NEC - Republic Polytechnic collaboration set to drive innovations and solutions for the ubiquitous society

Singapore, 23 January 2008 – NEC Asia Pte Ltd (“NEC”) is renewing its industrial collaboration on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) with the Republic Polytechnic (“RP”) today, through the signing of a second 'Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and the launch of the “RP-NEC RFID@NEC Competency Centre” at RP, a lab that provides a fully equipped infrastructure for students and industry partners to develop and test bed their innovations in RFID technologies.

The renewed collaboration further reaffirms the industrial ties between the two organisations and will see RP and NEC focus on the drive towards a ubiquitous society, where students will develop RFID solutions and innovations for the hospitality, retail, manufacturing and logistics industries.

With this Centre, RP’s academic staff and students can now engage in applied RFID-related development within the context of an actual working environment. Their involvement in RFID applications development at RFID@NEC Competency Centre will position RP as an academic and industrial centre that provides real-life learning for its students.

The RFID@NEC Competency Centre has been divided into four zones - Retail, Hospitality, Manufacturing and Logistics (inventory management).

Retail: “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” – Interactive mirrors that talk to you
A project co-developed by the RP students, this creative new breakthrough essentially enables the mirror in shopping centres to interact with the shopper to assist them in their choices and to provide them with the store’s recommendation. The intelligent mirror combines specially designed antennas with the integrated RFID reader to read the RFID tag on the apparel. As the shopper chooses a blouse from the shelf and tries it in front of the mirror, the RFID mirror will read the tag information on the blouse and present to the shopper information such as the sizes and colours available. The intelligent mirror can also suggest to the shopper a matching skirt as well as other accessories. This interaction with the shopper is achieved via a voice enabled display panel.

Hospitality: Hotel rooms of the future will have Real-time Voice and Data Convergence
RFID technology is shaping up to be the most powerful competitive advantage that hospitality firms can have in the decade to come. Technology is already permeating customer services, information management and hotel design, and enabling the smart businesses to create alternatives to existing products and services. RFID serve to add value in this area in enhancing the customer experience. Because they can be used to automate and collect real-time individual data, RFID tags will enable mass customization of customer services, and hotel and leisure operators will thus be able to offer highly targeted preferential treatment, special loyalty perks or other loyalty rewards to their valued customers during the service delivery process.

Hotels of the future will come equipped with the VoIP-enabled (Voice over Internet Protocol) telephony Digital Signage solutions and security features, where guests can access real-time information on the hotel’s promotions and menus etc. With this additional feature, hotels can provide enhanced safety and security to its guests. NEC, with its full range of computers and communications technology platform, is positioned to shape this adoption.

Manufacturing and Logistics: Knowing the location of your assets
The Conveyor Belt is fitted with a RFID reader, to track the location of the goods due to be packed as they move along the conveyor belt, while the RFID gantry ‘reads’ the RFID tags on the cartons as they move in / out of the warehouse.

“As a leader in cutting-edge RFID applications, NEC is pleased to partner with the Republic Polytechnic again to further develop creative RFID innovations and solutions for various industries, and this RFID@NEC Competency Centre will be part of our strategies to expand NEC’s RFID businesses in Asia.” said Mr John Poon, Vice President, Platform Solutions Group, NEC Asia.

Mr Fong Yew Chan, Director, School of Engineering, “This lab brings immense value to the practical learning process for our students as they can see their work being applied in real industry scenario. We are confident that more creative breakthroughs will follow as these two projects get the buy-in from retail and hospitality sectors.”

About Republic Polytechnic
The first educational institution in Singapore to adopt the Problem-Based Learning approach for all its diploma programmes, Republic Polytechnic has five schools and two centres offering twenty nine diploma courses in Information & Communications Technology, Engineering, Applied Science, Technology for the Arts, Sports, Health & Leisure, Innovation and Enterprise, and Culture and Communication. Republic Polytechnic is committed to nurturing innovation and entrepreneurial learning in an environment that develops problem-solving process skills and a life-long learning attitude. Its holistic, broad-based curriculum, covering culture, enterprise development and cognitive processes, prepares students for an active and meaningful role in society. Republic Polytechnic strives for excellence by achieving various national and international accreditations, including People Developer Standards, ISO9001, ISO14001, OHSAS 18001, Singapore Quality Class, Singapore Innovation Class, and the Singapore Health Awards (Gold). For more information, visit http://www.rp.sg

About NEC Corporation
NEC Corporation is one of the world's leading providers of Internet, broadband network and enterprise business solutions dedicated to meeting the specialized needs of its diverse and global base of customers. NEC delivers tailored solutions in the key fields of computer, networking and electron devices, by integrating its technical strengths in IT and Networks, and by providing advanced semiconductor solutions through NEC Electronics Corporation. The NEC Group employs more than 150,000 people worldwide. For additional information, please visit the NEC home page at: http://www.nec.com

About NEC Asia Pte Ltd
A wholly owned subsidiary of NEC Corporation based in Singapore, NEC Asia is a leading information technology services provider that specialises in systems integration and consultancy services. Being conferred the Singapore Economic Development Board’s International Headquarters (IHQ) Award, NEC Asia, as NEC’s regional headquarters in Asia Pacific, provides regional sales and services support for world-class identity solutions, turnkey implementation of mission-critical solutions, project management and maintenance services.

NEC's suite of solutions and services encompass systems integration, global identity solutions, RFID solutions, financial solutions, retail management solutions, enterprise servers, telecommunications and network solutions, multimedia products, managed services and outsourcing centre (MSOC), manufacturing business solutions, ERP, imaging and workflow solutions, enterprise portals and NECare Service Centre. NEC Asia will also continue to provide business support functions in purchasing, public relations, finance, human resources and corporate social responsibilities (CSR) to the regional NEC subsidiaries. For more information, please visit www.nec.com.sg