CxO of the Week: Mr Aik Jin Tan, Vertical Solutions Lead, Zebra Technologies Asia Pacific

CxO of the Week: Mr Aik Jin Tan, Vertical Solutions Lead, Zebra Technologies Asia Pacific

RFID has emerged to be a promising technology that has gained popularity in global industries immensely. In the past few years in India, RFID technology has moved from obscurity into mainstream applications that are not only serving industries but the government in a big way to automate and digitize various programmes. In the recent past, we have already seen one large scale implementation - digitization of toll gates via FAStags, the flagship initiative of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) for implementing electronic toll collection across the national highways. The Indian Railways is fitting radio-frequency identification tags (RFID) in all the wagons. These tags will be used for tracking the wagons and the Railways is planning to complete tagging all wagons by December 2022.

The growing need for remote interaction and asset management during the pandemic is a wake-up call for global supply chains, highlighting the necessity of technologies that provide visibility into every corner of operations. By using RFID technology, retailers can gather information about their customers' purchasing trends. RFID also enables to identify customers and provide value-added services to help create a personalised shopping experience. Mr Aik Jin, Tan, Vertical Solutions Lead, Zebra Technologies Asia Pacific on how 2021 will be a critical year for RFID in India in terms of mass-scale implementations for digitizing various consumer and business-led operations.

Do you think RFID will be one of the most significant technologies in the post-Covid world? What are some major challenges that RFID technology will be able to address in the post-Covid world?

COVID-19 has impacted enterprises across varying industries. The pandemic has caused them to evolve accordingly to cope with the new businesses challenges that have been brought about. One of the key weaknesses that have been exposed by the pandemic is that enterprises and their respective supply chains lack real-time visibility of their inventory. They simply do not know how much stock they have left on their shelves or the balance in their warehouses. As such, they are unable to make a swift decision on whether to replenish their stock right away.

In the case of supermarkets, the mad rush for groceries and daily essentials during the initial outbreak and on the eve of city lockdowns, almost paralyzed their operations because goods could not be replenished fast enough to cope with the sudden surge in demand.

As for other brick-and-mortar retailers, most of them have since embraced e-commerce to keep their businesses afloat as social distancing measures and city lockdowns have prevented shoppers from visiting their stores physically. To cope with the increased popularity of e-commerce, such retailers will need to adopt RFID technology to help them better manage their inventory and fulfilment to satisfy the instant gratification of online shoppers today.

The ability to automatically identify and track items through the supply chain, manufacturing, transport, and delivery processes, will help businesses make well-informed decisions swiftly when it comes to replenishing their stock. This is crucial because over-stocking will cause storage constraints while undersupplying will lead to loss of business revenue.

Do you see any specific industries that will propel demand in RFID technology over the next 3 years?

RFID technology is being used by different industries today for varying purposes. For example:

Healthcare

Visibility and accountability in the healthcare sector are critical. According to Emergen Research, the global RFID in Healthcare Market is predicted to garner a market revenue of USD 12.89 billion by 2027. Healthcare front-line workers need to locate medical equipment within seconds as delays may result in life and death especially during emergencies. Meanwhile, IT teams need to be able to track equipment in server vaults to eliminate the risk of lost or misplaced equipment and identify when equipment has been stolen or breached. In hospitals, RFID tags could be affixed to the patients’ wristband for visibility by larger-scale RFID or real-time location systems (RTLS) to verify patients’ locations. This can be quite useful especially during a crisis whereby the hospital is in a chaotic situation and is packed with a lot of patients at the same time.

Supply Chain/Manufacturing

The global post-COVID-19 supply chain management market size to grow from USD 23.2 billion in 2020 to USD 41.7 billion by 2026, at a CAGR of 10.3%. RFID technology plays a major role in enhancing visibility throughout the entire supply chain, starting from the point of manufacturing, to warehouse storage and ultimately when it is delivered to the shopfront or directly to consumers. RFID technology reduces the chances of items being misplaced and enables the ease of inventory tracking, thereby helping to lower operational costs significantly.

As the pandemic has not ended yet, it looks set that the likes of social distancing will be the new normal in the days ahead. Given this, organizations can even introduce RFID technology to door access via staff badges to limit the number of staff in a specific room to maintain social distancing. This can be done by prohibiting more staff from entering the room once it is full. This way of using RFID technology is not limited to manufacturing facilities, but entities like universities, hospitals where there are a lot of people.

How do you see the entire RFID market-shaping out in India over the next few years in India? How big is the market opportunity?

RFID technology is becoming increasingly popular in India. For instance:

A major railway company in India is reportedly putting RFID tags in the coaches of its 350,000 wagons by 2021, which is significant because the railways carry about 23 million passengers and over 3 million tons of freight every day

It was reported that an infrastructural development unit in India was tasked with providing RFID tagging and tracing services. The program allows exporters and importers to track goods in transit through the port to inland container depots, container freight stations (CFSs), and to end-users, thus reducing logistics costs, due to improved predictability and optimization of cargo flows. The service provider said that about 7.5 million export-import containers have been processed through the RFID network since operations began in July 2016.

The Road Transport and Highway Ministry had mandated the fitment of FASTag in M and N categories of motor vehicles with effect from February 14, 2021. FASTags are prepaid rechargeable tags for toll collection that allow automatic payment deduction from the FASTag, and they are normally affixed on the windscreen of a vehicle. Based on the report, around 75% of the toll collected on National highways is now done through FASTags.

These are just some examples of how RFID technology is being deployed in India for varying purposes.

What are the key applications of RFID in the retail sector?

