Raftar Makes Piloting RFID ‘Risk-Free’ for Medical Device Companies

Raftar, a provider of RFID and mobile application based logistics and distribution solutions for medical device manufacturers and distributors today announced a “Risk-Free” way for qualified medical device companies to prove RFID will streamline sales and distribution operations for their business.

In the limited time offer, Raftar will deliver pilot participants a full bundle consisting of the Raftar Software Suite—its RFID-based warehouse and mobile, field service automation software—and will manage the entire 90-day pilot process from implementation and training through to successful completion. The RFID solution provided by Raftar will utilize Impinj’s high performance Monza tags and Speedway readers.

The “Risk-Free RFID” pilot will enable qualified companies to deploy an RFID-based case scheduling and inventory management and tracking solution that extends from a selected warehouse location to the point of consumption at the hospital in the field, with no up-front investment.

After the 90-day pilot, participating companies will have the option to discontinue the program with no obligation or deploy a fully functional production system, supported by a robust business case and real-world performance benchmarks.

“The driver here is to remove the uncertainty surrounding RFID in the medical devices industry,” said Ismail Nalwala, Raftar’s president and CEO. “Strong evidence exists globally that our technology can create dramatic operational efficiencies by slashing order processing times from 30 minutes to seconds and to help sales and customer service reps drive better service results for hospital and surgeons. The financial benefits continue through to inventory reduction and extend to better quality through order accuracy and item-level visibility. With the ‘Risk-Free RFID’ Pilot program, Raftar hopes to remove the uncertainty and enable companies to get practical experience with our solution and RFID and formulate a go-forward strategy.”

“We are excited that Raftar is exposing more medical device companies to the benefits of the latest RFID technology. In 2010, we’ve seen a surge in the use of UHF RFID technology and rapid growth in the variety of RFID enabled devices,” said Kerry Krause, vice president of marketing for Impinj. “Raftar’s software solutions and medical device industry domain expertise combined with Impinj’s hardware offerings, provide an optimal solution for accurate item-level counting of loaner kit items, including metal implants and instruments.”