- The winners will be revealed at the RFID Journal LIVE! 2025 conference and exhibition to be held on May 6-8 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
- The 2025 RFID Special Achievement Award is being awarded to Dr. Antonio Rizzi, full professor of logistics and supply chain management in the University of Parma’s Industrial Engineering Department
RFID Journal, the leading source of news and in-depth information regarding radio frequency identification (RFID) and other Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, has unveiled the finalists for this year’s RFID Journal Awards.
This year’s entrants feature a wide range of projects from the complex and large-scale, to smaller implementations that demonstrate how RFID and IoT solutions have become the technology of choice for companies with the need to increase visibility in their supply chain, gain operational efficiencies and enhance customer satisfaction.
The finalists hail from all around the world, including Italy, Brazil, Costa Rica, Germany, Turkey, Spain, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Many of the finalists will be speaking at LIVE! 2025, where they will share their experience with attendees. The winners will be announced at 1:00 PM PDT on Thursday May 8 at RFID Journal LIVE!2025, the company’s annual conference and exhibition, which will be held on May 6-8 at the Paris Hotel and Conference Center in Las Vegas, NV.
End-user companies were nominated in six categories. The finalists for each category are listed below:
Best RFID/IoT/AI Implementation
- ESAN (Eczacıbaşı Industrial Raw Materials Company), one Turkey’s foremost industrial mineral and metallic mineral producers, operates Turkey’s deepest metallic mine (ESAN Balya Lead-Zinc Mine). The firm has implemented a centralized, AI-driven traffic management system that optimizes underground traffic flow by predicting congestion and dynamically adjusting signals. Additionally, the system enhances operational efficiency by reducing delays and increasing safety by minimizing vehicle interactions and ensuring controlled movements.
- SniperAction Photo, LTD, an outdoor automated photography and videography company, is using RFID to automatically capture photos and video of guests as they ride a waterslide that weaves through the Costa Rica jungle.
- United Parcel Service (UPS), a global shipping, receiving and supply chain management company, continues to deploy tomorrow’s technology today by enabling UPS Internet Of Things and expanding their use of cutting-edge technologies like digital twins, data analytics, IOT/RFID and Generative AI to enhance efficiency, sustainability, and customer satisfaction.
Best Retail Implementation
- Arctic Spa, a manufacturer of hot tubs and all-weather pools, is using an automated, real-time RFID solution at 14 corporate retail stores and the central distribution center. The solution has enabled them to improve inventory tracking by 95 percent, experience a 40 percent reduction in manual labor costs, optimize store operations and enhance customer service.
- Carter’s (Canada stores), the market leader in children’s apparel, implemented their successful RFID solution across 187 Canadian retail stores, helping their associates to locate items faster, drive sales, and increase overall efficiency across various processes.
- C&A, a leading international private-label fashion retailer, implemented RFID across all 1,220+ C&A stores in 17 countries in Europe, as well as in C&A’s Distribution Centers. The implementation has enabled the firm to optimize and align customer experience, standardize and simplify processes, provide customer benefits due to increased stock-data accuracy, and ensure merchandise availability and visibility.
Best Healthcare or Food Implementation
- Brigham Young University, a private research university in Provo, UT, is using RFID in their Chem Stores to track chemical across campus, dramatically improving the rate of performing a lab inventory audit.
- Nutriza AgroIndustrial de Alimentos S/A (Friato), a leading Brazilian company specializing in the production and distribution of high-quality poultry products, is using RFID to control the working time and breaks of its employees autonomously, without relying on manual records. With Brazilian labor law specifing that employees cannot exceed the limit of 100 minutes of work in cold working areas with temperatures below 15°C (59°F), Friato has adopted a system that uses RFID tags to identify employees. Portals at the entrances and exits of the cold rooms allow the individualized recording of each employee’s working time and breaks, enabling Friato to comply with the labor law.
- Sentara Health, a not-for-profit healthcare organization, is using RFID at Norfolk General Hospital, a 500-bed facility within a 12-hospital network, to track hazardous compounded medications in their hazardous sterile compounding rooms as well as tracking compounded medications essential for cardiac procedures, which are fast-moving with a short shelf-life resulting in reducing waste, improving patient care, and enhancing staff satisfaction.
Best Manufacturing or IoT Implementation
- Cepheid, a leader in PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test kit manufacturing, has successfully implemented RFID technology to enhance supply chain velocity, drive operational efficiency, and maintain its leadership in PCR test development and manufacturing.
