A Speech of RFID Application for Jewellery Industry & Food Safety

Feb 2009

Hong Kong RFID (HKRFID) has been active in the developing innovative RFID application. In order to promote the technological innovations and wide adoption of RFID technologies, in February 2009; HKRFID participated a speech in the Exchange @ Science Park for Technology Community. The theme of the workshop is Technology Collaboration on Emerging RFID Technologies and Applications. HKRFID was responsible to present the RFID Application for Jewellery Industry & Food Safety.

In Jewellery industry, one of the successful examples is the RFID jewellery management system (JMS), Xapphire. This RFID-enabled JMS is proven to be a powerful tool for wholesaling, inventory checking and internal logistics operations.

This system is especially useful in the global jewellery tradeshow. Normally, the jewellery exhibitor attend exhibition every month. They will bring 6000 to 10000 jewelries to the show. It requires many check in/out and stock taking issues. The real problems faced by Jewellery maker such as barcode is too slow, frequent checking stock in daily operation and no real time stock information.

Xapphire RFID system has gained wide acceptance by local jewelers and manufacturers. This system can help them to speed up stock taking and check in/out. Also the jewellery tag can store the secret information such as pricing information. By this way, they can speed up the quotation time during the show.

On the other hand, RFID brings many advantages in food safety. By using RFID, people can keep track of the food resource; ensure the security of food supply and the freshness of frozen food in cold chain.

RFID can be applied in the Food Supply Chain Management. They can have better control over the source, storage, picking, packaging and logistics. With RFID tagged pallets and carton boxes, the goods in each container can be registered and the goods in transit between suppliers and overseas destinations could be monitored at all times.

With RFID, people can find the advantages of traceability, the benefits are as follow:
- Quality control and product recall
- Control of logistical flows
- Commercial advantage and brand awareness
- Consumer awareness
- Accountability/reduced liability
- Compliance with legal and regulatory requirements

In retail applications, sushi bars can be an example. With RFID tagged sushi dish, people can access product information by using RFID reader such as the place of origin, the source of supplier and manufacture date. Also, they can have better quality control such as better time management on food in order to improve hygiene problem. It brings better inventory management as well. For example, sales and net inventory per day are known.

In coming years, after the successful sushi bar system to ensure the freshness of sushi, HKRFID starts developing active RFID system for cross border food chain monitoring and control. Hong Kong RFID is seeking business / technology partners for these potential RFID applications.