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U.S. Small Business Uses OPIC Financing to Expand Cutting-edge Air Cargo Tracking System in India |
Monday, March 07, 2011 WASHINGTON, D.C. – A U.S. small business will use a loan from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) to expand the use of its award-winning cargo tracking technology to airports in India, helping the country improve its airport security and at the same time “move from the tollbooth lane to the E-Z Pass lane” in terms of efficiency, in the words of the sponsor.
OPIC financing will enable QuantumID Technologies (QID) of Cambridge, Massachusetts, to expand its radio-frequency identification (RFID) systems for the identification, tracking and management of mobile assets to major airline cargo hubs, courier transport sites and other transportation facilities in India.
Specifically, QID’s trademark Airline Cargo Tracking solution (ACT) will employ hardware, software, and service operational modules to perform the tracking and tracing of cargo at each airport location. OPIC’s loan will enable a QID client – a major passenger airline and cargo operator in India – to expand services from seven airport locations to 65, covering 100 cities with 425 warehouse locations. It will also enable its door-to-door services to cover 72 cities and 1000 field operations. A second client is considering the deployment of QID’s ACT solution to cover 12 distribution hubs, 30 warehouses and 300-plus pick-up and delivery locations. The additional coverage will in turn substantially improve productivity and efficiency for the businesses served by QID’s clients.
RFID is a technology that enables distance reading of information that can be attached to movable or stationary assets. To identify a package or item, the RFID technology relies on RFID tags – small transponders that transmit identity information over a distance.
“This project is a classic example of a U.S. small business innovation being used to improve efficiency – and in this case, security – in an emerging market, bringing developmental benefits to the Indian economy and opening a new market for American goods and services,” said OPIC President and CEO Elizabeth Littlefield.
QID Chief Executive Officer Milind Tavshikar said the RFID technology would enable Indian airports to render obsolete the chain-of-custody problems caused by the traditional bar-code & paper tracking systems. “RFID technology therefore improves both efficiency and security in airport cargo tracking,” he said. “It’s like moving from the tollbooth lane to the E-Z Pass lane on the highway.”
QuantumID Technologies (QID) is a high technology company based in Cambridge, MA, with a subsidiary in Pune, India. QID designs, develops manufactures, markets and implements “turnkey” barcode-compatible, RFID-enabled asset identification, tracking and management solutions for the modern enterprise. QID’s solutions include award-winning innovation and patent-pending UHF RFID hardware, customizable web-based software application and middleware platform. QID has been awarded the prestigious Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Award for product innovation. For more information, www.qidtech.com
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