SAP Launches First RFID Solution to Help Customers Automate RFID-Enabled Business Processes

Demonstrating leadership in the RFID space, SAP is delivering a solution that is the first of its kind developed and built entirely from the ground up to help companies manage the data reads from and writes to RFID tags. Drawing upon experience from customer projects with leading companies like Procter & Gamble and the METRO Group, as well as six years of RFID research and involvement in RFID standards organizations, SAP has developed technology that will dramatically change supply chain management in the retail and consumer product industries. Companies can leverage data captured through RFID tags in their business processes by integrating ERP and SCM functionalities with RFID-enabled applications. Examples include packing and unpacking, shipping and receiving and tracking and tracing across the supply chain. The Java-based RFID solution packages the new SAP Auto-ID Infrastructure, SAP Event Management (SAP EM), a component of mySAP Supply Chain Management (mySAP SCM), and SAP Enterprise Portal (SAP EP), a component of SAP NetWeaver, the industrys leading integration and application platform. Currently available to pilot customers, the SAP RFID packaged solution will me more widely available to customers in mid-2004. The SAP RFID solution is built on SAP Web Application Server (SAP Web AS), part of the SAP NetWeaver technology platform, which ensures seamless extension and integration into SAP and non-SAP IT environments. The new packaged solution, developed to allow management and communication of RFID data and utilization of business content to automate RFID-enabled business processes, can be integrated into existing IT environments through Auto-ID connectors for SAP R/3, version 4.6c or higher, and mySAP ERP. SAP and its consulting and technology partners will help customers build individually tailored RFID solutions that address business case building, integrating RFID hardware infrastructure, creating solution blueprints and implementing projects. SAPs automatic identification concept enables companies to manage multiple Auto-ID technologies, including RFID, barcodes and sensors. SAP has been conducting RFID research since 1998 and is a driving force in developing RFID technology and helping to set industry-driven standards according to the guidelines set forth by EPC Global. SAP was the first enterprise software sponsor of the Auto-ID Center, the predecessor of EPC Global, which leads the development of standards for the Electronic Product Code (EPC) Network to support the use of RFID. Since March 2003, SAP has been working closely in its RFID Customer Council with more than 60 companies from the consumer products, pharmaceutical and retail industries. The council has helped SAP to define and develop the RFID solution package, identify key end-user business and technical priorities and requirements and fully understand RFID-enabled business processes that will drive ROI from customer RFID investments. RFID-enabled Business Processes for the Real World The most prominent example of SAPs use of RFID technology in a real-life setting is the METRO Group Future Store Initiative, of which SAP is a founding member. Together with METRO Group, Intel and more than 40 partners in the technology, consumer products and service provider industries, SAP set out to implement cutting-edge technology for retailers in the METRO Group Future Store, which opened on April 28, 2003 in Rheinberg, Germany. Approximately 1,700 products sold at the Future Store have RFID tags, helping to track and trace items as well to build a more efficient and adaptive supply chain from the distribution center in Essen to the store. Products are tagged at the item, case and pallet levels. Another RFID project has involved SAP and Procter & Gamble. SAP and P&G share a common understanding of the significant importance that RFID brings to supply chain integration.