Continuing to help its customers streamline supply chain operations, Sun Microsystems has revealed plans to open a 1 120 square meter Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) test centre in Scotland.
Scheduled to open by February 2004, the centre will help European-based companies test RFID solutions, and ensure compliance with regulatory standards and the provision of adequate privacy protection.
"Corporations and government agencies around the world recognise RFID's potential to cut supply chain costs, increase operational efficiencies, speed delivery time, and minimise theft and waste," says Andre Muzerie, coastal accounts manager for Sun Microsystems SA.
He says Sun's enterprise RFID initiatives and solutions go far beyond that of any other company today, encompassing hardware, software, services and partnerships.
RFID technology exemplifies a critical shift which is under way in computing - the move from PC-centric environments to a world of always-connected devices.
"RFID extends network connectivity from the things with which we interact directly, to a broad range of objects. Eventually, anything of value will be connected to the network; in supply chain terms this translates to better control and management, and ultimately more efficient and cost-effective movement of goods," he explains.
Sun's European RFID Test Centre, along with its RFID Test Centre in the US - established in November 2003 - will help companies with their RFID testing, from tagging their products, to getting information integrated into their back-end systems and sharing this information with their supply chain partners. Companies are using the Electronic Product Code (EPC) compliant RFID technology for identifying, tracking and tracing deliveries and inventory, delivering immediate ROI through reduction of out of stocks, decrease in shrinkage, lower labour costs, lower inventory costs, and the ability to trace products back to origin.
The Sun RFID Test Centre will be powered by the Solaris Operating System, using Sun Java Enterprise System software, and the Sun standards-based implementation of Savant with innovations that include a self-healing architecture that can dynamically provision software to ensure maximum reliability and scalability.
For more information on Sun's early involvement with RFID and the European-based RFID Test Centre, visit http://www.sun.com/software/solutions/auto_id/.
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Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision - "The Network Is The Computer" - has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc (Nasdaq: SUNW) to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://www.sun.com.
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