SOURCE: Stealth Network Communications Inc.

 Feb 25, 2011 18:20 ET

Granular Item Level RFID, StealthLocator v3.1^TM, Solution and Formula Drives the Next Level of RFID Technology Adoption, Among Big Box Retailers

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - February 25, 2011) - StealthLocator v3.1™ formula proves updating the inventory file with RFID data, improves and provides accuracy and efficiencies for Bloomingdale's, a division of Macy's.

"This is the largest (120,000 sq.ft.), most complex (multiple Family of Business (FOB), locations, exits and sales floor), as an open loop retailer currently in general production within the United States," stated Bradley M. Berlin, Sr. Vice President, StealthRFID. The project has been the core catalyst behind the acceptance and adoption by Bloomingdale's and others to begin an aggressive plan for deployment consideration. Just-Style, Mike Flanagan, 8 February 2011, THE FLANARANT: Is RFID in apparel finally coming of age?, DOWJones, November 1 2010 publicity launch and NRF January 10, 2011.

Bloomingdale's selected Stealth Network Communications, Inc. as a Preferred Business Solutions Partner, to provide RFID feasibility analysis, impacts and systems integration for a Manhattan location, with follow-on expansions to include two other locations. Incorporated into the StealthLocator v3.1™ is Stealth's patented D3, Define.Design.Deliver., process map to measure the underlying factors of people, process and technology as well as the proven ROI formula for RFID deployment.

The benefits were quantified thru a pre-established metrics, D3 model, and formula. The organization compared the performance of the Manhattan store to the Company and other like facilities, based on their operational plans. Inventory accuracy has increased from the initial baseline metric of an average of 70% to 96%.

Granular Item Level RFID inventory is performed on demand, as needed and on a regularly scheduled cadence, in approximately 4 hours by 3 people as compared to an all-day annual event (5,000 items per hour vs. 200 items per hour using barcode). This represents a 96% improvement overall, and provides better service to the Bloomingdale's client and a timely and accurate inventory count. Also, StealthLocator v3.1™ assists sales associates to effectively help clients by checking if the item is available on the selling floor or stockroom.

About Stealth Network Communications, Inc.
Stealth Network Communications, Inc., founded in 1994 Stealth is the RFID "Gartner, Bain, Accenture" of the RFID granular item level retail industry. 

For more information visit www.stealthnetwork.com

SAN FRANCISCO (Map, News) - Airline will lease planes to others until approval

S.F. Airport — Still-grounded startup airline Virgin America popped the bubbly for its new plane “Jefferson Airplane” on Wednesday in a marketing event of grand proportions as business politicians and business people eagerly awaited the jobs and contracts the new aviation firm could bring.

A San Francisco International Airport hangar was packed with Virgin’s approximately 90 employees, as well as politicians and businesspeople already contracting with or hoping to do business for the new airline.

Virgin America is still awaiting Department of Transportation approval to fly after nearly a year of waiting in which rival airlines such as Continental Airlines Inc. (CAL) have filed protests that the airline is not truly U.S.-owned as required by law, but rather owned by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin companies.

Virgin executives dispute the charge, saying Branson is a minority holder whose companies are leasing the name to the new airline. They hope to receive permission to operate a passenger airline and begin flying in early 2007. Once it does fly, the company will expand to around 1,000 employees in a year, many of them local, CEO Fred Reid said.

Virgin America has received eight A320s and A319s out of 34 ordered from Airbus, in addition to the A320 dubbed “Jefferson Airplane” by Reid after the 1960s rock band of which Grace Slick was the lead singer.

“It’s great to have the name Jefferson Airplane on an airplane,” Slick said. “The Grateful Dead would have been a bad name for an airplane.”

The Burlingame-based airline is launching a promotional contest to have potential customers name the planes, with a prize yet to be determined.

Meanwhile, Virgin America plans to lease these planes to other airlines while awaiting approval and while starting up, since it is not cost-efficient to keep planes grounded, Reid said.

He added that the planes and the airline will have a variety of technologies that will make the experience of flying easier and more fun, from checking in to watching pay-per-view movies on screens larger than those offered by JetBlue Airways Corp. (JBLU).

The airline plans to be competitive — and competitively priced — by having its operations be 25 percent to 40 percent cheaper per “flown seat mile” than “relevant competitors,” Reid said. The going rate per flown seat mile ranges from 7 cents to 15 cents, he said.

The company plans to accomplish that by contracting out non-flight and non-executive business services such as payroll and using off-the-shelf information technology, Reid said, a bit of wealth-sharing that gives significance to the presence of Bay Area businesses at the party.

Local companies present ranged from the entertainment — DJ Mark Farina of The City’s Om Records — to Bradley Berlin of Stealth Network Communications in Pleasanton, the airline’s LAN and IT security provider.