RFID Medium Sized Business Award 2010: Bluhm Systeme is award winner

Bluhm Systeme is awarded the 2010 RFID Medium Sized Business Award. The jury was convinced by the company’s RFID solution implemented at the polymer manufacturer Rehau. This manufacturer produces bumpers and RFID is used for production control and trace-back of the bumpers later. Siemens AG is the main contractor for RFID application at Rehau and Siemens involved Bluhm Systeme for the labelling solution: The RFID project is one of the first to reliably print and apply Smart labels in an automatic production process on an extremely large scale.

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Andreas Koch, Bluhm Systeme Sales Director, and Mr. Achim Runneck, Head of Department Production & Warehouse Management at Rehau AG, together accepted the award on the occasion of the 5th RFID User Symposium. “We have been dealing with the RFID topic for many years. Many associate this technology only with the demands of large business enterprises. The application at Rehau has shown, however, that RFID can certainly be of practical benefit to customers in other industries, if judiciously applied. In practise, RFID improves production control, supports adherence to quality standards and enables continuous monitoring of production and logistics”, explained Koch at the award ceremony.

The so-called Print, Code & Apply systems of Bluhm are used at Rehau. The novelty with these devices lies in extremely fast and reliable application of the written and printed RFID tags, using the Tamp-Blow process. In the past, the labels could only be applied with the Tamp process, which required the labels to be glued to the product by pressing on the plate.

In the gentle Tamp-Blow process, on the other hand, the labels are blown onto the product by a pulse of air in seconds, without any danger of damaging a sensitive product surface. “We are very satisfied with the solution. The RFID systems are working absolutely reliably. The investment has paid for itself after 24 months already”, reports Achim Runneck.

Compared to other auto-ID solutions, the use of this fully automatic RFID labelling system, apart from offering rationalisation and increased effectiveness, also allows greater transparency and smoother processes due to additional recording and control.

It should thus correspondingly be possible to benefit from this RFID solution in other sectors and processes as well. It can in principle be deployed everywhere where several thousand products or boxes must be labelled daily. This may be the case in production itself or in warehousing. We are already contemplating new fields of use in Rehau as well: “Following our positive experiences with the new RFID solution, we are also discussing potential benefits of this new technology in other fields of business”, says Runneck.

The prize has been awarded for the second time this year by the Netzwerk Elektronischer Geschäftsverkehr [Network E-commerce] and the “RFID for Small and Medium Sized Businesses” project. It was awarded at the RFID User Symposium in Stuttgart on 2 December, together with the Federal Association for IT Medium Sized Business (formerly VDEB [Association of Computer Consultants]).

 

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