For a start, RFID technology is typically deployed in anti-shoplifting alarms which are commonly seen at the entrances/exits of most retail shops today. At the front-of-store, RFID technology can be deployed at the point of sale, which reduces individual manual scanning of the purchased items by the store associates, thereby enhancing efficiency and time savings.

At the back-of-store, the used case is extended to inventory management, whereby real-time visibility achieved through RFID technology help retailers to fulfil orders and track inventory. This has become extremely important in today’s COVID environment whereby e-commerce has become immensely popular.  Additionally, RFID technology can be used to enhance the shopper’s experience:

A famous sports brand constructed a pop-up arena in the centre of Manila, the Philippines that enables runners to take part in a virtual race against themselves. Using hyper-accurate RFID technology, the runners’ first lap is being tracked. Then, on their subsequent lap, their avatar virtually appears on a large screen and runs based on their previous lap time.

Smart fitting rooms that are equipped with RFID technology via a smart mirror and/or virtual assistant. Thanks to the smart technology, the shopper can get information on matching items, accessories, colour, and sizes available, watch a video, call an assistant, and even share on social media or leave feedback.

Such interactive measures are becoming increasingly crucial for brick-and-mortar stores as shoppers embrace e-commerce. As shoppers have gotten used to the simplicity and comfort of shopping online, this means that retailers must transform their offline shopping experience to let shoppers feel that their trip to the brick-and-mortar stores offers an experience that can’t be easily replicated virtually.

How effective can RFID systems be for inventory management and patient safety in Healthcare?

Zebra’s RFID technology can enable hospitals with a performance edge by connecting their diverse data into the kind of actionable insights that lead to optimal care. Zebra’s solutions help them identify, track, locate and monitor the condition of every patient, staff, and asset in their organization, thereby enabling their healthcare facility with business intelligence that helps deliver better outcomes for their patients and their bottom line.

In the case of patients, every step of the patient journey can be captured with RFID patient tracker solutions that help track and monitor the location of your patients, helping caregivers provide optimal care and safety. This helps to:

Reduce time to treatment: The analysis of treatment and location data to optimize workflows will ensure that patients with critical heart or stroke risks can get treated as quickly as possible.

Improve patient monitoring: Zebra's solutions can help to track cognitively and physically impaired patients, allowing staff to monitor patient location at all times and prevent falls and injury.

Secure mother-infant tracking: Patient tracking and infant security systems ensure proper mother-to-infant matching, providing optimal safety and security for the newborn.

For asset tracking in hospitals

In the case of hospital asset tracking, RFID sensors and tags can be placed on critical medical assets and devices like patient blood bags, IV pumps, heart monitors, beds, wheelchairs, and anything that influences patient outcomes or has high monetary value. RFID readers will then automatically note the location of the asset or device as it moves, thereby providing real-time visibility into every item. This helps to:

Improve inventory management: This ensures that the healthcare front-line workers have ready access to all the critical supplies and assets they need when they need them.

Lower operational costs: Through RFID technology, hospitals will be able to better understand which medical equipment are under-utilized. This helps to improve utilization rates of existing equipment, reducing the unnecessary purchase of extra inventory.

Automate clinic inventory: RFID technology helps to achieve automated inventory management that allows healthcare front-line workers to enjoy real-time inventory data, monitor trends and order before supplies are below critical levels. Through this, it frees up their time to focus on patient care, which enhances the patient experience.

Lastly, RFID technology can help with the tracking of hospital staff. Through the capturing of this data, hospitals will be able to optimize their clinical workflows and avoid bottlenecks. This translates to the ability to make informed decisions, better streamlining of workflows and improved patient care as a result. Further, when the hospital’s clinical communication is integrated with staff locating systems, alarms can be set up to shut off immediately when a nurse enters the patient room, thereby reducing alarm fatigue. The equipping of the staff with sensor technologies can also help to quickly identify and assign the right staff during an emergency.

Is the Government FASTags solution a road for Zebra to diversify and serve PSUs?

As explained earlier, there are many ways that RFID technology is being used and can be used. In the case of FASTags, it is an innovative and sophisticated electronic toll collection system, and it is powered by RFID technology. Under this system, toll payments can be made directly from the prepaid or savings account linked to the system. FASTag is affixed to the windscreen of the vehicle and the vehicle can be driven through the toll plazas without making a stopover for transactions. The tag is made available for purchase from the participating banks or official Tag issuers. Once FASTag is linked to the prepaid account of the vehicle owner, recharging or top-up can be done as per the wish of the owner.

Increasingly, we believe there will be more RFID used cases by the public sector. Globally, Zebra solutions are being used by various public sectors including the police, fire and rescue services, ambulance and even defence and security. With our extensive experience gained from working with public sectors across the world, we are confident that our solutions will be able to help India’s PSUs to achieve real-time visibility thereby gaining enhanced efficiency and greater productivity.

What sectors, do you think, should mandatorily use RFID?

Essentially, RFID technology can be applied in varying verticals for different purposes. But if we had to pick a specific sector that must deploy RFID technology, then it will have to be manufacturing facilities. Because a manufacturing facility can produce products for all kinds of industries, ranging from healthcare to automotive or even food supplies. Being at the start of the supply chain, the implementation of RFID at the point when goods are being manufactured will stand to benefit the entire downstream including warehousing, distribution, logistics, retailers and even the customers.

A good example of when full-scale tracking is required will be during a product recall, whereby manufacturers are often racing against time to locate a specific product or the source of the problem within a short time span. The situation becomes even more urgent if it is a case of food poisoning which may lead to severe repercussions. With the right tools like RFID technology, manufacturing facilities will be able to enjoy real-time visibility of their goods and can simplify the entire track and trace process when the need arises.