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Wholesale Shipping Supplies
Due to the nature of the business, shipping supplies are often needed in large numbers. For example, boxes suitable for different uses and occasions on the ship are required in bulk quantities. Other supplies like labels, tags, and stickers are also needed in large quantities. As a result, some individuals prefer to purchase these supplies from wholesale dealers.Among the shipping supplies, the packaging supplies are almost always purchased in bulk quantities, and they are normally sold at wholesale rates. Most of the shipping supplies dealers and sellers prefer wholesale selling rather than small-scale methods. To their delight, most of the purchasers buy in bulk quantities. The purchase and sale of shipping supplies in bulk and at wholesale prices is advantageous to both the supplier and the purchaser.Shipping supplies from corrugated boxes to tags are available at wholesale costs from almost all major dealers. Wholesale dealers of shipping supplies may offer considerably lower prices when compared with retail prices.One can search for and purchase supplies on a wholesale basis online. There are several retailers available, including Packaging Supplies (www.packagingsupplies.com), who is one of the major wholesale suppliers of shipping supplies. They offer almost every shipping supply, including boxes, bags, labels, mailing tubes and bubble wraps, at a wholesale price. A shopper can choose from and place orders online for around 5,000 different products available in the shop. Fast-pack.com, is another major wholesaler. They provide shoppers with the ability to order via a toll free telephone number. The supplier boasts a good range of shipping supplies.

g the sheer volume and speed of data produced by an RFID system.

If you were to implement an RFID system by directly hooking RFID readers to the backend management and ERP systems, the results will be disastrous due to the massive volume of data directly entering the system.

What’s needed is the right system architecture, not only to maintain data accuracy and authenticity, but to make meaning of the vast volumes of data delivered by the RFID readers. Some estimates are that pallet, tote and item-level tracking, combined with data generated by RFID readers as items move within the enterprise, will increase the volume of data by 100 to 1,000 times today’s levels in most supply chains (source: RFID Journal).

Effective RFID implementations should follow the architectural principles developed for financial trading systems, process control and large-scale network management. Like RFID systems, these systems process huge volumes of data, correct errors in real time, correlate events, detect trends and patterns, re-organise and cleanse data and recover from faults – all in real time.

College Students Busy Schedules Make Them a Great Target for Service Providers
Many businesses are reluctant to advertise to college students because they feel that college students lack the extra funds to spend on services that are considered luxuries. The fact that many businesses sense that leaves an opening for businesses that are willing to take the time and money to target them.That is why so many businesses offering cleaning and delivery services like LifeEase Home Services, Crazy Hungry, Dorm Delivery Express, and College Bellhop have become so popular. The reason those businesses are able to reach college students and get them to spend is because they realize that college students are busy, just like professionals. Many students take 15 to 18 credits each semester while working a full-time job. Another reason is, not all students have transportation, so having items delivered is a more convenient option, especially in bad weather. A third reason is, many students have roommates, that allows them to combine their money for the cost of luxury services. The final reason that those businesses have become popular is, they are run by college students or recent college graduates, so they know what people want.Those successful businesses are showing that college students these days are willing to spend more money if it can help ease the frustration of being in college.

This document is intended as a short, simple summarised overview for companies thinking of, or wanting to, implement RFID technology within their supply chain operations. It is designed to increase awareness of the needs, wants, dos and don’ts when planning your RFID supply chain systems. A glossary of RFID terms is included to assist you when investigating RFID systems and technology. The single most important message is that defined objectives and planning are paramount; and that input and assistance from independent expertise at a very early stage, can save considerable time and money in the long term.

It is recognised that RFID will enable, (and already has in some cases), a new era of business optimisation, managing and increasing efficiencies throughout the supply chain. However knowing that it can assist your business, and understanding how it will do so, are different enough, let alone knowing how to actually implement a system that provides a sound return on the investment, whilst meeting your objectives.

The potential final cost of a fully integrated RFID supply chain operation would suggest that well planned objectives and a Pilot Scheme within part of the supply chain would be the prudent route to take. This ensures that a final system properly specified and implemented will actually produce the results that you both want and expect.

Business Drivers

The key driver for any investment of this type is the cost savings it will yield. However RFID technology provides additional advantages of real time and faster data capture, with a reduced human error factor. Unlike bar code-based systems, an RFID system can read the information on multiple tags without necessarily requiring line of sight and without the need for a particular orientation. The main business drivers throughout most sectors are as follows:

• Optimise asset and resource utilisation
• Optimise operational process & Manage supply chain exceptions
• Reduce transportation costs
• Reduce theft, wastage and loss
• Increase financial return on investments
• Optimise the labour force
• Manage KPIs and benchmarking
• Avoid congestion of assets and bottlenecks in the supply chain
• To reduce overall supply chain costs
• To assist in making informed decisions in respect of the logistics “loop"

Where do you start?

