Solution to handle RFID mandates minus the overhead and modifications to existing line-of-business operational systems
Baltimore, MD — September 30, 2004 — This week, SBK Labs, a privately-held software company located in San Francisco, announced a suite of on-demand applications for companies deploying radio frequency identification (RFID) systems. The announcement was made in conjunction with the EPCglobal US Conference 2004, being held at the Baltimore Convention Center.
SBK Labs said hundreds of companies are investing millions of dollars to satisfy RFID mandates from key trading partners, including Best Buy, the Department of Defense (DoD), Target and Wal-Mart.
The provider cited leading industry experts who have observed that RFID deployments can have considerable benefits, and who have also said that to achieve a return on investment customers must should use their newly available RFID data to drive improvements in business processes.
SBK Labs said it has developed a suite of applications that can be deployed as on-demand Web services, which don't have the IT overhead needed to install and maintain premises-based software. Moreover, according to SBK, the applications will require no modifications to existing line-of-business operational systems.
Pete Abell, senior partner and co-founder of the ePC Group, a system integrator who has advised such companies as Wal-Mart and Unilever on their RFID implementation strategy, commented, "SBK Labs is one of the first companies to enable customers to derive business value from RFID with its suite of on-demand business process solutions. The SBK application suite provides exactly the type of business process improvement we advise our clients to implement in order to achieve an early ROI from their RFID deployments."
With today's announcement, SBK Labs today is introducing its on-demand application products SBK eReceipt, an electronic proof of delivery; SBK eMatch, which is automated detection of shipping and receiving exceptions; SBK eTrack for visual track and trace; SBK eResolve, an automated resolution of shipping discrepancies; and SBK eReconcile, an automated reconciliation of invoice deductions.
The company said the solution offering is designed to support the execution of processes and workflows, user interaction, synchronize data and processes across back-office systems, interact with readers and electronic product code (EPC) event managers, enable the deployment of an EPC IS, and support global data synchronization.
To support the development of this suite of applications, SBK Labs said it has partnered with SeeBeyond, a provider of enterprise integration and composite application development solutions. SBK said it will use the solution as a foundation for the development of SBK Labs' on-demand application products.
