MeadWestvaco has agreed with Rafsec Oy to jointly develop item-level RFID tags and systems.
MeadWestvaco Intelligent Systems is a new business group established to create, market and sell practical, turn-key solutions which provide retailers with real-time, in-store, item-level inventory visibility to enhance each store's performance.
A factor is to ensure tag availability at an appropriate price. MWVIS will work with its customers and with Rafsec to accurately forecast tag demand.
Correctly timing their capital investments to ramp up tag production with market needs is of strategic concern to Rafsec, since item-level tagging has the potential to require large volumes of tags.
The agreement ensures MWVIS and its customers ongoing access to high-quality transponders at competitive pricing from a well-established market-leading provider says Ronnie Hise, leader of MWVIS.
"Rafsec and MeadWestvaco are creating an agreement to help each other understand supply and demand issues in the near-term. Good information will lead to good business decisions, which then provides our customers with a consistent tag supply at a good price," he says.
Timo Lindström, president of Rafsec, reinforced the need for such co-operative agreements. "This relationship is indicative of what the RFID market needs, major corporations with the necessary resources working in a complementary fashion to meet large end-user and retailer needs."
Another important element of the agreement deals with tagging technology development. MeadWestvaco will benefit from Rafsec's aggressive approach to improving tag technology, and MeadWestvaco will afford Rafsec with early feedback regarding the specific demands of new applications.
