Fujitsu Limited and Fujitsu Frontech Limited announced that they have begun to offer the world’s first(1) flexible UHF-band RFID tag for garment management that can withstand high-temperature sterilization(2). The tag is intended for use in uniforms worn by employees at plants that manufacture products such as medical supplies or semiconductors, in which it is necessary to sterilize uniforms at a temperature of 121?.
Fujitsu and Fujitsu Frontech have fully demonstrated the new tag’s durability by conducting repeated environmental tests under a high temperature of 121? and high pressure conditions of 2 atm, using autoclave sterilization(3), one of the most effective sterilization techniques.
Utilizing the tags will enable companies to manage uniforms much more efficiently in locations such as plants where uniform sterilization is required.
In order to prevent plants that manufacture items such as medical supplies and semiconductors from being contaminated by microorganisms and other outside pollutants, uniforms worn by employees are thoroughly sterilized in advance. While most microorganisms can be eliminated at 100? over a short period of time, in the case of uniforms worn at medical supply and semiconductor plants, it is important to eliminate microorganisms that have a significantly higher resistance to heat. In order to accomplish this, it is often necessary to employ autoclave sterilization, the most effective sterilization technique in use to kill microorganisms at temperatures of 121? and pressure conditions of 2 atm.
Flexible UHF-band RFID tags for garment management have been widely adopted by various manufacturing plants with the aim of efficiently managing employee uniforms. Up until this point, however, no flexible UHF-band RFID tags for garment management able to withstand temperatures of 121? were commercially available. As a result, manufacturing plants where high-temperature sterilization is required have faced the common challenge of having to manually handle uniform maintenance.