When selecting RFID, there are three primary factors:
- Rate (speed)
- Range (distance)
- Density
Packaging line:
Drug manufacturers need ‘Rate’. The packaging line needs to read/write RFID labels at a high speed. This activity occurs when the labels are spooled and the distance between labels is negligible, or the bottles/boxes as they travel 100-200 per minute down a belt with only 3-4 inches between the items.
Generally HF has a challenge in high speed. There are various claims of performance, and each drug company should define their Service Level Agreement to achieve the desired ‘Rate’ with their RFID packaging vendor, but overall ‘Rate’ is generally lower with HF than UHF.
Supply Chain:
Once the bottles/boxes are packed in shipping cases, ‘Rate’ is much less important and ‘Range’ plus ‘Density’ becomes more critical. Once you have 24-48 bottles (boxes) in a shipping case, the RFID antenna for HF need to be fairly close to the RFID labels to read all the HF labels in the case. UHF is much more friendly for ‘Range’.
For ‘Range’ HF is good up to about 4-6 inches with a mean of 5 inches from the antenna surface, but ‘Density’ performance suffers.
At the wholesaler, ‘Range’ and ‘Density’ is critical. This is why if you want to verify and validate all the case labels on a pallet, you need UHF on the cases, and this is where ‘Range’ and ‘Density’ become critical.
There is no way you can read 100% of the case labels on a pallet with HF. If you want to use RFID, there is no choice but to use UHF. On the other hand, if you don’t care to read all case labels on a pallet than it’s much less expensive to just use datamatrix or RSS barcode. Line -of-sight, is ‘line-of-sight’. If you need to read cases at a few inch distance, save the money and use barcode.
The wholesaler opens the cases and the product is picked in individual quantities, ‘Rate’ becomes a non-issue. Basically, items are read either in single quantities, or limited quantities. Either HF or UHF will perform on the item level. ‘Range’ is a factor. If you want accuracy, the HF environment will prevent cross-reads from other product. the limitation of ‘Range’ precludes false reads. UHF, regardless of the individual tag producer, will have cross-reads and produce errors in Pedigrees.
The optimal data carrier for picking and Pedigree accuracy is the barcode. The barcode may not be as fast to read as RFID, but the question has to be, “What’s more important at the item level picking operation for the production of a Pedigree ? Speed or accuracy ?”
Drug Store:
At the drug store the same issues prevail as the item picking operation. Cross reads at the shelf and counter is critical. The technology with the least influence of cross reads is barcode. HF RFID produces a lower risk of cross reads on the shelf or counter. So once again the priority for Pedigree is, “What’s more important at the item level picking operation for the production of a Pedigree ? Speed or accuracy ?”