The range of technologies, standards and options for RFID systems are too numerous to list here, and there is a danger of over specifying the technology required.

Providing that the system objective is not forgotten during the specification and implementation stage, then a suitable system integrator will ensure that there is not an over investment, or too much needless information being produced. It is therefore crucial that the functionality requirements and objectives are well thought out and defined in advance of partnering with a suitable System Integrator, specifically in relation to the management information you wish to extract from the system.

It is widely acknowledged by all who have conducted pilot schemes and RFID implementation that the most crucial factor is to conduct a pilot scheme with partners that have a proven track record, and are not learning as they go along. Therefore a System Integrator with relevant industry sector experience is vital.

From experience it is preferable, in the early planning stages, to have an independent project co-ordinator / facilitator assisting your project team. This individual should be separate from the Integrator and individual system / hardware suppliers working together on the project, and not part of any individual departments within your business that may bias the direction and objectives of the team.

Your RFID project team should be kept as small as possible to reduce management time, training needs, misinformation, over analysis and to remain focused to the project objectives. Team members should then feed back to their own local departments and teams to facilitate the actions and objectives of the project team.

What are your hardware requirements?

The functional requirements of the system will dictate the hardware and software specifications, for example the read / write capabilities of the RFID tags will ultimately be dictated by the business objectives.

With the ability to write tags comes the ability to change data. This is considered by some to be a very important feature of RFID, specifically when it relates to the retail and warehousing industry where it is not just pallets and boxes, but also individual product items being tracked and replenished. These business operations, information needs, standards, customer requirements and other variables can all change rapidly over a relatively short period of time.

The RFID readers will be able to read tags at a rate of several dozen tags per second; however the speed at which that data is processed into the system is limited and dependent on the network and database. The amount of data held on a tag will affect the read rates. This therefore means that the middleware, back end processing and management reporting systems must be wholly compatible with the tags and readers supplied in terms of speed and capability.

It will be the results of the Pilot scheme that facilitate the specific “roll out” requirements for the full system. The exact specifications of the hardware requirements for the pilot scheme are to be specified during the site survey and process analysis by the system integrator. What are your system software requirements?

A key area for concern is handling the sheer volume and speed of data produced by an RFID system.

What Does It Take To Create Career Satisfaction and Life Fulfillment?
Many are always asking me what are the simple tips to creating career satisfaction and life fulfillment? My experience tells me there are five important factors necessary to creating these realities.1. TIME: Determining your career vision and plan is not a “fast food” endeavor. In this era of speed, this is one area that requires your time and attention. I have had some people work intensively for several days and reach their vision and plan.I have had some spread the process out over several weeks and spend several hours each week in pursuit of this vision and plan. Either way, it takes time. The first step is to give yourself permission and patience to take the time you need to create a vision and plan based on wisdom, not speed.2. AWARENESS: The amount of time you need is directly related to how aware you are of your wisdom. If you have not taken much time to listen to yourself. OR, if you are like most of us and have not had a clue what to listen to, you will need more time. In the process of awareness comes the need to be open to ourselves about what we need, want, know and desire.3. ARTICULATION: From the awareness comes the next step which is to articulate our awareness. About what, you say? We need to understand and articulate what we know in the following areas: -Career Development: What we know from our past experience that leads us to better choices now. -Abilities: What comes natural and easy to us. The hardwiring of how we operate. -Skills: What we have learned. The software we have added to our knowledge base. -Interests: The things that bring us passion and enjoyment -Personal Style: Our style, personality, temperament and what our environment needs to honor this style. -Beliefs: What beliefs we hold about success, career, achieving life fulfillm

er for any investment of this type is the cost savings it will yield. However RFID technology provides additional advantages of real time and faster data capture, with a reduced human error factor. Unlike bar code-based systems, an RFID system can read the information on multiple tags without necessarily requiring line of sight and without the need for a particular orientation. The main business drivers throughout most sectors are as follows:

Where do you start?

The range of technologies, standards and options for RFID systems are too numerous to list here, and there is a danger of over specifying the technology required.

What are your hardware requirements?

A key area for concern is handling the sheer volume and speed of data produced by an RFID system.

