Blue Vector Brings RFID to Wireless Wide Area Networks

Blue Vector Systems, a provider of rapidly deployable asset and supply chain tracking systems, today announced the general availability of its Mobile Edge Manager appliance. Incorporating wireless cellular data and Wi-Fi network access, the Mobile Edge Manager adds data integration, local business logic processing, and over-the-air reconfiguration to any RFID reader.

The Mobile Edge Manager is an intelligent appliance which can be configured, monitored, and maintained remotely via the web. It executes inventory and asset management business rules which can consult and update data from enterprise applications, including SAP and Oracle. It directly controls and manages a variety of industrial sensors as well as all major UHF, HF, semi-active, and active RFID readers.

Configurable business rules insure that only a true business event -- not raw sensor data -- is cached and transmitted back to the central system, conserving WAN bandwidth and reducing communications costs. The Blue Vector Mobile Edge Manager also includes global positioning capabilities in order to support business rules which vary by location. As supply chains continue to grow and include distribution centers, partners, and customers across the globe, the ability to detect and react to remote events is becoming a necessity.

"In today's business world, a company needs as much real-time visibility as possible into its assets and items in its supply chain -- no matter where they may be," said Nancy Anderson, CEO for Blue Vector. "The ability to put sensors on vehicles or in locations without wired access is critical and necessary in order to fully gain a return from an RFID implementation, and our solution not only makes that possible, it makes it easy to deploy and highly manageable."

As part of Blue Vector's system, the new Mobile Edge Manager includes automatic device health monitoring. With its completely self-contained battery backup, it can operate for extended periods without external power. The Mobile Edge Manager is 2.25" x 6.25" x 9" in size and weighs less than two pounds. It automatically recharges its own batteries when any source of AC or 12V DC power is available.