Avery Dennison is partnering with US-tech company SUKU and Swiss chip developer EM Microelectronic to provide a new end-to-end supply chain transparency solution for everyday healthcare and pharmaceutical products. The solution combines dual frequency RFID inlays with a blockchain-powered platform.
Avery Dennison Smartrac's RAINFC Belt DF tags based on EM Microelectronic’s innovative em|echo-V IC allow for the tracing of products through the application of long-range, dual-frequency transponders for product identification and management.
This data can then be logged in SUKU's blockchain-powered application and tag management platform, OMNI, enabling anyone to verify the supply chain journey and authenticate a product's origins.
One of the key challenges in supply chain management is identifying the plethora of materials and products everywhere, at any time. This provides pharma and healthcare companies a way to give each of these items a digital identity, which can be placed on the blockchain to help prevent fraud. It also provides a way to trace products on their journey to market and ensure their provenance.
For patients, the solution seeks to improve safety by enabling tamper-proof evidence as well as product authentication, and can also connect the patient to instructions and helplines simply by scanning the tag.
"Everyday pharma and healthcare represent some of the fastest-growing markets across industry verticals," says Yonathan Lapchik, CEO of SUKU. "By providing visibility into data that has historically been segmented and only available to a handful of supply chain participants, this software enables pharma and healthcare companies to expand their reach to this under-utilized customer base.”
“This solution enables brands to create a digital identity that survives beyond the supply chain into post-purchase applications,” adds Bill Barr, RFID product manager at Avery Dennison Smartrac. “A single inlay containing a digital ID is now effective in both the RAIN (UHF) RFID B2B world and the B2C world where NFC is ubiquitous. It is the bridge between what the company controls and what the consumer controls.”
