RFID 2005, a new exhibition launched by the logistics and marketing branch of Reed Exhibitions France, will take place on October 12-14 in Paris.

An event which bills itself as “all RFID and nothing but RFID” will be devoted - as you might expect - to RFID, its applications and its technology.

The first dedicated RFID show in Europe will be held at the French capital city’s Palais des Congrés, and, according to Reed, it has been created in response to market demand. “RFID 2005 will be meeting the increasing demand for information coming from the main players in the industry, distribution and logistics services, all keen to implement this new technology,” said Alain Bagnaud, director general for the logistics and marketing business of Reed Exhibitions France.

“All areas of activity and all economic players, both private and public, are affected by RFID,” he added. “The deployment of this technology will gain considerable momentum over the next few years. This type of event is already taking place in the United States and in Asia and we felt it would be worthwhile creating a European event exclusively devoted to RFID as it meets a real need. And we decided that the event should be held in France.”

The event, though in its inaugural year, has a precedent of sorts, as at last year’s SITL, also in Paris, an RFID section was a prominent feature. It proved to be a great success, attracting more than 3,500 visitors who were able to learn about the technology’s numerous applications in the field of logistics: controlled temperatures; stocking and monitoring etc. Full-scale demonstrations underlined the merits of RFID and the benefits the technology can contribute to many industries in terms of enhanced productivity and security.

RFID 2005 will host 120 exhibitors, accommodated in 5,000sqm of exhibition area and organisers expect to welcome approximately 5,000 visitors. Visitors will be given an overview of all aspects of RFID - practical conferences will address the technology, including its technical, financial and legal aspects.

The “RFID University” will offer delegates a three-day modular training programme in which plenary sessions will alternate with themed workshops. All components promise to provide valuable support as companies consider the strategic and operational aspects of implementing RFID and the potential commercial impact on their business performance.

There will also be a facility for visitors to organise meetings directly with people who are undertaking RFID projects that are of specific interest to them.

Exhibiting companies will be making use of the four rooms available to demonstrate the practical applications of RFID technologies.

And finally, throughout the event, a panel of international experts will decide on the first RFID Global Award to be made in recognition of the best innovation in the field.

A conference programme at RFID 2005 will also run alongside the exhibition and a call for papers has been made, inviting speaker proposals from those wishing to take part in the conference programme at the RFID University.

“For its first edition, RFID 2005 wants to consistently provide world-class, cutting-edge educational content for the RFID market and aims to attract over 300 senior-level delegates from across Europe,” said Michel Rousseau, conference manager. “The conference offers speakers and their organisations the opportunity to establish their position as industry experts within the RFID market and provides face-to-face contact with an audience of senior level decision makers. In order to guarantee an impartial point of view, Reed Exhibitions France will be working closely with a panel of industry experts when selecting conference papers.

To ensure the programme delivers the best quality information for its delegate audience, thought leadership and case study content will be prioritised during the rigorous selection process.

All speaking submissions must fit into one of the topics that have been identified in conjunction with the conference advisory panel. The sessions will be divided into three main sections: state-of-the-art, strategy-deployment and sectorial applications.

For further information, contact Laurent Noël, exhibition director, on +33 (0) 1 55 21 34 92 or at Laurent.noel@reedexpo.fr

• • • • • • •

Redbridge Holdings has announced the successful deployment of its LinkFresh business management system by Cambridge-based Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Anglia Business Solutions at its Redbridge Caterfresh division. LinkFresh is a Microsoft Navision based solution developed by Anglia specifically for the fresh produce industry. The implementation will handle the financial, order processing, inventory and warehouse management needs of the business from a single, centralised solution.

“We had spent a long time evaluating various options before discovering the Linkfresh system,” said Redbridge systems & IT director, Reg Jackson. “The initial attraction was the power and flexibility of the system’s design and its underlying Microsoft Navision technology. However, given its newness in the fresh produce sector, we wanted to carefully assess its ability to be adapted to cope with the vagaries of our industry. We also needed to ensure that, as good a technical solution as it is, it could ultimately meet our specific business needs.

“We were very impressed at what we found during the assessment process. The standard solution includes a wealth of business management functionality, but when we tapped into its powerful configuration and development facilities we saw the system’s enormous potential to keep pace with our business given the dynamic sector in which we operate.”

“The people we worked with at Anglia were excellent. When we received their comprehensive solution model it was clear to us that they understood what we were trying to achieve.”

Deployment of the financial solution was completed within six weeks of the project launch. This was followed by a carefully managed migration of Caterfresh’s diverse and demanding customer base to the new sales order capture function, Jackson said: “It was essential that service levels to our customers did not suffer due to the changeover. Anglia helped us configure the system to precisely and efficiently support each and every customer’s specific needs. Customers were only migrated to the LinkFresh system once we had verified every step of their own particular order lifecycle.”

