Innovation Times-7: Hutt firm finds cycling and airport niche

Imagine being able to breeze through airports with a much lower risk of lost baggage, and no hold-ups for biosecurity X-rays of luggage to detect fruit and other such forbidden items.

Or how would it be to compete in a club cycling race or a mass event like the Lake Taupo Challenge and to have access to your finish time, no matter where you are in the field, down to 100th of a second?

They're very diverse scenarios, but the relatively low-cost technology that puts such solutions in reach is radio-frequency identification (RFID).

An emerging player on the global stage for innovation in this field is Times-7.

Founded four years ago, Times-7,one of a cluster of private companies hiring space at IRL's Gracefield campus, has backed up finalist places in Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce and Wellington Gold Awards by taking out the chamber's main R&D/Innovation award last year.

Two months ago the company won the Discovering Gold Award in the wider region's showcase of business excellence.

Chief executive Antony Dixon has an IT background and, in fellow founding director Phil Mossman, the company's chief financial officer based at Times-7's sports timing division in Hastings, he found another ideas man.

They hired in the scientific expertise necessary to develop products for the niche opportunities they had in mind.

Now there are 15 staff, including eight based at the research and production hub in Lower Hutt, and sales staff in the US, Australia and Europe.

Mr Dixon says Times-7 turned over $1.9 million in revenue in the year to March 10, and several times has raised capital for growth from private investors, despite the economic climate.

The radio-frequency identification technology isn't new, and there are many companies around the world exploiting it.

A big aspect of Times-7's innovation, however, is its patented slim-line antennae  flat enough to be embedded in a finish-line mat that cyclists can race over.

It is also slim enough to slip under luggage conveyor belts at airports when competitors' products require a section of the belt frame to be removed for installation of their fatter readers. Operators of busy airports hate the disruption and expense of such downtime.

Mr Dixon explains that RFID "comes in a number of flavours". The low frequency version has been used for years in running events  and no disrespect to athletes  it's being mandated for animal and stock tracking because both move at relatively slow speeds.

Racing cyclists move much more quickly.

Times-7's technology involves a tiny chip with its own antenna.

In the split second it passes over a transmitting antenna on the mat on the finish line, or under a conveyor belt, "there's enough energy created by the radio-frequency waves to wake the chip up. The tiny antenna receiving the RF wave creates a tiny current, enough for the chip to talk".

At international elite cycling level  Tour de France-type events  for various reasons RFID chips on competitors' cycles are required to have their own little batteries.

But Mr Dixon says they're more expensive, and no more accurate.

"So we're opening up new markets by making accurate timing more affordable."

He says the Times-7 solution  at an average of about $25,000 for linked antenna mats, the split-second times recording device and all associated software  puts it in reach of cycling clubs with a couple of hundred members.

If that sounds expensive, he points out that even serious amateurs will spend as much as $10,000 on a cycle.

Part of the company's innovation is to install their chip/antenna in slimline and robust plastic tags that attach to cycle wheels, with quick release for easy changing between bikes. These $12 tags can be individualised, meaning that if the cyclist competes in other events which are using Times-7 technology, his/her time can be recorded.

"We're working on a strategy with Bike New Zealand that will enable a national database ... every competitive cyclist in the country could have a tag like this." Times-7 has about 15 cycling customers in New Zealand  including the 11,000-competitor Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge  and has sold timing technology into Australia, the US, Spain, Philippines, Brazil and the Netherlands.

Though cycling is the niche Times-7 is concentrating on, they're re-selling their technology to other companies for use for triathlons, and there's a potential market for Times-7 at car club level, "where people have spent a lot of money on their cars, and don't necessarily want to spend a whole lot on timing equipment".

The traditional way of keeping track of airport baggage is barcodes. But Mr Dixon says their accuracy can be as low as 65 per cent, with an average of 80-85 per cent. The International Airline Transport Association (IATA) has estimated missing luggage is a $3 billion problem p.a. worldwide.

Times-7's throwaway RFID chips can be built into a sticker for as little as US17 cents (NZ24 cents). Mr Dixon says they achieve 99.5 per cent accuracy. Together with the company's easily installed slimline antennae under conveyor belts, he says his company's solution can be a quarter of the price of competitors'.

Competitors' systems also tend to be much more bulky, and their RF energy "bounces all over the place", possibly reading tags on other conveyer belts.

"We've used clever engineering to ensure the RF field is very shallow  as we did with cycling."

Times-7 systems are being used at Milan's busy Malpensa airport with 24 million travellers a year, Lisbon airport in Portugal, and at Aalborg in Denmark. KLM and Air France are involved in a trial of Times-7 systems at Charles de Gaulle, France, and Schipol, Netherlands, airports  "another big step up for our credibility".

Ultimately, it's likely frequent flyers will have their own luggage RFID tags, and luggage manufacturers may incorporate them into bags they make.

Another exciting opportunity is the potential to remove the need for the annoying hold-ups of biosecurity x-raying.. Luggage is already x-rayed for security at the originating airport. If "bags of interest" were flagged using RFID technology, at the destination airport only those bag owners need to be taken aside for a bag check.New Zealand's MAF and its Australian counterpart are seriously considering trialling a system for trans-Tasman travel. Mr Dixon says Times-7 was involved in the trial at Melbourne airport used to prove the technology.

And for the future? Why not RFID for the ultimate in warehouse and retail stock management? Particularly exciting for Times-7 is the potential for instant computerised retail stock control. Its slimline antennae could be built into shelving.

There are all sorts of possibilities. Indeed, you could say it's just a matter of timing.