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AT THE CENTER
The electronic newsletter of the
Silicon Valley World Internet Center

Wednesday July 16, 2003

 

The Silicon Valley World Internet Center thanks its Sponsors for their continuing support:

EXECUTIVE SPONSORS
• Amdocs, Inc. •• Cable & Wireless •• Deutsche Telekom •• Fujitsu •• IBM Corporation •• SAP •• Sun Microsystems •

KNOWLEDGE NETWORK PARTNERS
•• Halleck ••• IC Growth, Inc. ••• Internet Wire ••

Past copies of newsletters and directions to the Center are available on the Web site.

All programs are held at the Center unless otherwise noted.

To join our community, click on this link: http://center.infopoint.com/join.php

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SIBF: WORKING GROUP: TUESDAY, JULY 22, 2003
"BUSINESS APPLICATIONS OF DISTRIBUTED SENSORS AND SENSOR NETWORKS"
Invitation Only.
Further information below.

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SPECIAL PUB: THURSDAY, AUGUST 7, 2003
"TECHNOLOGY IN HEALTHCARE AND FUND-RAISER FOR THE LEUKEMIA & LYMPHOMA SOCIETY"

Speaker to be announced.
5:00 - 7:00 p.m. Open to the Public.
The Pub Talk begins at 6:00 p.m.

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SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: SAP BECOMES FOUNDING MEMBER OF SMART ITEMS BUSINESS FORUM
Further information below.

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SUMMARY: AUTO I.D. SALON: MONDAY, JUNE 30, 2003
"ADOPTION AND APPLICABILITY OF RFID IN SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT"

Summary and Presentation Link below.

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SUMMARY: TECHNOLOGY BRIEFING: TUESDAY, JUNE 3, 2003
"Business and Technical Objectives for Low Cost Smart Items"

By Dr. Richard Swan, Technical Director for Auto-ID, SAP Corporate Research
Summary and Presentation link below

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SIBF: WORKING GROUP: TUESDAY, JULY 22, 2003
"BUSINESS APPLICATIONS OF DISTRIBUTED SENSORS AND SENSOR NETWORKS"

Invitation Only.
Further information below.

One aspect of research and commercial development in the Smart Items area is Sensor Nets. In general, the objective is make use of sensory information gathered from a number of point sources and build an overall picture of the situation. This has obvious military applications and has been the subject of DARPA and other federal research for more than 30 years. Recently wireless technology like 802.11 wi-fi and low power standards like Blue-Tooth and 802.15.4 have opened the economic feasibility of low-cost wireless-based ad-hoc networks. There are also MEMS-based and other technology sensors that can provide richer information than traditional temperation, vibration and light.

In this Smart Items Business Forum Working Group, the focus will be on exploring the commercial business applications of sensor net technology. For the purpose of discussion we should assume the availability of multi-hop radio technology. It may be valuable to discuss any emerging biological or other sensors that will open new business applications. The prime focus of discussion will be on identifying existing or emerging commercial application domains that can serve widely applicable business needs.

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SPECIAL PUB: THURSDAY, AUGUST 7, 2003
"TECHNOLOGY IN HEALTHCARE AND FUND-RAISER FOR THE LEUKEMIA & LYMPHOMA SOCIETY"

Speaker to be announced.
5:00 - 7:00 p.m. Open to the Public.
The Pub Talk begins at 6:00 p.m.

Please join us for a special Pub on August 7th focused on Internet-related technologies and the advancement of cancer research and treatment. The Silicon Valley World Internet Center is hosting this special Pub as a fundraising event to support the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and its mission to find a cure for blood-related cancers (http://www.leukemia-lymphoma.org). Dr. Venilde Jeronimo, the Center's former Senior Director of Client Services, is a 2003 summer participant with the Society's Team in Training (TNT) (http://www.teamintraining.org), the world's largest endurance sports training program. TNT participants raise money toward cures for leukemia, the leading disease killer of children; Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, the largest group of blood cancers; and myeloma, a nearly incurable cancer that strikes mostly the elderly. Venilde has committed to train to run the Maui Marathon on September 21 and raise $5,000. Venilde is a survivor of Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL), initially diagnosed in 1984 with a relapse in 1988 and a surgery in 1995. Of the 19 years she has dealt with ALL, she's proud to say that she's been in remission for 8 years and 5 months!

The Center feels strongly that the technology community can play a vital role in supporting advanced research. This Pub is dedicated to that spirit.

