Brussels, Belgium, 17 July 2007 – The BRIDGE project (Building Radio frequency IDentification for the Global Environment) is entering a key phase in the future deployment of EPCglobal applications. The initiative, which is supported by the European Commission and coordinated by GS1 (the global standards body), will begin its penultimate year with the execution of real-life pilots, developing business cases and demonstrating results.

“The testing and piloting phase are critically important to support the massive deployment of the technology that will happen over the next few years,” said Henri Barthel, coordinator of the BRIDGE project. “Our analysis from the first year of the project provides us with a solid basis to support our next steps. I have no doubt that the BRIDGE project will deliver value beyond our current expectations and prove to be the catalyst of major rollouts in Europe and beyond.”

The project has the objective to research, develop and implement tools to enable the
deployment of RFID and EPCglobal applications in Europe and involves 30 organisations from twelve countries in Europe as well as China. During the first year, the business cluster has conducted problem analysis and requirements analysis in seven key areas: anti-counterfeiting, pharmaceuticals traceability, textile industry, food manufacturing, re-usable assets, products in service and item-level tagging in retail for non-food products.

On the technical side, the BRIDGE project comprises four working groups concentrating on RFID hardware, network lookup services, network supply chain control and security. The RFID hardware group has lodged a patent on “Self resonant electrically small antenna” and BRIDGE – Building Radio frequency IDentification solutions for the Global Environment an OEM low cost reader has already been developed. A reader chipset and a low cost portal reader will be produced in the coming months. A requirements analysis and technical design documents for Discovery Services have been developed and will be released by the end of August 2007 and contribute to future standards development activities on Discovery Services. A report on an enhanced serial-level inventory tracking model is also available.

The Security working group has issued a comprehensive security analysis documenting the requirements for enabling open and collaborative RFID-based business applications.
The horizontal activities include training, dissemination activities and innovation and policy reports. The training requirement analysis has been completed and concept animators (multi-media learning objects that illustrate the use of RFID/EPC and their applications) have been produced. Finally, BRIDGE has developed high-level reports analysis related to the evolution towards the ubiquitous presence of the technology as well as the impact that this technology will have on policies that are governed by the European Institutions.

A number of BRIDGE public deliverables are available for download on the BRIDGE website: www.bridge-project.eu.

BRIDGE consortium members:
GS1 Global Office – Consortium Co-ordinator.
Six GS1 Member Organisation’s – GS1 UK, GS1 Spain, GS1 France, GS1 Germany, GS1 Poland, GS1 China.
Five research laboratories – Auto-ID Lab Cambridge, UK; Auto-ID Lab Fudan University, Shanghai, China; Auto-ID Lab ETH Zurich/St Gallen, Switzerland; Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain; Technical University, Graz, Austria.
Eleven solution providers - BT, SAP, AIDA Centre, CAEN, Confidex, AT4 wireless, UPM Raflatac, VeriSign UK, Melior Solutions, Domino Printing Sciences, JJ Associates.
Seven business end users - Carrefour, Nestlé UK, Benedicta, Kaufhof, Sony, El Corte Inglés, Gardeur.
For more information visit www.bridge-project.eu.

About the BRIDGE Project

The Building Radio frequency IDentification solutions for the Global Environment (BRIDGE) project is being supported by the European Union’s Sixth Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP6) with €7,5 million funding. It is a three year initiative dedicated to research, development, training and demonstration in the effective use of RFID based on EPCglobal standards.

The BRIDGE project focuses on business-based research, provision of information services and hardware (sensors, tags) and software development. This will lead to pilots, deployment and comprehensive training materials in the use of RFID in a variety of business sectors:

In anti-counterfeiting – development of new services in the EPCglobal network will reduce the level of piracy of goods, which is a serious problem in Europe,
In pharmaceuticals - increasing patient safety by improving traceability, and certifying the pedigree of pharmaceutical products as they move from the manufacturer to the final user,
In the textile industry – better fulfilment of customers needs by increasing the flow and accuracy of information through a global supply chain,
In food manufacturing processes – reducing waste and stock holding and improving visibility and traceability of both products and equipment, thereby improving food safety,
In re-useable assets – improving information exchange and asset management between supply chain partners to effect reduction in losses and costs,
In products in-service – developing systems and processes to increase the reliability of the upgrade, repair and replacement processes throughout the life of many products,
In the retail environment – optimising processes in retail stores in order to increase service to the customer by using RFID on consumer sale units.

This is a great opportunity for Europe to build on a standardised RFID technology for use in global supply chains. The BRIDGE project will help make this happen by contributing to the development of new solutions for all businesses, from small to large. Improving skills and expertise on RFID technology and network information sharing will lead to enhanced competitiveness of European companies and to benefits to customer and citizen.

About the European Union’s Sixth Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP6)

The BRIDGE project is funded under the FP6 Information Society Technologies (IST) work programme supporting research into the development of ‘Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for Networked Businesses’. The strategic objectives of FP6 are to strengthen the scientific and technological bases of industry and encourage its international competitiveness while promoting research activities in support of other EU policies.
ec.europa.eu/research/fp6/pdf/fp6-in-brief_en.pdf

For more information contact:

Lisa Henshaw or Kirsty Sewter
Fourth Day PR
+44 (0)20 7403 4411

Tom Beston
GS1 UK
+44 (0)20 7655 9000

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