materials and wood products. In its main product areas, UPM is a leading manufacturer in all key markets. UPM has production in 14 countries and employs about 26,000 people. The company’s sales in 2007 exceeded EUR 10 billion. The group’s key mills are located in Finland, Germany, France, the UK, Austria, the United States and China.
UPM’s shares are listed on the OMX Nordic Exchange Helsinki, and the company has an ADR program on the OTC market in the United States.
2. What problems are you solving for customers?
Since 1997, UPM Raflatac has enabled successful development and deployment of RFID solutions across a wide range of industries and applications.
3. How did you come to select Impinj as a partner?
Impinj’s supply of tag chips, reader and antenna resources, and systems development capabilities offer great advantages to UPM Raflatac, our partners and ultimately the end users.
4. How do you work with Impinj?
UPM Raflatac builds UHF RFID tags and inlays using Impinj tag chips. In addition, we work with Impinj to develop RFID systems that meet customer expectations on performance and reliability.
5. What pilots/deployments are you working on?
There are a great number of existing deployments and pilots but even more exciting are the number of new opportunities that are coming up. In many cases we are obliged by non-disclosure agreements to keep customer names confidential, but there are a number of cases we can talk about publicly including:
6. Are your customers primarily interested in open- or closed-loop applications?
Both. However we are finding the closed-loop applications are more likely to succeed and reach deployment compared to open systems that tend to operate across independent entities or an entire industry. The number of closed-loop opportunities is greatly growing, while open systems exist but require much greater mass and consensus to materialize.
7. How are people extracting ROI out of closed-loop applications?
Details on ROI are typically specific to each adopter of RFID but there are some patterns across similar industries. One important observation we have learned is that focusing on one to three areas of major impact significantly increases the success rate of an RFID implementation, as opposed to the pilots or deployments where, from the beginning, the company tries to identify every possible area or step benefiting from RFID.
8. How quickly can a customer achieve ROI in an RFID deployment?
It greatly varies, but most of the successful roll-outs see return on investment materialize in less than 12 months.
9. What response have you seen to the Sam’s Club mandates?
We see slowly increasing activity, which is a result of an increase in future tagging demand from the existing top Wal-mart suppliers as well as new suppliers recently affected only by Sam’s Club.
10. What interest have you seen in case/pallet versus item-level tagging (or far-field UHF versus near-field UHF) applications?
Item-level is one of the largest potential opportunities for UHF Gen 2. The ROI argument is typically easier to make at the item level than in the tagging of cases and pallets. Of course, item level is not for everyone at this point and the investment level is different than that of case and pallet tagging.
11. What are some misconceptions customers have about RFID?
RFID is not a silver bullet that solves bad business practices. RFID has genuine capabilities and possibilities across many disciplines in almost any market or industry. Cost is relative and so is performance based on the application and its requirements. Also, RFID does not primarily equal retail supply chain or UHF. There are many other applications and greater volume of deployments in areas like mass transit ticketing, automotive, access, payment, libraries, and more.
12. UPM Raflatac recently announced that it will open a facility in China; what will be done there?
In Guangzhou, UPM Raflatac will manufacture both HF and UHF passive RFID tags and inlays. The initial RFID tag production capacity of the Guangzhou facility will be 100 million pieces per year and it can easily be scaled up to hundreds of millions of pieces according to market growth.
13. What have you learned from past pilots/deployments?
Partnerships with the right companies are key for successful implementations. RFID expertise, which is still lacking across the market, is essential for successful implementations.
14. What have you liked about your partnership with Impinj?
Partnership, cooperation, expertise, products, and access to resources, as well as expertise in the reader-antenna systems area.
UPM Raflatac’s RFID business area specializes in the cost-effective high-volume production of high-frequency (HF) and ultra-high frequency (UHF) tags and inlays with an emphasis on quality, product yield and performance.
UPM Raflatac is a wholly owned subsidiary of UPM. UPM Raflatac is a globally leading supplier of pressure-sensitive label stock and manufacturer of RFID (radio frequency identification) tags and inlays. Label stock from UPM Raflatac and new-generation Rafsec RFID products meet the needs of demanding applications in a vast array of end uses.
