“The Axia Lab was created to empower RFID innovation and collaboration across the supply chain. Our mission is to collaborate with industry to help enable the future of RFID-enabled technology, solving some of supply chain’s greatest challenges – from smart packaging, serialization and traceability, and risk mitigation, to data analytics and security,” said John D. Hatfield, Executive Director, The Axia Institute.

Beginning with the pharmaceutical industry, Axia Lab conducts testing and validation of tagged items according to GS1’s Tagged-Item Performance Protocol (TIPP) testing, to ensure that serialization using RFID-tags is deployed using a globally accepted standard. Axia Lab’s testing is designed to eliminate the need for in-house tag performance tests along with the associated resources, time and expense. TIPP is a standardized test method that can be repeated and independently verified by all stakeholders, providing performance grades for tagged items, not only tags or inlays. Importantly, these grades enable stakeholders to communicate their actual tagging requirements more accurately. TIPP makes RFID characterization easy for the end user, as dBm levels, orientation pattern, detuning and proximity effects are all included in a grade. For example, acquiring a TIPP grade of “S05V” includes all necessary requirements.

Dr. Bahar Aliakbarian, Michigan State University’s Supply Chain Management Research Associate Professor, and the Axia Institute’s Director of Research & Development, commented, “RFID is an important element of supply chain traceability. Particularly, in the health care supply chain, implementation of RFID can help improve patient safety, save hospitals, companies and other organizations thousands of dollars in theft and counterfeit prevention, save hundreds of workhours in stocktaking and reduce a myriad of misidentification issues.  But this can’t be done alone. Our lab serves as a neutral exploration ground, collaborating with industry and globally recognized academic researchers to develop new protocols and ensure compliance with global, consistent standards, simplifying and speeding up RFID deployments. Our access to the highly sophisticated equipment and researchers at the national top-ranked MSU School of Packaging, Supply Chain Management, and Engineering makes us unique for this mission.”

Read the full announcement on the Axia Institute website.