Equipment Management Service and Repair (EMSAR), a company that services and repairs health-care and medical-services equipment for clients nationwide, is providing an RFID-based solution developed by Silent Partner Technologies (SPT) for its clients to track its assets' locations.

In July 2009, Airbus became the first commercial aircraft manufacturer to announce plans to employ permanent radio frequency identification tags on parts for its A350 XWB aircraft. Approximately 3,000 serialized, replaceable, repairable parts with a limited lifespan were covered. To date, the company has received and successfully tested its RFID tagged parts as the first A350 XWB aircraft make their way through the production process. Now, Airbus is the first aircraft manufacturer to expand the permanent tagging of selected parts across its entire fleet.

Canadian luxury leather goods retailer Danier Leather is piloting a radio frequency identification system at three of its Toronto-area stores, intended to ensure that products are replenished on the sales floor as they are sold to customers, as well as reduce the number of labor hours related to counting inventory.

Early in-house studies conducted by Shands at the University of Florida, a health system operated by the school, indicates that an asset-tracking solution installed at its three facilities in Gainesville has reduced the number of hours that its emergency department staff spends searching for missing equipment by 98 percent.

In a case that has potentially significant consequences for NFC and RFID applications, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is cracking down on so-called "phone home" technologies used by computer rental companies to monitor consumer behavior. When contemplating the use of any technology that provides use, location or other information about a product, retailers should be careful to ensure consumers know - or are at least able to know - exactly what the product is doing once they leave the store.

Norsk Resirk, a nonprofit Norwegian company that processes discarded plastic bottles and aluminum cans, has completed the first phase of a plan to utilize passive ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID tags and readers to improve its management of recyclable materials.

Is updating your digital signage with a mobile device really such a good idea? That's the question raised by the recent announcement that Swedish retail giant ICA will begin using mobile apps next month for making changes to its in-store signs.

For businesses that manufacture aerospace, pharmaceutical or other high-value items, even a single component built into a product can be worth tens of thousands of dollars. Losing track of a basket filled with parts can thus be extremely costly, due not only to each component's cost but the potential loss of production time if assembly is delayed. The solution may be RFID technology, according to Marlin Steel Wire Products, a producer of custom wire baskets and other metal products.

Tufts Medical Center, a 415-bed teaching hospital in Boston, has saved $1.5m on stents, angioplasty balloons and other implantable devices, based on information provided by a radio frequency identification inventory-management system deployed within its catheterization, electrophysiology and interventional radiology laboratories.

Employees at tomato and cucumber producer Eurofresh Farms have increased their productivity by between 200 and 250 percent thanks to an RFID-based solution that helps the company track the exact amount of work performed by each staff member, and then compensate that individual accordingly.