Autor: Matthias Flohr

Product piracy poses an increasing threat to manufacturers and providers of products in the industrial sector. Therefore the application of technical solutions for the protection against product counterfeiting and copying becomes more and more important. In this context, especially the use of RFID technology constitutes an effective instrument for tracking original products and components along the supply chain and also for quick and reliable verification and confirmation of their authenticity. Within the joint project MobilAuthent, supported by the BMBF, a solution for forgery-proof product authentication and tracking along the supply chain based on RFID is being developed. This article introduces the first project results as well as the MobilAuthent concept. The presented solution can be flexibly adapted to different company and product-related requirements.

Existing PLM solutions provide mature methods and functionalities for the management of processes and data of virtual products in the early product lifecycle phases. Appropriate solutions for managing information of individual real physical products within the production, use and end-of-life phases are not available. In this article an approach for a product-individual information management is presented, which is based on a product traceability solution.