Fujitsu Frontech North America, a leader in innovative technology and front-end solutions, and its parent company Fujitsu Frontech announced that it has shipped more than 2 million of its washable UHF RFID tags in the first quarter of 2013. Sales of the popular washable tag have been so robust that the company has doubled the production capacity at their manufacturing facility in Japan.
Fujitsu Frontech North America, a leader in innovative technology and front-end solutions, and its parent company Fujitsu Frontech announced that it has shipped more than 2 million of its washable UHF RFID tags in the first quarter of 2013. Sales of the popular washable tag have been so robust that the company has doubled the production capacity at their manufacturing facility in Japan.
The rugged washable UHF RFID tag which is completely manufactured in Japan, have become very popular in healthcare and hotel or hospitality industries. “The demand for our new washable RFID tags in healthcare, hotels and hospitality as well as laundries has exceeded even our own expectations,” said Pat Cathey, Senior VP of Retail Products Group, North America, Fujitsu.
The small, flexible, RFID tags are sewn into, or attached to garments, linens, mats and accessory items allowing customers to scan hundreds of articles simultaneously to track their inventory anywhere in the hospital, hotel or at the warehouse. Industrial laundries also use the tags to reduce operational costs caused by inaccurate shipping and receiving counts and costly manual counting of assets and deliverable items.
Able to withstand more than 200 washings, harsh chemicals associated with dry cleaning, temperatures of 121.1 degrees Celsius (250 degrees Fahrenheit) for drying and 204.4 degrees Celsius for ironing, the tags are also designed to withstand the high pressure of water extraction systems up to 60 bars. The tag's rugged, non-magnetizing design allows it to be used in MRI rooms as well as typical industrial autoclave systems used for healthcare and hospital sterilization.
“The ultra-rugged UHF RIFD tags were developed exclusively by our engineering teams in Japan specifically for the demanding requirements of the global market,” said Takanao Ochiai, GM of Fujitsu Frontech's RFID Systems Division. The company continues to make significant investments in its facilities to grow its manufacturing capacity.
With a reading range of more than 1.82 meters (six feet) and the ability to read hundreds of tags simultaneously, the tags represent a significant cost-saving solution compared to bar codes and other RFID systems, which require costly handling and single garment processing. The materials used in the tag are intended for long deployment cycles, allowing the tag to be reused into another garment linen item within the intended life-cycle time, reducing total cost of ownership.