UPM is a global forest products group with core businesses in printing papers, specialty papers, label materials and wood products. In its main product areas, UPM is a leading manufacturer in all key markets. UPM has production in 14 countries and employs about 26,000 people. The company’s sales in 2007 exceeded EUR 10 billion. The group’s key mills are located in Finland, Germany, France, the UK, Austria, the United States and China.
UPM’s shares are listed on the OMX Nordic Exchange Helsinki, and the company has an ADR program on the OTC market in the United States.
2. What problems are you solving for customers?
Since 1997, UPM Raflatac has enabled successful development and deployment of RFID solutions across a wide range of industries and applications.
3. How did you come to select Impinj as a partner?
Impinj’s supply of tag chips, reader and antenna resources, and systems development capabilities offer great advantages to UPM Raflatac, our partners and ultimately the end users.
4. How do you work with Impinj?
UPM Raflatac builds UHF RFID tags and inlays using Impinj tag chips. In addition, we work with Impinj to develop RFID systems that meet customer expectations on performance and reliability.
5. What pilots/deployments are you working on?
There are a great number of existing deployments and pilots but even more exciting are the number of new opportunities that are coming up. In many cases we are obliged by non-disclosure agreements to keep customer names confidential, but there are a number of cases we can talk about publicly including:
6. Are your customers primarily interested in open- or closed-loop applications?
Both. However we are finding the closed-loop applications are more likely to succeed and reach deployment compared to open systems that tend to operate across independent entities or an entire industry. The number of closed-loop opportunities is greatly growing, while open systems exist but require much greater mass and consensus to materialize.
7. How are people extracting ROI out of closed-loop applications?
Details on ROI are typically specific to each adopter of RFID but there are some patterns across similar industries. One important observation we have learned is that focusing on one to three areas of major impact significantly increases the success rate of an RFID implementation, as opposed to the pilots or deployments where, from the beginning, the company tries to identify every possible area or step benefiting from RFID.
8. How quickly can a customer achieve ROI in an RFID deployment?
It greatly varies, but most of the successful roll-outs see return on investment materialize in less than 12 months.
9. What response have you seen to the Sam’s Club mandates?
We see slowly increasing activity, which is a result of an increase in future tagging demand from the existing top Wal-mart suppliers as well as new suppliers recently affected only by Sam’s Club.
10. What interest have you seen in case/pallet versus item-level tagging (or far-field UHF versus near-field UHF) applications?
Item-level is one of the largest potential opportunities for UHF Gen 2. The ROI argument is typically easier to make at the item level than in the tagging of cases and pallets. Of course, item level is not for everyone at this point and the investment level is different than that of case and pallet tagging.
11. What are some misconceptions customers have about RFID?
RFID is not a silver bullet that solves bad business practices. RFID has genuine capabilities and possibilities across many disciplines in almost any market or industry. Cost is relative and so is performance based on the application and its requirements. Also, RFID does not primarily equal retail supply chain or UHF. There are many other applications and greater volume of deployments in areas like mass transit ticketing, automotive, access, payment, libraries, and more.
12. UPM Raflatac recently announced that it will open a facility in China; what will be done there?
In Guangzhou, UPM Raflatac will manufacture both HF and UHF passive RFID tags and inlays. The initial RFID tag production capacity of the Guangzhou facility will be 100 million pieces per year and it can easily be scaled up to hundreds of millions of pieces according to market growth.
13. What have you learned from past pilots/deployments?
Partnerships with the right companies are key for successful implementations. RFID expertise, which is still lacking across the market, is essential for successful implementations.
14. What have you liked about your partnership with Impinj?
Partnership, cooperation, expertise, products, and access to resources, as well as expertise in the reader-antenna systems area.
© 2008, Impinj, Inc.
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Is there an RFID-related topic you’d like to see covered in future issues? Did you find this newsletter helpful? Please send your comments, questions, and suggestions to RFIDinsidetrack@impinj.com
Is there an RFID-related topic you’d like to see covered in future issues? Did you find this newsletter helpful? Please send your comments, questions, and suggestions to RFIDinsidetrack@impinj.com