Building Real-Time Visibility Systems with a 3-Tier Approach

A 3-tier approach to building Real Time Visibility Systems
Anush Kumar
CTO, S3Edge Inc.
anush@s3edge.com
+1-310-943-7992

© 2008 S3Edge , Inc.. All Rights Reserved. // S3 Company Confidential 1

S3Edge Snapshot
• Software company founded in 2007
• Headquarters in Hyderabad India with offices in
Portland and Los Angeles
• Core software team that built Microsoft‟s RFID
Product

• Products
• Real-Time Visibility Systems [RTVS], delivered On-
Device, On-Premise, On-Demand
• Perpetual Software Licenses, Professional Services,
Annual Maintenance and Support
• Built on BizTalk Server RFID & Mobile

• Solutions
• Suite of packaged, configurable business
applications enabling Inventory & Process Visibility
for Asset Tracking & Warehouse Operations
• Biz Talk drivers for all the leading RFID equipment
manufacturers
• Hosted option available


Focus of my talk this evening

Inter-company
coordination Drivers
Supply chain • Cross company standardization
Open Systems CPG - retail
visibility
supply chain • Compliance
• Ubiquitous adoption
Stuff that we have a fairly good Distribution • Cost per tag
ideal of ‘how to get done’ in a
scalable, cost-effective manner People and
asset tracking
Drivers
Stand-alone
• Point solution with needs of
Applications of RFID RFID Transportation vertical markets
technology applications (toll booths)

Asset
management
Closed systems and tracking
Drivers
• Seamless extension of
Transportation
and logistics existing enterprise
Real Time
Visibility applications
Systems
ERP • Implementation of client-
specific business processes
Stuff that we deeply care
Warehouse • Return on investment
about and are solving for Management
systems
customers today © 2008 S3Edge , Inc.. All Rights Reserved.

Connected Enterprise: Current State
Enterprise Warehouse Enterprise Asset
Transportation
Software Management Resource Tracking &
Applications
& Logistics
Systems Planning Management

Enterprise applications are only loosely connected to the
physical world they manage.

Physical
World they
Manage

Target • 3PL • Discrete Mfg • Shipping • IT Assets
Market • Supply chain • Build to order • Airlines • Healthcare Assets
• CPG • Aerospace • 3PL • Yard management
• Distribution • Automotive

© 2008 S3Edge , Inc.. All Rights Reserved. // S3 Company Confidential

Some data on costs of this loose connection*
• Million bags missing or delayed in 2007
42.4 • Costing 3.8$ billion

13.2 42.4 • Billion $ Employee retail theft

10
• % of patients are given wrong medication
• Nurses spend minimum 1hr before surgery
searching equipment
13
10 13
214
• % orders shipped with wrong item or quantity

• minutes is the average wait time in a hospital in the U.S

13.2
Electronic Systems are out of sync with activities
happening in the physical-world.
Gap between ‘Actual’ vs. ‘Expected’ results in higher
214
operational costs and capital expenditure
*Source: Microsoft // S3 Company Confidential

Tectonic shifts that are in motion
• Business landscape
– „Back to basics‟
– Cut costs (Opex), improve productivity, retain customers
– Make strategic, value-based investments in IT
• Technology landscape
– Continued trend towards ubiquitous, mobile computing
• Availability of low-cost intelligent mobile devices
• Availability of low cost and reliable wireless networking
technologies
– Bandwidth, bandwidth everywhere
– The (serious) emergence of computing services as an
utility

© 2008 S3Edge , Inc.. All Rights Reserved. 7

Cloud computing de-mystified
The interesting thing about Cloud Computing is
that we’ve redefined Cloud Computing to include
everything that we already do. . . . I don’t
understand what we would do differently in the
light of Cloud
Computing other than change the wording of some
of our ads.

Larry Ellison, quoted in the Wall Street Journal, September 26,
2008

A lot of people are jumping on the [cloud]
bandwagon, but I have not heard two people It’s stupidity. It’s worse than stupidity: it’s a
say the same thing about it. marketing hype campaign. Somebody is saying this
There are multiple definitions out there of “the is
cloud.” inevitable — and whenever you hear somebody
saying that, it’s very likely to be a set of businesses
Andy Isherwood, quoted in ZDnet News, December 11, 2008 campaigning to make it true.

Richard Stallman, quoted in The Guardian, September 29, 8
*‘G-Men’ Cartoon strip by Daryl Plummer, GBL <See Resources> 2008

Cloud computing de-mystified – take 2*
A. Software as a Service (SaaS)
B. Utility Computing
• AWS
• Microsoft Azure
• Google AppEngine
• Force.com
C. Cloud Computing = A+B
D. More Cloudiness
• Private Clouds
• Public Clouds
*‘Above the Clouds’: A Berkeley view of cloud computing (See Resources)

Service Provider Implications

‘Elasticity’ in
Provisioning Re-use of ‘cloud’ services

Metered billing Reserved.
© 2008 S3Edge , Inc.. All Rights 10

Customer implications*

Traditional “Pure” SaaS
Ownership/ Flat fee Metered
Licensing
Perpetual license Licensing
subscription subscription

