- The R&D facility in Munich will focus on the development of RFID and wireless IoT-based products
- The site was chosen as it is a region known as a technology center with a vibrant ecosystem
Tageos recently opened a state-of-the-art research and development facility in Munich, Germany that will focus on the development of RFID and wireless IoT-based products.
The Tageos Innovation Center of Excellence (ICoE) is the company’s response to a strong customer and market demand to drive the development of latest products and new applications in RFID, HF & NFC and IoT. As a new, integral part of Tageos’ existing R&D and innovation capabilities, the ICoE’s areas of expertise will include special antennas for RFID inlays and tags, emerging RF technologies like Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), as well as the attachment of flexible batteries, sensors and other innovative components.
“RFID technology has reached a pivotal moment—it is already widely adopted and successfully used across many key applications,” stated Matthieu Picon, CEO, Tageos in a statement. “Our continuous drive for innovation will help us develop cutting-edge products while meeting the evolving needs of our customers.”
Engineering-as-a-Service Offerings
Besides serving as a technology innovation hub, company officials promoted the ICoE as offers Engineering-as-a-Service (EaaS) capabilities that provide comprehensive support for customers and partners worldwide to further optimize their product requirements both technically and commercially, and leverage EaaS as a resource to prototype and industrialize new products.
The company’s teams will have the capabilities to design, build and test final items in smaller quantities. Volumes at scale will be passed to the company’s high-quality, certified production facilities in France, the U.S. and in China, with annual production capacities of more than 11 billion units today. Additionally, EaaS offerings include project consulting and application engineering, optimization of technical processes as well as programming and implementation support to ensure the best technical and business fit.
Location Details
The Munich site was chosen as it is region is known as a technology center with a vibrant ecosystem—the ability to tap into this was one of the deciding factors for the location, according to company officials.
The new site is a 700+ m² dedicated R&D center represents a multi-million Euro investment and will further strengthen Tageos’ strategy to accompany and support customers and business partners throughout the RFID and wireless IoT ecosystems, according to Picon. In addition to the company’s HQ in Montpellier, France, and other production sites in Fletcher, NC, and Guangzhou, China, the Munich plant marks a clear signal they are intent on expanding the company’s pioneering role and market leadership position.
“The (ICoE) will provide customers and market partners with even greater access to our resources and support them to quickly realize their objectives, integrate latest technologies and leverage them to reduce time-to-market and gain a competitive advantage” said Picon. “It underlines our strong commitment to true technological innovation, performance and sustainability in RFID and wireless IoT, as well as the development of next-generation products that will shape the future.”
Supporting Customer Demands
The center offers comprehensive testing and expanded support levels to help customers scale their production processes for high volume manufacturing of NFC and RFID-enabled labels or other types of connected physical items with embedded inlays. This service can be provided in small batches to fine-tune manufacturing parameters as well as on large scale.
The expansion comes as more and more industries use RFID technology to solve operational challenges, creating increased demand for different form factors and materials. Officials cited printed antennas as a bleeding-edge innovation, enabling ultra-thin, flexible, cost-effective and sustainable RFID inlays for smart packaging and smart labels.
Fedrigoni’s Commitment to RFID
Fedrigoni Group, CEO Marco Nespolo said as the majority shareholder of Tageos, the opening of the state-of-the-art R&D facility is a symbol of their combined strengths and leadership driving innovations.
RFID is highly strategic for Fedrigoni, as they look to exploit every possible synergy with its two businesses of self-adhesives labels and specialty papers for packaging, creative communication and technical applications.
“The industries we serve—from luxury, to pharmaceutical, from wine & spirits, to food, from beauty to FMCG—are in fact looking more and more for innovations to enable authentication, brand protection, traceability, as well as customer experience for their products and packaging,” said Nespolo.