University of Florida using joint solution from Franwell, GlobeRanger to test radio frequency ID for tracking food products
Richardson, TX — March 24, 2004 — Ag industry software provider Franwell is using a radio frequency identification (RFID) solution from GlobeRanger as a platform for the development, deployment and management of RFID solutions, and the University of Florida has deployed the joint solution to test RFID for use in tracking food products.
Franwell is an established RFID solutions integrator and software developer for the agriculture/food industry. The company is using GlobeRanger's iMotion Edgeware platform.
GlobeRanger said its iMotion platform is built specifically to enable its partners to rapidly design and implement RFID/barcode, mobile and sensor-based solutions. iMotion serves as a foundation for production-scale RFID solutions with capabilities to manage devices, networks, data and business processes at the edge of the enterprise.
"The combination of Franwell's hardware and software integration expertise with the ease of application development on GlobeRanger's iMotion platform enables us to quickly build RFID solutions for our customers," said Jeff Wells, president and CEO of Franwell. "Franwell has been working with RFID technologies since 1993. With iMotion, we have been able to fast-track our development process to deliver a seamlessly integrated RFID solution for the shipping/receiving processes in a matter of weeks."
Franwell has embedded GlobeRanger's iMotion platform in its Agware suite and compliance offerings. Franwell also is utilizing the iMotion platform for custom development of RFID solutions.
The Franwell/GlobeRanger solution is deployed at the Research Center for Food Distribution and Retailing at the University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS). "Franwell has designed a solution, on GlobeRanger's platform, that gave us a structured way to easily test many different types of vendor hardware for tracking food products," said Dr. Jeffrey Brecht, director for research center.
The primary focus of the RFID lab is to develop best practices in using RFID technology for tracking food products. For example, the center will test a variety of RFID readers and antennas for tracking a specific food product such as strawberries. After testing, the center will be able to able to publish guidelines for the use of RFID technologies related to individual food products. Dr. Jean-Pierre Emond, co-director added, "This solution enables us to maintain testing consistency between many different reader and antenna configurations without coding."
