Electronic Cash News

The term supply chain visibility is a broad term and changes a little bit every year as we get new technology to get more visibility. I have heard DoD “war stories” from 20-30 years ago where they would assign a Lt. Colonel to daily track a high-value electronics component such as a satellite dish from the U.S. to Japan.

The last couple of years, a lot of supply chain vendors are focused on providing inbound supply chain visibility with services and software to match purchase orders, advance ship notices (ASN), and vendor invoices. SterlingCommerce just announced an On-Demand Supply Chain Visibility tool that provides this visibility if all your vendors use SterlingCommerce’s Value Added Network (VAN) or an interconnecting VAN. This sound expensive as everyone in the supply chain has to pay the VAN transaction fees for the inbound supplier (usually a large retailer) to get the visibility. At the same time this could be a good and quick solution compared to setting up your own EDI network and buying / developing your own supply chain visibility software.

Axway, Inc. announced that AstraZeneca has selected its Synchrony(TM) Supply Chain Integrity Suite to enable track and trace as part of the Product Safety Data Management (PSDM) initiative, which is part of the company’s previously announced program to protect patients from counterfeit medicines.

read more | digg story

E-Seals are an emerging class of active RFID devices with built-in security and tracking features that enhance visibility, security and efficiency of in-transit cargo containers, which account for 90 percent of world trade. E-Seals are a smart move marrying up physical security and online tracking in one device for cargo containers.

read more | digg story

As active RFID tags are much more expensive than passive tags, you would think that the passive tag market would be growing much faster. No, factors such as security, safety, high-value goods and customer satisfaction are keeping the demand for Active RFID high. Active tags have longer read ranges and more functionality than passive tags.

read more | digg story