About EPCglobal
History
Even though there seems to be a lot of momentum and awareness of RFID
over the last few years, it is an old technology and has an interesting history.
| Chronology | Events | Who |
| 1940 - 1950 | Friend or a Foe – During World War II British fighter planes get unique RFID tags attached to them, so that they can identify the enemy fighters from their own. |
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| 1980 - 1990 | EZ Toll – The seven state EZ automatic toll collection on American highways is another significant attempt to use the RFID technology commercially for automatic toll collection. |  |
| 1996 - 1997 | The concept of customer friendly merchandise – Gillette and P&G applied RFID tags to their product to reduce out of stocks and to promote a friendly shopping experience for their customers. |  |
| 1999 | The inauguration of the Auto-ID center – whose charter was to investigate the next generation supply chain technology. This work was initially funded by Gillette, P&G, GS1 US and others, and was the first stepping stone for the promotion and widespread adoption of this useful technology. |  |
| 2001 | The internet of things – Auto ID center expanded and at this time had spread over six countries including a lab run by Professor Peter Cole at the University of Adelaide. They conceptualised the “internet of things” and developed generation one standards for each of the main components and renamed it the EPC Network. |  |
| 2003 | The formation of EPCglobal – a subsidiary of GS1, to take the labs concept to real world. Implementation. |  |
| 2005 | The generation 2 standards – The EPCglobal community created a generation 2 standard for UHF/RFID technology. This new standard was designed to meet user requirements and ensure effective real life performance. |  |
| 2006 | Australia National Demonstration Pilot, EPC Network – This world first pilot implemented the EPC Network across an entire supply chain and provided useful learning’s for the Australian community. |  |
