On the right track

In today’s modern laundry, automatic garment tracking is becoming an indispensable management tool. A tagging system that uses radio frequency idenification (RFID) appears to offer several advantages when it comes to providing faster and more accurate identification and handling of garments, a message that Ruedi Röösli of Datamars is keen to promote.

Before he joined Switzerland-based Datamars as sales director in October last year, Ruedi Röösli had worked in the telecom industry where he was responsible for sales to business customers, and before that, had been involved in the digital imaging industry.

He sees Datamars as a young company that is going places, and one that is already firmly established as a market leader in the field of radio frequency identification in the textile care sector.

The company has its own dedicated research and development department and therefore owns the RFID technology it develops.

So far the track record is impressive. The company is the inventor of the LaundryChip, said to be the world’s smallest laundry RFID chip.

Measuring just 11mm in diameter, the LaundryChip is firmly established as a long-lasting identification method for flatwork and also for clothes washing in residential care homes and homes for the elderly.

“Datamars has been involved with the laundry business since its beginning and has therefore in-depth knowledge of customer needs and laundry processes,” says Röösli.

He points to the remarkably rapid development of RFID in the laundry sector.

Datamars SA currently supplies complete RFID systems for uses as diverse as waste management and pet identification. The company is fully aware that a “one size fits all” approach is not suitable and that the best solution is one that will provide the highest reading speed and a reading accuracy of close to 100% for a specific application.

The past decade he says has been characterised by the steady development from LF (low frequency)/SR (single-read, or one-by-one identification) to HF (high frequency)/MR (multi-read) which allows customers to streamline and optimise their processes and therefore improve efficiency and reduce costs.

There exist various interface standards operating in different frequency bands. In recent years, Datamars has put a great deal of effort in developing RFID systems for near fields applications – for both low and high frequencies. There are applicable international standards for these mature interfaces, and they are suitable for applications that have a reading range of less than one metre.

Many practical applications demand a large and dynamic tag population, random orientation of tags and a very high rteading speed. Datamars is investigating systems with a larger read range, higher data rate and the highest reading accuracy.

Datamars has firmly established itself in the industry and has an outstanding relation with its customers, says Röösli. “Although we have reached a quite high stage of development in RFID it doesn’t stop here – research and development is always ongoing to meet our customers’ expectations and future demands.”

To potential customers who have yet to switch from other forms of garment identification, Röösli says the return on investment (ROI) is guaranteed.

As existing customers have found, “RFID gives our customers a variety of possibilities for streamlining and optimising their processes as well as having tighter and tighter inventory control”.

In response to industry demand, Datamars developed its own ISO 15693/ISO 18000-3 High Frequency Transponders (T-BT1315 15mm and T-BT1320 22mm) which are suited for those applications where customers want a fast, simultaneous identification of many items.

“Our existing customers do not have to change from LF to HF as Datamars will provide continuous support for LF products. Howver a switch to high frequency systems could be considered if the customer drastically changes the processes in the laundry.”

One crucial point which worries a lot of people concerns the privacy issue associated with RFID applications. Datamars is aware of this potential problem and in the next few years, the company will respond to this by proposing smarter tags with “crypto functionalities” and more elaborate readers.

Röösli sees his own role within Datamars as further expanding its customer base, contributing his own experience and knowledge and supporting the development of future applications.

“Datamars will continuously grow and keep its leading position in the market,” says Röösli. “We still consider the global RFID market as incipient and there is huge potential for the upcoming future.”

Datamars SA,Via ai Prati,CH-6930 Bedano-Lugano,Switzerland.
Tel: +41 (0)91 945 7380,Fax: +41 (0)91 945 0330Email: salesindustry@datamars.com Website www.datamars.com