- Cummins, an engine and power supply company, has reduced the total amount of packaging waste resulting from manufacturing operations by employing RFID-based Returnable Transport Items (RTIs) for components and products.
- Kannegiesser, a provider of laundry technology serving industrial laundry facilities for over 60 years, is using RFID technology to sort by customer or item type and provide accurate sorting ability using real-time reading as well as automatically separating articles with no or malfunctioning tags, eliminating all manual sorting and order preparation actions.
Best Supply Chain/Logistics Implementation
- Brooks, an American sports equipment company that designs and markets high-performance men’s and women’s sneakers, clothing, and accessories, is using RFID enabled tags at one of their distribution centers during the pick-pack process in real time, to ensure they match the customer orders before they are shipped from the distribution center. The shipping label is printed only if the carton audit is passed for each carton, ensuring 100 percent shipping accuracy.
- Maersk, a logistics and supply chain company, is using an RFID-based drone solution in one of their high-volume, fast-paced warehouses to ensure accurate inventory capabilities, allowing the operational teams to focus on more strategic initiatives, resulting in greater efficiency and service excellence.
- Shifflet Brothers Enterprises, a trusted freight hauler for the electric utility industry on the U.S. West Coast, is using RFID technology to facilitate real-time asset tracking, streamline yard management, and improve inventory management from receipt to final delivery.
Best RFID or IoT Implementation (Other Industry)
- Idaho National Lab, one of the national laboratories of the United States Department of Energy, is using RFID for tracking mixed and hazardous waste containers and for providing inventories of Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) waste storage areas.
- Selmark, a global lingerie and apparel brand, achieved 30 percent gains in picking, shipping, and receiving efficiency by tagging products at the source by installing RFID printers and tracking them through the supply chain with RFID readers.
- United States Marine Corps developed the Marine Corps Platform Integration Center (MCPIC), a system that provides asset visibility by enabling equipment inventory tracking through tagging of mission-critical equipment, enabling them to shorten inventory times from weeks to hours and resulting in gaining greater inventory accuracy, as well as saving millions of labor dollars.
RFID Special Achievement Award
Dr. Antonio Rizzi, full professor of logistics and supply chain management in the University of Parma’s Industrial Engineering Department, will receive the 2025 RFID Special Achievement Award. Dr. Rizzi is the founder of the university’s RFID Lab, a world leading research center promoting research, training and services to stakeholders, such as technology providers and end users. Under his leadership, the lab pioneered research in the Italian RFID arena and has been widely recognized as a worldwide center of excellence.
Dr. Rizzi is a world-renowned advocate of auto id technologies and data sharing technologies (such as RFID and IoT) for supply chain management and retail industries. He has generously given his time and has spoken at numerous conferences, including at RFID Journal LIVE! for nearly two decades.
“It’s Antonio’s turn to be honored”, says Debbie Hughes, RFID Journal’s former Editorial Director of Events and current RFID Journal LIVE! 2025 consultant. “I know that I speak on behalf of the entire RFID industry in congratulating him for his extraordinary contributions and his unstoppable enthusiasm for the technology.”
Best New Product Award
This award will be given to the company that exhibits the best new RFID, IoT, NFC, or related technology product or service at RFID Journal LIVE! 2025. To qualify for the award, the product must have been introduced after April 11, 2024.
The top five finalists will be announced on Wednesday, April 2. Those five finalists will be evaluated onsite by a team of three judges, led by founder and former RFID Journal.com editor, Mark Roberti. The judging takes place during RFID Journal LIVE! with scheduled demonstrations during the event. Best New Product will be awarded at the RFID Journal Awards Ceremony on May 8.
This year’s RFID Journal LIVE! event will showcase tags, readers, software and services from a variety of manufacturers. Nine industry-specific and how-to tracks will cover how RFID and IoT technologies are being used in retail and apparel, manufacturing, supply chain and logistics, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, defense, aerospace and government, and inventory and warehouse management, as well as business drivers beyond inventory accuracy, how the latest technologies can be applied in the real world, how Digital Product Passports are being used to encourage sustainable production of materials and energy and guidelines from GS1 US to assist U.S. healthcare, food service, and retail industries in using RFID.
LIVE! will also offer fast-track RFID Professional Institute certification training, RAIN Alliance training and attendees will see the latest innovations from more than 80 exhibitors hailing from 26 countries. For more information, see RFID Journal LIVE! 2025 Opens Attendee Registration for the Las Vegas event.