Asset

Management

RFID Case Study: Japan Pallet Rental

TM

In collaboration with

Rugged Tags Enable Accurate Pallet Tracking

The Client The Challenge

Transporting goods via palletizing reduces 90% of the
work associated with loading and unloading goods,
decreases damage, diminishes quantity errors, and
increases storage efficiency. Yet, many companies are
reluctant to adopt this method, primarily because of the
associated expenses. Using disposable pallets on a large
scale is cost prohibitive and has adverse environmental
impacts, but reusable pallets require collection when
empty, creating additional expense.
Japan Pallet Rental Corporation
(www.jpr.co.jp) addresses both cost
and environmental concerns via their
pallet renting business. In 2008, Japan
Pallet Rental rented seven million
pallets and garnered $159 million in sales. Their strong,
reusable pallets circulate in the Asia Pallet Pool system,
an alliance of pallet rental companies whose pallets flow
between Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore,
the Philippines, Vietnam, and the United States. By using
standardized pallets and re-circulating them amongst
companies in the region, the collection problem is elimi-
nated, greatly increasing efficiency.
With such a large number of pallets circulating in multiple
regions, pallet rental companies often struggle to locate
their assets, which detrimentally impacts revenue:
Pallets are subjected to harsh conditions. They may be
left outside for extended periods, hit or scraped repeat-
edly by forklifts, or damaged during transport. For these
reasons alone, using barcodes to individualize the pallets is
impractical, not to mention the additional labor cost such
an approach would require.
Radio frequency identification (RFID), on the other hand,
held great potential. If an RFID tag could handle the harsh
conditions, Japan Pallet Rental could individualize and
more easily track their inventory, without incurring high
labor costs. To help create an RFID tag, Japan Pallet Rental
turned to Mighty Card (www.mightycard.co.jp).
Mighty Card realized that only a rugged, durable tag could
withstand the severe climate changes and rough handling
conditions. Even when located inside a pallet—where the
chance of losing it during normal use was less likely—tags
encounter hard treatment. Interior placement limits the
location to vertical support walls. These walls, however,
also guide the forklift tines, and can be subject to impact.

> Some companies lose up to 30% of pallet stock per

year—a significant drain on profitability, considering a
typical plastic pallet costs about $50
> Insufficient knowledge of a pallet’s location makes it
difficult to extract accurate payment from customers
Although Japan Pallet Rental did not experience such
severe losses, they realized that finding a low cost,
efficient, item-level pallet tracking method made good
Rugged tags mounted in pallets enable individual pallet tracking
business sense.
Mighty Card’s first approach was to take a standard RFID inlay
and encase it in plastic. But, they discovered that the encapsu-
lation process often damaged and warped the inlays. Creating
a recessed well for the inlay did not work either. The thinner
coating provided insufficient protection against the forklift
tines, which crushed or broke the tag chip. To help solve the
problem, Mighty Card approached Impinj.
The Solution
To create an inlay that would
survive the pallet use case,
Mighty Card and Impinj turned
to a packaged tag chip, which
is designed to support direct
soldering onto antennas. By
using a packaged Monza™ tag
chip soldered to an antenna, the
end result is an inlay that has
withstood more stresses than
those resulting from the encapsulation process.
Creating an accurate, reliable antenna design that met the
application read distance requirements proved to be a chal-
lenge. For pallet tracking, the antenna had to be carefully
engineered to address the effects of the plastic used to
encapsulate the tag and the plastic material of the pallet.
The tag also needed to be orientation insensitive, because
forklifts (which have RFID readers directly attached to them)
access pallets from any side. Impinj designers took advantage
of the Monza tag chip’s unique dual antenna ports to create
a tag antenna that can be read from any direction. Working
closely with Mighty Card and Japan Pallet Rental, Impinj
engineers designed antenna prototypes, tested, tuned, and
re-tested in an iterative process using real pallets for verifica-
tion. The final antenna design was then encapsulated in plastic
and mounted directly onto the pallet.
The resulting tag exceeds design specifications. During
pre-production testing, Mighty Card put the tag through
environmental stresses, including dropping it three meters
onto concrete, temperature cycling it from -20 ºC to 85 ºC,
immersing it in water down to 1 meter, and subjecting it to
95% humidity. The tag passed all tests successfully.
To test real-world scenarios, forklift operators intentionally hit
the forklift tines against a tag affixed to a pallet loaded with
800 kg (about 1700 lbs) of water. The tag continued to work
properly, meeting (and exceeding) performance specifications.
Even after melting off all the encapsulating plastic (a process
that took more than three hours in a 200 ºC oven) and cutting
the tag in half (leaving the tag chip intact) the tag continued
to work.
RFID Case Study: Japan Pallet Rental
Mighty Card was very pleased to meet their client’s needs with
Impinj support.
“Mighty Card partnered with Impinj for the
Japan Pallet Rental application to take
advantage of the Monza tag chip’s perfor-
mance and Impinj’s innovative antenna
designs. The end result is a product that
exceeds our client’s expectations in perfor-
mance and reliability.”
Koji Kabumoto
President, Mighty Card Corporation
Mighty Card’s rugged tags—readable up to 10 meters distance—
will enter full production in the second quarter of 2009.
About Impinj
Impinj®, Inc., is the world’s leading technical innovator in
developing UHF Gen 2 RFID solutions for both item-level and
supply-chain tagging. Impinj draws on its technical expertise
and industry partnerships to deliver a wide range of products
and solutions, comprising high-performance tag chips,
readers, reader chips, software, antennas and systems integra-
tion. Impinj products provide unprecedented performance,
integration, and cost effectiveness to a global customer base
in applications across numerous vertical markets, including
inventory management, asset tracking, authentication and
serialization. For more information, visit www.impinj.com.
About Mighty Card
Mighty Card Corporation, a subsidiary of Marubeni Corpora-
tion, was established in 1997 to serve the RFID market exclu-
sively. Mighty Card delivers the total RFID solution including
tags, readers, middleware, application software, and system
integration. Mighty Card has played a part in a number of high
profile applications, such as serving as hardware integrator
to the Hong Kong Airport. Other major customers include
Yodobashi Camera Co., Ltd., the first Japanese company to
introduce a substantial UHF Gen 2 RFID system in December
of 2005 and Sekisui House, Ltd., the largest home developer in
Japan. Mighty Card’s web site is www.mightycard.co.jp.
Impinj, Inc. 701 N. 34th Street, Suite 300 Seattle, WA 98103 www.impinj.com
rfid_info@impinj.com Tel: 206.517.5300 Fax: 206.517.5262
© 2009, Impinj, Inc.