He added there is still work to do. “Migrating to the LinkFresh system was a massive task in itself, but an even bigger challenge now lies before us. We are committed to driving through improvements to every part of our business using the powerful technology we now have at our disposal.”

OPTIMISE BACK ON THE BLOCK

Phil Carter, formerly of Torex and now one of the directors of Optimise Systems Ltd - the result of a management buyout of the ex-Weir Systems Prodigy software package from Affinitus - has a defiant message for his competitors.

Carter and fellow directors Nick Narracott, Barry Astbury and Arthur Field have between them around 75 years of experience in the fresh produce arena to draw on. An enforced silence, part of the mbo deal, is not down to inactivity, Carter told the Journal.

“Because we have been quiet for a while, people thought we had failed, but that is not the case. We know too many people, and we recognise that there’s a difference between selling and the implementation of the product you have been sold.

“There has been a big rush into the marketplace by some big players, but I think the amount of time it takes to develop a full understanding of the needs of the fresh produce business has been underestimated.”

He added that Optimise Systems will not be rushing its own re-entry. “We are being very pragmatic and have no specific targets. We will see what we can achieve with our existing customer base and resources, but we believe the time is right. Feathers have been ruffled in our sector and that’s a good thing.”

AN OPEN WINDOW ON YOUR BUSINESS

By now, everybody is familiar with internet technology. Indeed, many people now use it regularly to purchase goods and services as well as an invaluable source of information. However, few people in the fresh produce industry use this technology as a means of communicating internally within their business and externally with their business partners.

All of this is about to change with the maturing of cost-effective systems designed to pull together various islands of data. The purpose of this article is to highlight their potential as communication and efficiency aids.

Let’s start by explaining what I mean by an ‘intranet’ and an ‘extranet’. An intranet is an internal secure business environment that operates like the Internet but runs on a local area network. An intranet usually operates behind a firewall to enable secure access to the internet. An extranet is where you provide a gateway from the intranet to the outside world and vice versa. Now that that’s clear, let’s get on and tell you how they can be used.

As a permanent link between your customers and suppliers, an extranet has tremendous potential for improving the way your organisation works. For example, providing your growers with their own input screen where they can immediately post information on product quality and volume could enable your packers to plan resources more effectively. Providing the packhouses with extranet access where they can input product yields as they come off the line could enable you to make up shortfalls where the yield is less than expected. In addition, if you service major retail outlets, you can, should you want to, provide them with their own portal access where they can see product and shipment details pertinent to them.

Up to now, setting up an intranet or extranet provided most organisations with quite a challenge both from a technology and cost viewpoint. However, the arrival on the market of powerful “out of the box” packaged systems such as Microsoft’s SharePoint Portal has taken much of the pain and cost out of development and deployment. SharePoint combines an intranet, extranet and document management system in one easy-to-use and quick to implement solution. SharePoint technology has been around for a while. However, the first two releases of the product were pretty light on functionality. The first release of the product lacked some core functionality.

SharePoint Portal Server 2003 is a different kettle of fish as the view in the IT industry is that they got it right with this third version.

The business objectives behind SharePoint and other competitive portal products are pretty simple. The technology is designed to provide you with a complete view of your business through a single easy-to-use application. Using a web-enabled front end, you can access all of the electronically available information throughout your company. Using the combined collaboration features of Windows SharePoint services and Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal, users can quickly create, manage and build their own collaborative websites and make them available throughout the organisation.

The real benefits come, however, when the portal is used to deliver dynamic information on the business drivers of the organisation. This is called digital dashboard technology. Just as the dashboard in your car constantly monitors the performance of the vehicle, a digital dashboard can do the same for your business.

For example, you may have budgeted for assumed production costs against a consignment. However, product quality and transport difficulties have meant that the costs have soared. The first you know of this is when the consignment is shipped and the true costs emerge.

A digital dashboard won’t prevent this from happening. However, it will alert you to the problem earlier, enabling you to take action on damage limitation.

Using digital dashboard technology, you could set up a series of indicators geared to the key performance indicators (KPIs) of the business. These could be related to product quality, shipments on time or product/consignment profitability. Providing your business management system is capable of producing the information dynamically, the indicators on each KPI graphically reflect what’s really happening through the portal. Green means that everything is hunky dory, amber means that the situation needs monitoring, red means that you could be in the brown stuff.

In summary, the arrival of the new breed of business management systems linked to portal technology will radically change working practices in the industry. Exposing and sharing KPI information both internally and where appropriate, externally will enable management to spend less time fire-fighting. This will allow more focus on delivering profitable business for the organisation.

For further information email bobr@angliabs.com.