PRESS RELEASES
Large Waste Management Application in Portugal Implements Alien Technology® RFID Solutions
Creativesystems, a preferred RFID integrator, and Alien® provide a complete RFID solution for a 400 truck waste management application in Oporto, Portugal
March 2, 2009, MORGAN HILL, California - Alien Technology, in cooperation with leading systems integrator and long time participant in the company’s highly acclaimed Value Added Solutions Provider (VASP) channel network program, Creativesystems, today announced that it has provided a complete end-to-end RFID UHF/EPC compliant solution for LIPOR, the Inter-municipal Waste Management organization for Greater Oporto, Portugal.
LIPOR services over one million residents in Oporto, Portugal’s second largest city. The facilities operations are managed by Port’Ambiente, which is responsible for the management, recovery and treatment of the Municipalities solid waste.
LIPOR has installed the Alien-Creativesystems RFID tracking solution to verify if a certain truck is allowed to unload its garbage at the waste management disposal center. Alien’s ALR-8800 passive UHF reader/writer, controls the gate barrier’s opening and closing by first reading the tagged vehicle to determine if the vehicle is allowed entry.
Once the barrier opens, the truck proceeds to a designated weigh bridge where the weight of the vehicle is recorded and is assigned to a tag on the windshield. This weight is then communicated to the driver via a display, and the vehicle then travels to a specific unload point inside the facility, where the waste is unloaded. The RFID solution also ascertains that the driver went to the correct unload point since there are readers mounted throughout the facility. When the truck exits LIPOR’s facility, the tag is once again read to determine if the truck is allowed to exit. Periodic, real-time reports are issued to the municipalities via email to for billing purposes.
“We designed a special encapsulated windshield tag to package Alien’s M inlay, which is mounted onto the windshield of each of LIPOR’s four hundred waste management vehicles, “ explains Joao Vilaça, engineering manager for Creativesystems. “We worked with Wipro Retail in providing a yard management solution using low cost, EPC compliant passive, battery-less tags, thus delivering a strong ROI to LIPOR. We offered a seamless method of ensuring proper waste disposal to enhance efficiencies at the waste management center.”
LIPOR was previously using magnetic cards which slowed down the entire waste management process. This process was also very manual, which led to some delays and traffic concerns.
“The benefits to LIPOR are multi-fold, including complete traceability of the vehicles’ location,” said Stephen Crocker, director EMEA/India Sales/Channels for Alien Technology. Alien EMEA has installed numerous vehicle tracking applications throughout EMEA, replacing almost every type of data capture technology available - from bar code to expensive active (with battery) RFID systems.
“There are numerous advantages in using UHF/RFID solutions in these types of vehicle management/tracking applications, including very low cost tags, consistent and reliable reads, and an RFID solution which is part of the global and open EPC protocol,” adds Stephen Crocker. “The end-user is not locked into a proprietary frequency or solution when choosing Alien.”
“We chose Alien because of the high level of performance and low cost of their complete hardware and software RFID solution,” said João Vilaça, engineering manager for Creativesystems. “We envision vehicle tracking applications to become an ever greater part of our core business as more fleets, car parks and weigh stations realize that UHF technology offers a 100% optimal solution at just a fraction of the price of other RFID products being currently offered in the marketplace.”
About Creativesystems
With a customer focused organization, Creativesystems is an integrated solution provider, in the field of smart information acquisition and management, operating in Portugal and Spain. It has a broad knowledge and experience in information technology coupled with operations management and centered on simple, scalable and competitive customized solutions supported by expert consultancy in process optimization and efficiency.
Pioneer in the application of RFID in a series of industrial, logistics, retail and services applications, Creativesystems withholds a vast experience in this technology. The developed solutions privilege simplicity and scalability, integrating beyond RFID innumerable other automatic identification state of the art technologies, such as portable data terminals and barcode systems, amongst others. Creativesytems represents RFID equipments and solutions from Alien Technology, Printronix and Tagsys.
For more information please visit the website: www.creativesystems.pt
About Alien Technology
Founded in 1994, Alien Technology is a leading technology and product provider of UHF Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Integrated Circuits (IC), tags, readers and professional services. Alien Gen 2 products, along with software solutions from partners, help solve business problems for customers to improve productivity, processes, security and asset tracking for closed-loop and supply chain systems for consumer packaged goods, retail, manufacturing, transportation, airports and cargo logistics, government and defense, and other industries. Alien's patented Fluidic Self Assembly (FSA®) technology and related proprietary manufacturing processes are designed to enable the manufacture of high volume, low-cost RFID tags. Quatrotec, a wholly owned subsidiary of Alien Technology, is a specialized professional services and technology firm that provides complete solutions to meet the sophisticated requirements of the transportation industry. Quatrotec provides products and services that help increase security, efficiency, and visibility within the transportation sector. Alien’s facilities include: its corporate headquarters in Morgan Hill, CA; RFID tag manufacturing facility in Fargo, ND; the Alien RFID Solutions Center in the Dayton, OH, Quatrotec’s at the San Francisco International Airport (SFO); and sales offices in the US, Europe and Asia. Alien is a member of EPCglobal. For more information please visit www.alientechnology.com
Alien, Alien Technology, the Alien logo and FSA, are trademarks or registered trademarks of Alien Technology Corporation in the United States and other countries. Copyright 2009 Alien Technology Corporation. All rights reserved.
