French heating systems component manufacturer Temiq added near field communication RFID technology to its de-sludging equipment for use in boilers, in order to enable its customers to better track the conditions of the equipment they use.

Five public schools in Casamassima, a city in Italy's Apulia region, are using a radio frequency identification solution to identify children as they arrive, and to automate the ordering and payment of each child's lunch. Since the system was taken live in fall 2013, the technology has reduced the amount of labor for school personnel, ensured that food isn't wasted due to over-ordering and enabled parents to make lunch payments online.

If you're not in the communication business now, you soon will be. The Internet of Things (IoT) will see to that.

Hanjin Newport Co., a division of Hanjin Shipping, is using an ultrahigh-frequency RFID solution to help manage its 20 percent growth in traffic this year at its deep-water terminal in the city of Busan, South Korea.

New market opportunities are available to companies in almost every industry from the data that IoT delivers. These new opportunities could be as simple as getting information from sensors about what is happening on the manufacturing plant floor causing automatic manufacturing updates, potential adjustment to customer order delivery dates or even a maintenance work request to handle a detected equipment malfunction. All of these opportunities cause changes to be made to the supply chain.

North America's expanding automatic identification industry picked up momentum with the grand opening celebration of SATO Global Solutions (SGS), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tokyo-based SATO Holdings Corporation.