GlobeRanger's RFID Technology to Find Way Into OS/400 Shops

Updated: March 9, 2006

by Alex Woodie

SSA Global and GlobeRanger announced an OEM partnership last week that will see SSA Global re-sell GlobeRanger's radio frequency identification (RFID) middleware, called iMotion. The Texas-based GlobeRangers have also signed an OEM agreement with a Tennessee company called IDentiTRAK Technologies that implemented an iMotion-based solution at a large OS/400 account faced with satisfying Wal-Mart's RFID desires.

GlobeRanger's iMotion is a suite of tools used by third-party software developers and systems integrators to implement RFID controls into customers' supply chain and factory control systems. The software, which was developed on Microsoft's .NET Framework, includes a visual development environment, middleware components, and centralized management.

iMotion handles many aspects of RFID implementation, from configuring RFID devices, monitoring the network, and interfacing with third-party applications, through use of standards such as Web services and the increasingly popular Application Level Events (ALE) protocol. The software supports the Class 0, 0+, 1, and Gen 2 RFID readers, making it compatible with the latest standards set down by industry leaders like Wal-Mart.

SSA Global customers will gain a way to rapidly implement RFID controls through iMotion, says Cory Eaves, SSA Global's chief technology officer. "By partnering with GlobeRanger, we can quickly ramp up our RFID product and service offerings for our key verticals," Eaves says. "Our customers will benefit from having a flexible and extensible solution for their edge infrastructure that will grow with their needs, not pilot-ware."

SSA Global will offer an iMotion-based product called SSA RFID to existing customers in various industries, including consumer products goods, food and beverage, automotive, and life sciences. As such, iMotion will work with both of SSA Global's major ERP product sets, including the OS/400-based ERP LX, which is largely based on BPCS and is also the upgrade path for PRMS, KBM, PRISM, and Infinium products; ERP LN, the new name for the mostly Unix-based Baan applications it acquired two and a half years ago; as well as SSA WM, its flagship warehouse management system that's composed of the OS/400-based Warehouse BOSS application it acquired from Compuer Associates, as well as two other components, SSA WM 4000 and SSA WMS 2000, which came from the acquisition of EXE Technologies.

GlobeRangers isn't the first third-party software developer SSA Global has partnered with for an RFID "extension" product. The Chicago-based ERP software vendor, which has been pursuing its extension strategy since it began acquiring ERP software suits several years ago, was involved in one of the first pilot RFID tests at a distribution center in Dallas in 2004 (see "SSA RFID Offering Shows Benefits in Wal-Mart Test").

The software involved in that pilot included the EXE 4000 warehouse management system running on a Unix box from Sun Microsystems, mobile RFID readers from Symbol, stationary RFID readers from Silicon Integrated Systems, and RFID printers (encoders) from Zebra Technologies.

As far as its previous development strategy went, SSA had been developing a product called SSA RFID for Distribution. One of the key providers of integration solutions for that product was CYBRA, whose OS/400-based RFID tag generation software is OEM'ed by SSA Global (not to mention another prominent developer of supply chain software, Manhattan Associates). SSA Global also had an OEM partnership with a company called Genesta for one of the key components of its RFID solution. It now appears that GlobeRanger is providing the brains of SSA Global's RFID solution, but the status of SSA Global's partnership with Genesta could not be confirmed as this newsletter went to press.

It was a busy week for GlobeRanger at RFID World last week. In addition to the SSA Global partnership, the company also announced OEM deals with IDentiTRAK Technologies, Ross Systems, an ERP software developer for the food, healthcare, life sciences, chemicals, and metals industries, and Atos Origin, a French IT services firm.

IDentiTRAK's RFID solution, called MASTERlink Edge, was recently integrated with the OS/400-based ERP system of a Fortune 200 company, one of the largest home textile manufacturers, which needed to satisfy Wal-Mart's RFID mandate. Among the capabilities the iMotion-based system brought were RFID label printing, validation of EPC data, reconciliation of EPC numbers, SSCC, and pallet weight information against shipping orders, and association of cases to pallets and validation of pallet EPC, the company says.

"Our OEM partnership with GlobeRanger has enabled us to rapidly develop turnkey solutions," says Jay Fryman, executive director at IDentiTRAK. "With MASTERlink Edge, companies can easily integrate and extend their existing systems, achieving faster ROI with their RFID deployment."

Editor's Note: This story was updated with new product information from SSA Global.