The RFID Online Meetup on February 23 generated many questions, to which Eric Domski (SAP RFID Solution Director) provided informative answers. The high number of participants in the meetup seem to indicate that there is a lot of interest in the SDN community to discuss RFID and share knowledge around this topic. If this is true, then we would like to build a dedicated area on SDN for RFID to help facilitate this information exchange.
Let's start by reviewing the questions posed by our participants. Eric Domski will be providing a transcript of the answers he gave to these questions, which we will post as soon as it is available, but in the meantime, I invite you to share your own knowledge by providing an answer to any of the questions below. Here's how this will work:
1. Choose a question. Please check to make sure that the question has not already been chosen and posted by someone else.
2. Create a new thread with a title that follows this format: RFID Online Meetup, [question number], [question text].
3. Provide a detailed answer to the question.
In addition to helping grow the information available on this topic, you could earn contribution points. I'll be asking Eric to review the postings, and we'll award points to those contributors who provide informative and useful answers to the questions.
Some notes on the rules: If a question is chosen by more than one person, the first person to post the question will be given credit. We encourage you, though, to expand on an existing posting with additional information and insight.
As I mentioned, this is just the start. If you find it useful to have a central area for RFID resources, start sending in your technical articles, white papers, code samples, and any other content you think the community would find useful. With enough critical mass, we can start building a dedicated section on the web site to meet your needs. Let's go!
1. Is there a list of Partners / vendors involved in integration with SAP AII?
2. What is EPC?
3. Does SAP provide explicit support for ALE?
4. What is ALE?
5. What is EPCIS?
6. How does RFID infrastructure figure as a part of ESA ?
7. Is Exchange Infrastructure mandatory for an SAP RFID solution ?
8. What is ESA and EPOD?
9. Are RFID processes available as XApps?
10. Do I need to have SCM or SRM is enough?
11. Is it possible to use AII without the XI if there is already a ERP SAP System??
12. Is there a standard protocol used by AII to communicate with third party device controllers?
13. What is PML?
14. Is xMII integrated with AII? If not, any plans to do so? When?
15. Is XI mandatory or optional for integration with mySAP ERP (ECC 6.0)?
16. What kind of RFID solutions do SAP have for Pharmaceutical verticals?
17.What skills are needed to develop scenarios inside AII, Java, abap xml...?
18. Can you tell us more about the components required to support RFID asset management ? To my knowledge, AII is not involved, MI is. Is XI required, etc.
19. Can the workflow scenarios be implemented on handheld devices? (e.g. WinCE, Palm OS, other)?
20. Should the custom AII business rules be developed in ABAP or JAVA ?
21. Does this new feature set eliminate or complement the need for Middleware?
22. For a customer who wants to only do slap-and-ship (eg. for Wal-Mart), approximately how long does it take to implement stand-alone AII (including hardware) ?
23. Is 80-85% acceptable read rate for industry standard?
24. Even though RFID is the focus here, there are many other devices on the plant floor that contain valuable information about a product, such as temperature sensors, weigh scales, bar codes, dimensioners, etc.. What are SAP's plans for handling that information?
25. SAP is defining a standard connector for certified third party device providers?
26. Does SAP have a Device Integration platform to intergate with PLCs/Material handlers?
27. What synchronies at runtime the MM with the slap & Ship machineries?
28. When appropriate in the flow, could you please comment on your ability to identify and discard ghost reads?
29. Is BW provided with AII 4.0 standalone?
30. Are all checks and undo-activities handled in AII, or can some checks (e.g. the number of boxes that should be on a pallet) be triggered from the back-end (SAP-ECC)?
31. To accomplish what is being shown is the only SAP technology AII/BW or are other modules involved ?
32. What is the purpose of document assignment? Can you give a real-life example of how AII uses that.
33. What synchronizes at runtime the MM with the slap & Ship machineries?
34. When appropriate in the flow, could you please comment on your ability to identify and discard ghost reads?
35. What is the cost of the product to the cost of the RFID tag ratio..? Some products may be cheaper and RFID tag might a costiler affair to use.. Or if a smaller version of RFID chip is used .. can it store enough information?
36. Is there a limited number of transactions in ECC that can trigger an event in AII or can basically every transaction trigger an event?
37. For the tag commission, does AII support issuing a block of EPC numbers?
38. Do the warehouse-related scenarios mentioned here support the DWMS (Decentralized Warehouse Management System) scenario ?
39. Where is possible to find Certified Device Vendors References?
40. Will the ERP system as an OLTP system get any problems with the heavy number of data coming from AII in a real production environment ?
41. Where is typically AII deployed? In warehouse or in datacenter?
42. Is AII always linked to HUM? If not how will the ASN (EDI-856) to the customer be handled with regards to RFID tags?
43. Can AII 4.0 coexist on the same server as the Device management tool. Also when does the EPC number management at the Enterprise level for all different location takes place?
44. If the reader will receive the same informations, will the AII mange these multiple informations?
45. For the proof of delivery the freight forwarders need to be using RFID - is there a list that works with SAP RFID?
46. Is GPS as a sensor technology immediately capable within current AII technology?
47. Can SAP AII 4.0 information be downloaded from any url?
48. How could i get AII docs?
49. Is an offical EPC number range needed for implementing AII?
50. Is it possible to start with a company internal solution and open up later on?
51. Who is the point of contact with SAP Labs for getting details on integration to AII ?
52. Is AII4.0 compatible with Netweaver 2004 with certain patch level or does it have to be Netweaver 2004s?
53. Is there any trial version of AII available?
54. What about the warehouse-related scenarios? Do the warehouse-related scenarios mentioned here support the DWMS (Decentralized Warehouse Management System) scenario?
55. How many and what kind of SAP experts do you need to implement AII?
56. Is there incorporation of smart systems, how different from virtual instrumentation?
57. Can we make AII give a 100% (or near to) read rate?
58. Were do we get details about the AII certification?
59. Where is a list of certified vendors for device controllers?
60. Could you reiterate when you plan to provide an EPCIS implementation ?
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