1. Brief Company Profile
Nephsystem Technologies is the leading supplier in the fields of RFID, Smart Tracking Systems and Industrial PDAs. It was established in 1998 and has headquarters in Canada and has offices in the Asian-Pacific region. We manufacture and distribute a wide variety of industrial embedded products, Wireless communication devices and related peripherals around the world. NephSystem Technologies has primarily expertise around three specific technologies: Industrial grade PDA, PDA Peripherals, including Fingerprint devices, Barcode enabled and RFID featured devices and Smart tracking systems.
2. When was your company founded and what is the approximate employee size?
Nephsystem Technologies was established in 1998 and has headquarters in Canada and has offices in the Asian-Pacific region.
3. What are some major challenges that RFID technology will be able to address in the near future?
The market opportunity is reported to be in the billions of dollars in several studies released by eminent market analysts. Passive RFID will continue to replace barcodes as the preferred method for tracking items in close proximity. Tag prices are relatively high, no-reads are a problem, and the size and shape of antennas remain fairly inflexible. Existing tag technology also features limited process information yield, proprietary and non-standards-based limitations, as well as reliability and logistical issues, including tag damage in the label conversion process, the speed of read/writes, and problems in the integration of tagging and labeling. In addition, the metal content of RFID tags presents an environmental issue. While these and other challenges should be tackled as the technology moves closer to the mainstream, in the interim they will slow down the adoption process.
4. Where are we in the life cycle of RFID investing and development?
It is likely that the next few years will be spent making operational and software changes that will enable the benefits of RFID to impact organizations on a wide scale. Initially, there is likely to be heavy investment in software, services and readers. This investment will decrease as standards are consistently applied and as integrators gain proficiency, and spending will shift to tags. As that happens, the cost of the tag will decrease.
5. Do you see any specific industries or geographic markets that will propel demand in RFID technology over the next 3 years?
Asset tracking and management is showing particular applicability to work-in-process tracking, including spare parts and tools; Returnable Transport Items (RTIs); IT asset management; medical assets, rental item management (library books, media, laundry, etc.); and yard management.
Active RFID-based solutions, including real-time location systems (RTLS), is expected to experience solid growth in a number of verticals, such as healthcare, manufacturing, aerospace and defense, transportation, and commercial services, in support of asset tagging, people tracking, and more. At the regional level, we have found that the Asia-Pacific will witness the maximum growth in terms of revenue. We have also found that maximum enterprises in the European countries are using RFID for person identification/access control, while in the Asia Pacific countries logistics and retail are the emerging sectors using RFID technology.
6. How do you see the entire RFID marketing shaking out over the next few years? How big is the market opportunity?
According to our analysis, maximum enterprises in the European countries are using RFID for person identification/access control, while in the Asia Pacific countries logistics and retail are the emerging sectors using RFID technology. Other verticals like transportation, consumer packaged goods will continue to use the technology in almost all the regions in near future. Application segments such as security-based solutions, pharmaceuticals and healthcare are in the emerging stage and are expected to drive growth in the market. The RFID market is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 12-17% over the next few years.