All donations are 100% tax deductible and go directly to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Checks (made out to the Society), cash, and credit cards will be accepted day of event. For more information on the Society and blood-related cancers; TNT; to read about Venilde's journey with Leukemia; or to make an online donation, please go to: http://www.teamintraining.org/participant/jeronimo-89405

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SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: SAP: FOUNDING MEMBER OF SMART ITEMS BUSINESS FORUM

SAP Corporate Research (http://www.sap.com/research) announced they will join the Smart Items Business Forum (SIBF) at the Silicon Valley World Internet Center and will serve as the founding chair of the rotating Board of Advisors. The Smart Items Business Forum (SIBF) will convene corporate and government representatives to identify and fully leverage Smart Items business scenarios with the highest possible return on investment (ROI) for enterprise-scale customers.

"It's not enough to know how Smart Items technology will work," says Prof. Dr. Lutz Heuser, vice president of SAP Corporate Research and chief development architect. "We also need to understand the business impact that this technology will generate. There are many industry segments that will be affected by Smart Items technology. The Silicon Valley World Internet Center is starting a Smart Items Business Forum where we will discuss the business objectives of such a Smart Items infrastructure in much more detail than the technical. SAP Corporate Research has agreed to be the founding member and chair of this Forum. We hope that others will join this Forum to contribute to a lively discussion about how business will be impacted and change because of Smart Items."

"We are very pleased that SAP Corporate Research had the vision to be the founding member and chair of the Smart Items Business Forum," said Susan Duggan, CEO of the Silicon Valley World Internet Center. "The time is now to work across industries to glean the business return that Smart Items technology and infrastructure will bring to the enterprise. The Smart Items Business Forum will provide that neutral ground for shaping the future of high business return in this space."

The Forum will advance the understanding of the specific value dynamics of Smart Items in order to optimize ROI, identify and promote vertical market opportunities, identify and promote related innovative technologies and foster strategic partnerships, especially between software and hardware companies.

SAP Corporate Research will be the founding chair of the Forum, which is open for membership to all companies and government officials who will act as a rotating board of advisors and members. The founding Board of Advisors will consist of five key companies in the Smart Items space. Positions on the Board are available. Four sessions are currently planned by the SIBF for the Summer of 2003. As the membership in the Forum grows, members and advisors will inform the creation of further sessions.

For information on institutional membership, please contact the Center's CEO, Dr. Susan Duggan at duggan@worldinternetcenter.com

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SUMMARY: AUTO I.D. SALON: MONDAY, JUNE 30, 2003
"ADOPTION AND APPLICABILITY OF RFID IN SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT"

Summary and Presentation Link below.

On June 30, 2003, the Silicon Valley World Internet Center hosted its second Auto ID Salon, focused on "ADOPTION AND APPLICABILITY OF RFID IN SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT." The Center welcomed back Mr. Dean Frew, President of Xterprise Corporation, as the Salon Master. Forty Salon participants discussed key challenges to the next generation of RFID products and the reliability of proposed solutions.

The Salon participants generated a list of what problems challenge current RFID technology capacity and then discussed key elements for the construction of next generation RFID-based solutions. Below is the Salon's list of top supply chain-based challenges that RFID solutions should address:

  • applications/solution targets
  • visibility
  • returns/maintenance
  • shrinkage (theft, lost, broken, perishable / age of product)
  • tracking patients and drugs
  • terrorism (knowing what NOT to move)
  • process of pulling orders together
  • out-of-stock avoidance
  • grey market/counterfeit
  • dynamic traceability

The discussion flowed from these challenges to performance issues for current and next generation RFID solutions in the supply chain. Salon Master Dean Frew underlined four key performance points that need to be met to address these challenges:

  1. Price point
  2. Read rate
  3. Read range (does it read it or does it not?)
  4. Integration into backend systems

Several participants raised the issue of reliability. Mr. Frew countered, "If your read rate and read range is good enough, the product of those two things is read reliability." He expressed a need for supporting read rate reliability through the use of redundant antennae or special orientation of pallets to the readers. Many questioned the applicability of RFID tags on all product types, and several participants, including Mr. Frew, underlined that RFID was not a universal solution for all supply chain management problems, but certainly could significantly reduce labor costs and loss of inventory.

Salon participants discussed the potential problem of data overkill: that is, the generation of so much data by RFID tags which could swamp a current ERP or other enterprise-level system. Mr. Frew focused the Salon on the need for "scrubbing" data to ensure that what is sent on for computation within an enterprise system is lean and appropriate. As he emphasized, "The trick is being able to scrub the data and minimize the flow of information to the enterprise system. That's critical."