Spam Bashing
I have done my penance in the advertising industry. You might even call me an “ad-man.” I have engaged advertising’s rude and unwanted impressions. I have penetrated the unaware with my client’s messages. Oh, yes, I have been apart of the creation and distribution of junk mail and newspaper inserts. I have sold obnoxiously intrusive radio spots to car dealers. I have seen the glory of toll free numbers on television infomercials. However, never in my most effective advertising moments have I subjected human beings to the equivalent of the unbridled invasion of SPAM!It was 1937, in the sleepy town of Austin, Minnesota, when the Hormel Company introduced a new product. Two years prior, beer began to be distributed in cans. The Hormel family looked around and said, “If beer can, ham can” (Or something to that effect). And the concept of canned spiced ham was born. They ran a contest in search of a name for their new product. The winner combined the “sp” from “spiced” and the “am” from “ham” and the rest, as they say, is history.Nearly forty years later, Monty Python did sketch wherein a bunch of Vikings sang “Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Wonderful Spam,” endlessly. The annoyance of their constant singing of “Spam” became a reoccurring theme. In 1994 a national law firm began soliciting business with unsolicited advertising emails. Their highly annoying efforts were dubbed “spamming,” in reference to the Vikings. The word “spam” caught on as did advertising with unsolicited emails. It has been all down hill from there.Hormel has consistently fought the use of their trademarked name. Recently, they received a set back by a court ruling that reads in part, "the most evident meaning of the term SPAM for the consumers ... will certainly be unsolicited, usually commercial e-mail, rather than a designation for canned spi

nality requirements and objectives are well thought out and defined in advance of partnering with a suitable System Integrator, specifically in relation to the management information you wish to extract from the system.

What are your hardware requirements?

A key area for concern is handling the sheer volume and speed of data produced by an RFID system.

Finding the Best Appliances
If you are the owner of a restaurant, bar or lounge then restaurant equipment is the most important investment you will have to make. Because restaurant equipment is not very cheap you will have to take good care of your appliances to properly maintain them and perform periodical check-ups in order to benefit the most from your investment. There are many different measures you can take in order to preserve your equipment’s value and to maintain it in good working condition if you want to ensure that your appliances will last for a long period of time.The most common piece of equipment found in restaurants is the commercial oven. Commercial ovens can be further subcategorized into deck ovens, barbecue roaster ovens and barbeque grills, countertop and conveyor ovens, char-broilers and convection ovens. The easiest way to maintain an oven is to clear the oven cavity from spills on a daily basis. Another important piece of restaurant equipment is the freezer and the walk in cooler. To guarantee the highest efficiency, all you have to do is to try to keep the doors closed when appliances are not being used. In order to ensure the better functioning of steam tables and warming wells you should make sure that the heating part of the machine is always submerged in water. Therefore to prolong the life of restaurant equipment you need to keep them clean and free from mineral accumulations and to maintain a water level above the heating element.Kitchens are without doubt the most used rooms in a house but are also the place where high quantities of grease and grime accumulate. In order to guarantee a long life and great working condition for your kitchen appliances and kitchen equipment all need to do is perform four simple things. First of all you need to remove the hard water deposits from your dishwasher. Also take into consid

or example the read / write capabilities of the RFID tags will ultimately be dictated by the business objectives.

A key area for concern is handling the sheer volume and speed of data produced by an RFID system.

How One Man Made an Entire Career Out of Wearing a Nametag
Yes, I’ve made an entire career out of wearing a nametag.(I know. Sometimes I still don’t believe it myself!)Still, many of my readers and audience members continue to ask the obvious question: “How?”I wish I had a short answer for you. I really do.But alas, it’s not that simple.So, bear with me here as I take you through my long answer.How to Make an Entire Career Out of Wearing a NametagATTITUDE. Stay positive. Stay friendly. Stay fun. Especially because 10% of the people you meet will think you’re out of your damn mind. And remember: it’s not about the nametag; it’s the person wearing it, and the attitude OF that person. Turn hate mail into great mail. If at first your idea does not sound absurd, there is no hope for it. If everybody loves your brand, you’re doing something wrong.BOLDNESS. Stick yourself out there: physically, emotionally and psychologically. Be willing to be humiliated, embarrassed and stared at. And keep in mind: the more often you throw yourself into the sea, the less likely the waves are to bother you. Grow thicker skin. Find out where you suck, but don’t let someone who has no right to criticize you to upset you for more than five minutes. And if you turn off someone who’s not in your target market, who cares. Can’t please everybody.CREATIVITY. Study it. Practice it. Enhance it. Hang with other creative people, business or otherwise. Practice regular moments of solvitas perambulatorum. Never think “outside of the box,” because “outside of the box” is a very “inside the box” saying. Interestingly, the word “creativity” literally means, “to make something out of nothing.”DISCIPLINE. Always carry extra nametags, prewritten and blank, with you at all times. Wear one nametag on every layer. Even at weddi

g the sheer volume and speed of data produced by an RFID system.

