Aegate News

Winners Announced at The 2005 RFID Breakthrough Awards Gala Dinner

7th November 2005

On Monday 7th November the winners of the 2005 RFID Breakthrough Awards were announced at the Sheraton Skyline Hotel in Heathrow. At a gala dinner evening which saw over one hundred and eighty of the industry's key players come together to celebrate RFID achievements, Nigel Montgomery, European Research Director at AMR Research, presented awards to winners in eight categories.

The winners and their nominators are as follows:

RFID Visionary Award: Gerd Wolfram (Metro Group)
RFID Innovation Award: Colder Products Company (Innovision Research and Technology)
RFID Implementation Award: BAA Heathrow (BAA)
RFID Business Case Award: Biffa Waste Management (Nokia)
RFID Best Pilot Award: Marks and Spencer
RFID Integration Award: Virgin Atlantic Airways (Tata Consultancy Services, Oracle)
RFID Small Business Award: Aegate Ltd (UPM RAFSEC)
RFID Top Product of the Year Award: Microlise

The winners were selected from over thirty nominations with the victorious end users coming from a wide range of industries. Gerd Wolfram (Metro Group) was selected for the RFID visionary award for his overall contribution to the enhancement and understanding of RFID. Colder Products Company were presented their award for their use of RFID technology in smart coupling and Aegate Ltd for their use of RFID in pharmaceutical anti-counterfeiting.

BAA Heathrow were awarded for their use of RFID in the Heathrow taxi management system, Biffa Waste Management's work on their waste safe container project was also rewarded.

Virgin Atlantic Airways were awarded an honour for their integration of RFID into their asset tracking system and the top product of the year went to Microlise for their innovative RFID trailer portal system.

The Marks and Spencer's Winning Nomination was the first time ever RFID technology had been used on individual garments for purposes of supply chain efficiency and in-store availability. RFID is being used within Marks and Spencer's supply chain as the next generation of barcode. With the ability to read product details on the RFID tags at different points in the supply chain, the information can be used to ensure that the right goods are delivered to the right store at the right time. The pilot took place at six of Marks & Spencer's London stores - specifically on its men's suits. The tags developed for the garment trial are contained within throwaway paper labels called Intelligent Labels. Paxar, the RFID tag supplier, spearheaded this trial.

Nigel Montgomery admitted that the range and standard of nominations made the job of the judging panel a tough one, "For the judging panel it was a very difficult exercise because their were so many great nominations" said Nigel, "I've been working in RFID for four or five years now and it's great to see so many projects coming to fruition".

The full list of nominations for the RFID Breakthrough Awards is as follows:

Virgin Atlantic Airways (Tata Consultancy Services, Oracle)
Nestlé (SATO)
BMW (Siemens A&D)
Rolls-Royce PLC (Mantic Point Solutions Ltd)
Finland Post Corporation (Capgemini and BEA Systems Ltd)
Michelin (Smartronics)
Aegate Ltd (UPM RAFSEC)
BAA Heathrow (BAA)
Cambium-Forstbetriebe (Progress Software)
Biffa Waste Management (Nokia)
Essex County Council (Intellident UK)
Airbus (Siemens A&D)
Gillette (OAT Systems)
Trenstar (Microsoft)
CEMEX Concrete Products (BRE Ltd)
Colder Products Company (Innovision Research and Technology)
Marks and Spencer
Nottinghamshire Constabulary (Concept Labelling Solutions Ltd)
PH Europe Ltd (RF Code Inc and JDS Professional Services Inc)
GlaxoSmithKline (Zebra Technologies Ltd)
Titan Plastech (Concept Labelling Solutions Ltd)
Logistics, CEMEX UK Operations (Microlise)
Select Plant Hire Company Ltd (BT Auto-ID Services)
Birmingham Heartland & Solihull NHS Trust (Zebra Technologies Ltd)
Oat Systems (Tesco Stores Ltd)
Siemens A&D
Clinical Centre Ingolstadt (Siemens A&D)
Cinram International Inc (Siemens A&D)
Microlise

The RFID Breakthrough Awards were held in conjunction with the RFID Networking Forum and the RFID Futures Conference. The next RFID Networking Forum, Europe's largest end user RFID event, will be staged on 25th May at Olympia 2 Conference Centre in London. More information can be found at www.rfidforum.com and www.rfidawards.com