Other key points of discussion revolved around data accuracy. The need for assuring what is read, checked, and fed into an enterprise system from a warehouse floor is critical. The expectations for an RFID-based system are high and many made comparisons to current bar-code reading-systems, asking for the compelling argument for the investment in a new RFID-based inventory system. The Salon Master pointed out that most organizations have a 20% error rate in their inventory control in their warehouses. "That's why you take the human out of the loop," argued Mr. Frew, so as to get the human error rate out of the process. A Salon Participant countered with "So what did I save in the process?" Mr. Frew again pointed out, "No human in the loop. We manage it by the exceptions." For example, if a pallet arrives with 50 items and the RFID tags are scanned and there are not 50 items in the pallet, then it could be hand scanned. Ultimately one is only managing the exceptions and lowering the bulk costs of tracking inventory by the use of RFID-based technologies. The software for doing this could be in the middleware or in the backend.

The Salon wrapped up with a discussion about security of the RFID tags. One participant pointed out that the soft spot in the supply chain is in the "hostile retail environment" where much of the shrinkage of the inventory occurs. If robbers are willing to steal inventory, what will prevent them from tampering with the RFID tags? Dean Frew addressed this issue by saying, "You can come up with the absolute, most impenetrable, secure tag on the planet, and it would never be cost-effective in the environment. You can also come up with a really inexpensive tag where you hit it with a cell phone buzz and you could change it, and that would be a drag, as it'll be changing all the time. So, I think there is a space there for different applications where security is going to be critical and where security is NOT going to be critical. We are going to find that the folks that are building the tags and building that technology are going to make sure that they fill that gap to match that market need when that takes place . . . [re: security of the tags] I think it's important in some cases; I don't want to minimize it for some; but I don't think it's as big of an issue across the bulk of the supply chain . . ."

Many thanks to the Salon Master and the Salon participants for an exciting exchange. We look forward to further Auto ID Salons in the Fall.

To view Dean Frew's presentation on RFID in the Supply Chain, visit the Center's Website. Scroll down and click onto "June 30, 2003" to view the program information and presentation link.

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TECHNOLOGY BRIEFING: TUESDAY, JUNE 3, 2003
"Business and Technical Objectives for Low Cost Smart Items"

By Richard Swan, Ph.D. Technical Director for Auto-ID SAP Corporate Research Center, SAP Labs, Inc., Palo Alto
To view Dr. Swan's presentation, click Here and Scroll down and click onto "June 3, 2003" to view the program information, " Business and Technical Objectives for Low Cost Smart Items"

Auto-ID tags are an example of Smart Items aimed at low cost and widespread use in the economy. This presentation will tackle a range of business and technical questions:

  • What are the business objectives for the trillion dollars in market muscle pushing the deployment of a common set of hardware and software RFID standards throughout the supply chain?
  • What has been the role of the MIT Auto-ID center?
  • What are the potential capabilities of a widely deployed Auto-ID infrastructure?
  • What business processes can be addressed by Auto-ID?
  • What technical capabilities must be in place to make it work?
  • Can it really scale?
  • What full closed-loop trials are in place?
  • What are the issues in connecting Auto-ID to enterprise applications?

About the Speaker

Dr. Richard Swan founded SAP's Corporate Research Center in Palo Alto. One of the main research projects has been the development of an extensible infrastructure to support the wide spread deployment of "Smart Items". This technology has been deployed in two substantial pilots by SAP, one with Procter&Gamble in the U.S. and the other with Metro AG in Europe. Richard is guiding the setting of SAP's product roadmap for Auto-ID and the establishment of international public standards with the Auto-ID Center Software ActionGroup.

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For further information on the Center's Sponsors and Knowledge Network Partners, visit their Websites:

EXECUTIVE SPONSORS
• Amdocs, Inc. http://www.amdocs.com
• Cable & Wireless http://www.cw.com
• Deutsche Telekom http://www.dtag.de/english/index.htm
• Fujitsu http://www.fujitsu.com
• IBM Corporation http://www.ibm.com
• SAP http://www.mysap.com
• Sun Microsystems http://www.sun.com

KNOWLEDGE NETWORK PARTNERS
• Halleck http://www.halleck.com
• IC Growth, Inc. http://www.icgrowth.com
• Internet Wire http://www.internetwire.com

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To join our community, click on this link: http://center.infopoint.com/join.php

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