The Future of RFID: Hybrid Solutions (RFID Smart Labels USA 2008)

John C. Shoemaker, President of Shipcom Wireless of Houston, TX, has a long history in RFID and AIDC. Shipcom delivers software solutions to improve enterprise effectiveness and bring increased operational visibility to management at all levels. The company extends ERP applications with end-to- end solutions that address the issues of "disconnected assets" across the enterprise. Agnostic to hardware and technology providers, Shipcom synchronizes data from client software on multiple data capture devices (bar code or RFID) made by different manufacturers and then processes the data using a rules-based software engine to connect to multiple back-end IT/ERP systems. The objective is to present on-demand, real time operational visibility to corporate dashboards for executives at all levels.

 

Formerly Senior Vice President of Corporate Development for Matrics, Inc., he became Vice President of Symbol Technologies, RFID Division in 2004. He has been in high technology for 35 years with 25 years at the VP/Officer level. He has had global responsibility for managing direct and indirect sales, field service, technical and marketing organizations in start-up, small, medium and large corporations, including Xerox, BBN (Genuity), Computer Identics, Intermec, Amtech, TransCore and Matrics, Inc.

 

He has been involved at the officer level in three start-up's and one re-start. As a result, he has initiated or supported the positioning, presentation and sale of three companies, each for spectacular results for the stakeholders.

 

He has managed sales and markets for active, battery-assist passive and passive RFID tags in applications for contactless smart cards, electronic toll collection (tolltags), freight management, electronic commerce, baggage sortation, SCM, warehousing/distribution and personal and vehicle access control.

 

He crafted the strategy, recruited and lead the teams that won some of the largest contracts to deploy passive, UHF RFID tags in the history of the industry with 5-year, near 100 million tag orders from McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas and from the Airport Authority of Hong Kong, both being mission critical operations. At the same time, he coordinated a dozen pilots with the DHS/TSA/FAA for implementing passive, UHF RFID for aviation in both baggage and cargo applications. The data was made available to convince IATA to make passive, UHF RFID the worldwide standard for aviation in November of 2005.

 

In September of 2004, Symbol Technologies acquired Matrics (50 employees) for over $230 Million to support its global business strategy to "capture, move and manage" data for enterprise mobility.

Shipcom Wireless has become a leading provider of integrated supply chain execution software solutions focused on the RFID and enterprise mobility markets. Shipcom's proven, open standards platform, CATAMARAN, is a server-based solution that captures, filters, aggregates, transforms, and routes data from multiple devices such as RFID readers and barcode scanners and integrates it directly with enterprise systems such as Oracle, Provia, SAP and various legacy systems. Its software solution also includes reusable application libraries and more than 100 user-friendly development tools, developed from eight years of supply chain experience, that enable customers to easily and quickly configure the CATAMARAN platform to their specific needs.