Children's Hospital of Wisconsin and BloodCenter of Wisconsin are piloting a high-frequency (HF) RFID system's use in monitoring a challenging product: blood stored and provided for pediatric patients.

Challenge: The Operations VP of an oil and pipeline construction company recently admitted there was a time when he wondered if his company's cargo insurance policy was worth it. The company sources goods from around the world, moves cargo by multiple modes and runs a supply chain through some of the world's most high-risk countries. Thanks to meticulous packing and some good luck, they'd had very few supply chain incidents over 11 years. Until one summer. That June, a truckload of welding equipment heading to Moscow caught fire. The $809,000 shipment was a total loss. One month later, a cargo ship carrying two of the company's containers, worth $150,000, caught fire. Those containers were also a total loss.

Japanese healthcare and pharmaceuticals company Suzuken Group is deploying an RFID-based solution from AmerisourceBergen to manage the locations and statuses of medications at clinics, hospitals and retail locations, as well as in transportation vehicles. The system employs the RFID-based drug-management solution known as Cubixx, supplied by AmerisourceBergen's specialty pharmaceutical distributor division, ASD Healthcare.