Advanco RFID Controller (ARC)
In my research on the RFID Middleware market, I came across a number of vendors that were new to me. In a series of articles, I will provide a short overview of these products. The sixth of these is Advanco SA, a Belgian SI who provide a device manager for the SAP AII environment.
Advanco SA were founded in 1981 and are headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. They have partnerships with the following RFID hardware companies: Siemens, Tagsys, Intermec and Toshiba. They also have technology partnerships with both SAP and Microsoft, and perhaps most interesting with BPMS vendor Metastorm.
ARC is a certified Device Controller for SAP Auto-ID Infrastructure, which runs on all Microsoft Windows platforms (32 bit or 64 bit). The components are:
- ARC Device Integrator module facilitates the configuration and the management of different automatic identification devices (RFID readers, gates, printers, photocells, I/O boxes, sensors, etc.)
- ARC Connector interfaces with different enterprise applications, including SAP AII.
- ARC Local Intelligence module gives the capability to add mini workflows and intelligent filtering on the device side.
- Data Filtering
- Mini Workflows
- Lights, Buzzers
- Tag Validation
- Data Encryptions
- ARC Monitoring & Customised Alert used to watch the health of devices and the system.
- ARC Statistics & Reporting transforms the collected data to into a web based customisable dashboard.
Conclusions
ARC is a niche product developed to fill the gap that SAP’s AII product has in providing no device management capability. The relationship with Metastorm means that business process can derived and managed outside of SAP.