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New Park Entry Ticket Test


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Another test was conducted yesterday at Epcot on what will eventually be the standard park ticket and then of course the KTTW as well.

Certain guests were diverted to a special park entry test area and RFID tags were added to their tickets for the test.

RFID technology is nothing new, so I don't know why all the testing.

What does the new system mean to you, not much, as far as I can tell. The silly finger biometric scanner is still a part of the process. Get rid of that part. There has to be a better way.

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Then new RFID system will let Disney get rid of a lot if CM’s.

I don't think so. A CM will still be needed there.

Wal-mart will have this system in every product within the next year. The new check out system you push your cart into a dome and it will ring up all products.

Not just Wal-Mart. It will eventually be the standard system everywhere.

I don't think you'll be able to leave the items in the cart as the radio signals will need line of site. If an item is buried underneath other items the signal may not get through. I've experienced that problem in costume check that now uses RFID.

Invest in RFID related companies.

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I remember years ago, there was a credit card commercial, where the lady just ran her complete cart through some kind of scanner, and she swiped her card and was done. It has taken a looooong time for this technology to really come to pass.

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No all products can stay it the cart. This new system will get rid of the inventory company that comes in to do the physical count. All it will take is one person with a hand held scanner to walk the store.

I worked with rfid technology at my last programming gig and Lou is right. Maybe some day in the future they may be able to scan your whole cart at once, but so far the science hasn't caught up with the fiction on this one.

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I worked with rfid technology at my last programming gig and Lou is right. Maybe some day in the future they may be able to scan your whole cart at once, but so far the science hasn't caught up with the fiction on this one.

Sorry you are wrong this is what Mall-Mart is demanding from every vender. The new RFID technology can be scaned up to 8 feet away

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Sorry you are wrong this is what Mall-Mart is demanding from every vender. The new RFID technology can be scaned up to 8 feet away

It's not a scanning process, it's radio frequency process, hence the name. This means that radio signals can be set for a lot more than 8 feet. I guess It could be set to miles if you had the right equipment.

The most common use when it was first introduced was for industrial warehouse inventory systems. That's when I first designed systems to use the technology. At that time company's wanted to find out what was in palletized containers stacked many, many layers high without having to open or read labels from at least 50 feet away. A worker would walk though a huge warehouse, point the transmitter at a pallet which would activate the dormant tag, send a signal back and compare it to the info stored in the data base.

It's only been in the last 7 years or so that the concept has been expanded to consumer and identification applications.

The main reason this has occurred is because the manufacturing process of the tags and cost has been reduced from $5, many years ago when I first started using the process, to less than a penny if the quantities are high enough.

But it's not a perfect concept, radio signals can be blocked or interfered with.

So it's going to be while before you can wheel your cart full of stuff and zap, a print out. It will happen but there a bugs to work out yet not to mention the capital expenditures that it will take to implement the systems.

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It's not a scanning process, it's radio frequency process, hence the name. This means that radio signals can be set for a lot more than 8 feet. I guess It could be set to miles if you had the right equipment.

The most common use when it was first introduced was for industrial warehouse inventory systems. That's when I first designed systems to use the technology. At that time company's wanted to find out what was in palletized containers stacked many, many layers high without having to open or read labels from at least 50 feet away. A worker would walk though a huge warehouse, point the transmitter at a pallet which would activate the dormant tag, send a signal back and compare it to the info stored in the data base.

It's only been in the last 7 years or so that the concept has been expanded to consumer and identification applications.

The main reason this has occurred is because the manufacturing process of the tags and cost has been reduced from $5, many years ago when I first started using the process, to less than a penny if the quantities are high enough.

But it's not a perfect concept, radio signals can be blocked or interfered with.

So it's going to be while before you can wheel your cart full of stuff and zap, a print out. It will happen but there a bugs to work out yet not to mention the capital expenditures that it will take to implement the systems.

Thank you Lou for backing me up. When I heard Mall-mart was going to this system in 07 and making all venders having this in all products by 2012 I bought stock in this company. everything will have RFID in 10 years. Hell my two Dogs and 1 cat are RFID

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You will still need employees to oversee checkouts. Why? THEFT.

Will they still do a physical inventory? YES. Why? THEFT.

Will they be able to reduce employees, sure, but not eleminate them.

I guarantee you, within weeks if not days of this being implemented, someone will have a work around.

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You will still need employees to oversee checkouts. Why? THEFT.

Will they still do a physical inventory? YES. Why? THEFT.

Will they be able to reduce employees, sure, but not eleminate them.

I guarantee you, within weeks if not days of this being implemented, someone will have a work around.

Yes but like most self checkout lanes it only takes 1 person to over see 14 lanes and if you look at most Mall-Mart supercenters there are up to 70 check out lanes that is 210 people per day

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Yes but like most self checkout lanes it only takes 1 person to over see 14 lanes and if you look at most Mall-Mart supercenters there are up to 70 check out lanes that is 210 people per day

Dude where do you shop? Most I have see is a 4:1 ratio and then most of the times at least none of those registers was closed.

I must live in a high crime area.

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Not to worry, it's not going to happen any time soon in a big way.

And as the case with most automation, low paying jobs are usually replaced by higher paying skilled jobs.

Some one has to design, build, setup, maintain, and monitor the automation equipment. And those jobs pay a lot more than the minimum wage jobs that were lost.

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Not to worry, it's not going to happen any time soon in a big way.

And as the case with most automation, low paying jobs are usually replaced by higher paying skilled jobs.

Some one has to design, build, setup, maintain, and monitor the automation equipment. And those jobs pay a lot more than the minimum wage jobs that were lost.

Well thank god the old ticket takers will now be upper managment

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There are a couple of reasons RFID has taken so long to get into stores.

1. Cost - as Lou said, the cost of the tags were very not cost efficient.

2. Size - They were big and would not fit on certain items.

3. How to tag certain items - Fruit, vegetables, the 1 little hot pepper you get. Those are still being discussed throughout the Supermarket industry. How do you tag a weight item?

4. Misreads - both missing an item and reading an item twice. Making sure checkout lanes and readers are far enough away from items that are not in the cart. (you know all those magazines, candy and stuff at the checkout register).

They have gotten the cost down to where the stores are starting to see a return on investment. The rfid tags have gotten smaller, but they are still having issues with tagging certain items and the number of tags it may take. Also misreads are still a huge concern.

jon

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Thanks Jon! I'm sure as the cost comes down and the bugs are worked out, we'll be seeing this technology in the stores!

To demonstrate that the cost of the tags have come down drastically, every one of the over 60,000 WDW CMs, have in their possession an average of about 15 RFID tags. That's a lot of RFID tags.

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