Location On-premise Location
Appliance Internet “cloud”

Application service Service level
Management Corporate IT Management Agreement (SLA)
Provider (ASP)

Visibility as a Utility

Design for Change, Think Re-Use across 3 Tiers
Software + Services, Model-driven*

.NET, Visual Studio, Modeling Framework

The Opportunity

Enterprise Warehouse Enterprise Asset
Software
Transportation
Management Resource Tracking &
Applications & Logistics
Systems Planning Management

New Category
Real Time Visibility Systems (RTVS)
Of Enterprise
Application Connects enterprise applications to the physical world

Physical
World they
Manage

• CPG • Discrete Mfg • Airlines • IT Assets
Target
• 3PL • Build to order • Shipping • Healthcare
Market
• Distribution • Aerospace • 3PL • Yard management
• Retail • Automotive

// S3 Company Confidential

Capabilities required of a RTVS based Solution

• Ability to configure and manage a large network of
mobile and fixed devices
• Ability to configure and distribute workflow processing
between the host system, the edge server and mobile
devices
• Flexible connectivity to enterprise applications without
requiring modification to the LoB
• Unification of electronic world and physical-world
Workflows
• Rich event management and notification mechanisms
• Robust transactional execution environment

S3Edge RTVS Solution Platform

• Enterprise 3.0 services to consume and act on real time
data from the physical world
– Software + Services on device, edge, cloud for rapid
deployment of RFID solutions
• Delivered as configurable Real Time Visibility Systems
[RTVSTM] for vertical applications
On-Demand

S3
RTVSTM

On-Premise On-Device

S3Edge RTVS Server: SW Architecture
System Mgt Date Entry & System Status
Console Display Devices Displays

Dashboard / Portal
Web
Out-of-the-box Client Services
Templates & Specific API
Workflow Engine Logic
LoB System
S3Edge Device Control SQL Svr
Subsystem DB

RFID RFID RFID
Device Device Device
Provider Provider Provider

Mobile RFID Fixed RFID Hand-held Mobile RFID
Readers Readers Readers

Demo: Slide Tracking Solution


Slide Tracking: Problem Statement

• Aging population == more demand == need
for better customer service and retention
• Better use of labor resources for processing
and tracking of specimen
– Identify many hundreds of slides within seconds
– Eliminate manual inventory
– Locate & retrieve slides in near real-time
– Prevent human error
• Audit trails for compliance

// S3 Company Confidential

Magellan RFID

• Industry leading H/W portfolio with PJM High
Frequency (13.56 MHz) RFID technology
• Complete H/W portfolio including chips, inlets,
readers
• PJM StackTag® optimized for applications
where many hundreds of tags are stacked tightly
or need to be identified reliably
• Deep Technology expertise and experience with
wide-variety of unique turnkey H/W solutions:
– Ex: Document Tracking, Slide Tracking, Blood
Sample Tracking etc.

Out-of-the box Asset Tracking Process Flows
• Load / Unload XL based plans for Asset utilization
• Associate Asset with Tag & Order from LoB application
• Disassociate Asset from Tag
• Track Asset [start / stop]
• Search for Assets
• Event Tracking
– By System
– By Station
– By Asset
– By Criticality
• Increase/ Decrease order priority
• Exception Monitoring [Temporal & Spatial SLA‟s]
• Verify Contents
// S3 Company Confidential 20

Recap of what you just saw:
• World class hardware from Magellan for reading a large
volume of RFID tagged slides in seconds
• Turn-key RTVS Solution based on Microsoft BizTalk RFID
– Complete solution offering of HW/SW/Services/Hosting
– Optional subscription based pricing for the SW licenses
• Out-of-the-box „packaged‟ workflows
– Can be customized to meet your specific implementation needs
• Distributed real-time workflow processing across central
server, edge server and devices
• Deployment options:
– S3Edge RTVS installed at clients location, Operationally maintained by client
IT staff
– S3Edge RTVS installed at hosting center, Operationally maintained by
S3Edge


In Closing

Sticky = understandable, memorable, and effective
in changing thought or behavior

“… And that’s the great thing about the world of
ideas – any of us, with the right insight and the
right message, can make an idea stick.”

- Chip and Dan Heath, ‘Made to Stick’


Resources
• Website
– www.s3edge.com
• Blog
– http://rtvs.wordpress.com
• Case-study
– http://www.s3edge.com/RiteCare_BizTalkRFID.pdf
• Upcoming RFID Journal Webcast (April 14th)
– http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/1689/1/1/
• Magellan RFID
– http://www.magellan-rfid.com/
• Other interesting links
– „Above the Clouds‟: A Berkeley view of cloud computing
• http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2009/EECS-2009-28.pdf;
• http://berkeleyclouds.blogspot.com/
– RAD lab http://radlab.cs.berkeley.edu/
– The Economist, “Let it Rise”
• http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displayStory.cfm?STORY_ID=12411882
– Gartner Blog Network, Daryl Plummer
• http://blogs.gartner.com/daryl_plummer/


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