iKeg NFC Tag Ensures Trust in Everyday Items

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Company Profile

SteadyServ® Technologies was founded in Carmel, Indiana in 2012 with the vision that hard-working staff members at bars and restaurants should never run out of beer again. The SteadyServ iKeg™ system is a mobile, SaaS-based inventory and order management system for the beer industry that provides real-time intelligence for retail establishment and distributor sales staff members via an app for iOS or Android devices, in addition to a web SaaS portal.

SteadyServ gives retailers the power to know which beer is selling best, what is popular nearby, and what’s on tap near them, giving them a clear competitive advantage. Using the iKeg app, retailers also know exactly what they have in their cooler and what draft mixes are most effective to ensure taps are being rotated efficiently.

The patent pending iKeg technology also ensures that retailers’ orders are delivered directly into their distributors’ order management system. Orders can be placed via voice, text, email or direct EDI — all through the iKeg app.

Business Situation

The SteadyServ iKeg system provides real-time intelligence for beer retail establishments and distributors. This solution provides retailers with up-to-the-minute visibility into their current inventory of keg beer sold, as well as consumption metrics for a particular brand of beer.
In addition, the iKeg system provides for synchronization with the respective beer distributor’s order management system to ensure that a retailer’s inventory consistently meets customer demand.

ikeg-rfid SteadyServ’s solution relies upon NFC tags to associate kegs of beer from the point of distribution to the retailer. While seeking to procure a custom-designed NFC tag product that would be amenable for attaching to a beer keg, SteadyServ connected with Identiv. ikeg-nfc
Technical Situation

The iKeg solution required pairing a beer keg’s iKeg sensor with an NFC tag. SteadyServ Technologies needed an NFC label solution that they could trust – a solution that would meet the necessary technical and environmental criteria (i.e., chip memory, the physicality of attaching a label to a beer keg, etc.), while also providing on-demand printing/encoding.

Solution

SteadyServ worked with Identiv to devise a custom NFC tag, providing a solution that conveniently attached to a beer keg, similar to the way in which airline baggage tags are attached to checked-in luggage. The tag was designed for best-read range and to meet the memory requirements for the iKeg use case. Part of this solution required the identification/design-in of an NFC label printer/encoder manufactured by Datamax-Oneil.

Identiv was able to provide the technical NFC expertise on NFC transponders. There are a large variety of NFC transponder options, including the type of chip (i.e., NFC Types 1 - 4), size of the antenna and the final form factor. Each NFC use case requires attention to specific criteria, including what is being tagged, material composition, desired read range, and amount of data to be encoded into the NFC transponder chip.

Benefits

Identiv’s knowledge in the connected world of NFC technology and network of manufacturing partners provided the collaborative path by which a specific manufacturer of NFC label/printer encoders was able to design-in this custom NFC label tag with one of their products. This collaboration in Identiv’s network of partners has provided SteadyServ with an on-demand printing/encoding solution of custom-designed NFC labels for beer kegs.

Beer sales in the US is a $100 billon-a-year business. Draft beer makes up $20 billion of that amount. With 300,000 national establishments that sell draft beer supported by 3,000 wholesaler/distributors, SteadyServ’s goal is to use the iKeg solution to capture 30% of this market in the next 5 to 7 years.

About Identiv

Identiv is a global security technology company that establishes trust in the connected world, including premises, information and everyday items. CIOs, CSOs and product departments rely upon Identiv’s trust solutions to reduce risk, achieve compliance and protect brand identity. Identiv’s trust solutions are implemented using standards-driven products and technology, such as digital certificates, mobility and cloud services.