Effective immediately, the spectrum for RFID applications is set at 866-869 MHz and 923-925 MHz in the UHF bands, the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) announced today. The power limit for both bands has also been increased from 0.01W to 0.5W, while the power limit for the 923-925 MHz band will be increased to 2W for RFID devices only.
Speaking at a seminar this morning, IDA Chairman Lam Chuan Leong said: "Our RFID applications must interoperate with the U.S. and European systems to allow the physical movement of goods across borders to be tracked with the same RFID tag."
IDA will monitor the effectiveness of the new spectrum and make further adjustments if necessary, Lam added.
This latest news comes six months after the regulator announced a three-year S$10 million (US$5.9 million) plan to develop five RFID-enabled supply chain clusters by 2006.
"IDA has laid the foundation for the development of RFID in Singapore. To date, the industry has quickly responded with commitments to invest more than S$12 million (US$7.2 million) towards RFID projects," Lam said.
He added that IDA is optimistic these investments will generate technology spending of S$50 million (US$30 million) in the development and adoption of RFID over the next three years. Besides monetary support, IDA has worked closely with technology providers, multinational firms and educational institutes to ensure there are adequate manpower, technology and infrastructural capabilities to support the development of RFID. So far, its efforts seem to have paid off.
NOL, APL Logistics and Sun Microsystems will jointly set up the RFID Testing & Solutions Center in Singapore. Touted as one of the first in Southeast Asia, the facility will provide manufacturers with compliance testing services and checks before tagging their goods with RFID tags. The center will locate the optimal position to tag for the most accurate reading since each product has its own customized packaging. At the same time, the center helps to free up the manufacturers from having to do their own tagging, Lam explained.
According to Lam, Singapore's position as a regional logistics and supply chain hub makes it an ideal location to house the facility. "For the tracking of the entire movement of goods to be effective, it is essential that they are tagged as close to the point of origin as possible. Hence, Singapore as the logistics hub in the Asia-Pacific is well-positioned to play this role," he noted.
"We want to work towards attracting more of these regional RFID infrastructure services to put Singapore in the center of the Asia-Pacific RFID map," Lam added.
Progress has also been made in forming the Singapore RFID Alliance and getting more end user companies to adopt the technology.
Formed two months ago, the industry group is chaired by Chong Chiet Ping, who is also Hewlett-Packard's senior vice-president for global operations and IT for Asia-Pacific. SIA Engineering, Exel, Hitachi, YCH Group, Accenture, NTUC Fairprice, PSA, and EPCglobal are some of the companies that have signed up as members.
Hewlett-Packard, Airbus, Singapore logistics firm YCH Group, and Grocery Logistics of Singapore--the central warehouse and distribution arm of grocery retailer NTUC Fairprice--have embarked on projects that make use of RFID for inventory tracking.
To ensure there is a pool of RFID-trained professionals, two courses will be introduced this month by the Logistics Institute Asia Pacific in collaboration with Cambridge AutoID Labs and the Singapore Manufacturers' Federation in collaboration with RFID Focus respectively.
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