KALAMAZOO ? Kalamazoo Valley Community College has embraced the potential of RFID technology by becoming the host of the RFID Technology Center at KVCC?s M-TEC training center.

RFID is short for Radio Frequency Identification – A wireless data collection technology that uses electronic tags for storing data. Like bar codes, they are used to identify items. Unlike bar codes, which must be brought close to the scanner for reading, RFID tags are read when they are within the proximity of a transmitted radio signal. Analyst firm IDC predicts that RFID systems will top $7 billion by 2007. The RFID Technology Center hopes to position Michigan squarely in the middle of this onrushing tide.

?The original RFID Technology Center idea came up last year,?? said Kathy Johnson, Director of the RFID Technology Center. ?The whole effort has been driven by new mandates from major retailers like Wal-Mart to its suppliers to blend RFID into their products. Several key companies and players put the center together.?

Key players include KVCC, Southwest Michigan First, Western Michigan University and several Kalamazoo area companies heavily involved in developing RFID technology, such as Blue-Granite, which has been hosting RFID User Group meetings since summer 2004. Now the group will meet at M-TEC.

Johnson said the non-profit M-TEC center is better able to pull together the private and public organizations that need RFID technology. It also helps to have an organization that brings those forces together to do pilot projects to further the technology, do training and testing.

?It?s worked very well so far,?? Johnson said. ?We?re moving forward in a number of areas. In 2005, we implemented several pilot projects that give us an opportunity to work with a company implementing RFID, to bring together the players, and follow the process to see if RFID makes sense for them.?

Typical pilot projects can cost from $10,000 to $20,000 to implement. Donations from the currently running pilot projects come from Blue-Granite, WMU, the Michigan Blueberry Growers, Flowserve and Steelcase. M-TEC gets new training opportunities, including RFID certification classes, out of its participation.

To learn more, click on RFIDTechnolgyCenter.Com