A role of the system integrator is to develop and implement an operational data management architecture that captures events at the “edge” of the enterprise, where operational activity occurs, rather than in the centre, where business-oriented transaction processing occurs. To achieve manageable data then the architecture will comprise of data concentrators and pipelines to route relevant data to the specific user systems that require it, thus not overloading any individual back end management system. For example:- container / pallet data to the asset management system, product and stock data to the ERP and MRP systems cost data to the financial management systems and so on…….

System compatibility in a Global Supply Chain is important, not necessarily for the pilot scheme, but if it is to facilitate a successful roll out across the whole supply chain. Global standards are progressing with the new systems created in compliance with the EPCglobal Generation 2 (Gen 2) standard.

Gen 2 creates a foundation on which to build interoperable RFID products and systems that will improve inventory management, logistics and retail operations around the world. However there will be significant performance and capability differences among Gen 2 compliant equipment. Gen 2 is a standard, and standards specify minimum performance requirements and will therefore not accommodate all systems, as standard –based equipment will not provide a standard performance.

Gen 2 specifies basic RFID communications performance required for common supply chain business processes. However, although companies within the same sector have similar information needs as their competitors and have comparable business practices, usage environments will be very different depending on age and design of the assembly / manufacturing facility, geography and culture. Gen 2 or any RFID technology won't provide exactly the same performance at any two facilities. That is why it is important to understand the difference between what Gen 2 specifies and the range of performance that Gen 2 compliant products can provide.

What next?

RFID does not need to be as complicated or as daunting as some of the industry players would have you believe. Just because the technology exists it does not need to be used to maximum capacity throughout all supply chains. The following factors are considered to be key when moving forward:

• Do not overcomplicate the technology; use what is suitable to meet your objectives.
• Ensure the correct partner (system integrator / provider) is engaged from the outset.
• Ensure that the systems chosen can move with technology
• The pilot scheme is just that - it will need development

RFID system planning is crucial to its success but can on its own be a major task. This combined with the fact that you may have little or no RFID expertise internally can prevent you from taking your first steps to deciding if RFID is suitable to you and your business. Gideon Hillman Consulting can assist you with knowledge and experienced based RFID system planning and help you design a project plan with specific focus on:

-Project Objectives & Scope
-Resource Requirements
-Project Stages and Timescale
-Project Milestones
-Integrator / Supplier Choice
-Regular Technical Reviews

Investment into planning and consultative project management at the outset can negate over investment and additional cost in the longer term.

RFID Terminology:

ASN – Advanced Shipping Notice – notification between vendor and customer of parts due or to be delivered.
Agile reader - An RFID reader that can read tags operating at different frequencies or different communication protocols.
Air interface protocol - The standards that govern how RFID tags and readers communicate.
Anti-collision - Anti-collision algorithms are used to collect data from multiple RFID tags at the same time from the same RFID reader without interference.
Auto-ID Centre - The original non-profit organisation that helped develop RFID system technology. This work is now continued by EPCglobal.
Backscatter - The communication method between a passive RFID tag and a reader. An RF signal sent by a reader is reflected back to the reader from the tag, which is modulated to transmit data.
Beacon - An active or semi-passive RFID tag that is programmed to wake up and broadcast a signal at pre-set intervals.
Commissioning - Writing data to an RFID tag for the first time. This can happen at the factory or later using a smart label printer.
Concentrator - A device used to gather data from multiple RFID readers at the same time. Contactless smart card - A credit card or buyer card that contains an RFID chip to transmit information without having to be swiped through a reader.
EPC – Electronic Product Codes
EPCglobal - The organisation set up to commercialise RFID technology, which has taken over this task from the Auto-ID Centre.
Far-field communication - An RFID tag that is located one full wavelength away from an RFID reader.
HHT – Hand Held Terminal – portable handheld RFID reader which operators can carry to manually interrogate RFID tags
Inductive coupling. - An RFID reader antenna and a tag antenna each have a coil, which together form a magnetic field. The RFID tag draws electrical energy from this field, which powers its microchip. The microchip then changes the electrical characteristics of the tag antenna. These changes are sensed up by the reader antenna and converted into a serial number for the RFID tag.
Interrogator - Another name for an RFID reader.
KPIs – Key Performance Indicators – used in performance benchmarking processes
License plate - A simple RFID system that only tracks RFID tag serial numbers and no other information.
Middleware - In the context of an RFID system, refers to software that is

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