Arrowhead × Zebra Technologies RFID Partner Briefing · Field-Proven Tools & Wins
Prepared for Zebra Technologies· RFID practice & sales leadership

Why Arrowhead.

RFID design, deployment, and software — modeled, verified, live in weeks. Always on Zebra.

EPC 3034 ARWH ZBRA 1999 0000 0001 · TID VERIFIED — RFID FIELD CRAFT

Arrowhead Corporation Arrowhead Corporation
Zebra Premier Solution Partner · Elite Service Center · Chandler, AZ Zebra tracks — Premier Industrial Automation Distributor · RFID Specialist · Advanced Healthcare · Advanced Machine Vision · Advanced Labeling · Advanced Card Printer · Advanced Printer Repair
02What we do

RFID from floor plan
to verified reads.

Design the RF. Survey the site. Deploy the hardware. Verify every read and every label. Run the software — end to end, on Zebra.

Build

We wrote the whole toolchain

RF modeling, site survey, reader onboarding, label verification, live tracking, mobile apps — the whole stack, written in-house.

Field

We do the unglamorous work

Surveys, installs, cable routes, custom tags, 3-D printed fixes made on site. Nationwide crews, in-house depot.

Measure

We measure everything

Predicted-vs-measured RF. EPC + TID on every label. Branded pilots live in under 30 minutes.

35+
years in business — since 1989
1999
Zebra partner, 27 years and counting
8
Zebra tracks held today
03Credentials

Premier Solution Partner, with the specializations to match.

Zebra Premier Solution Partner — Location and Tracking Specialist
Zebra Premier Solution Partner — Advanced Healthcare Specialist
Zebra Premier Solution Partner — Advanced Labeling Solutions Specialist
Zebra Premier Solution Partner — Machine Vision Specialist
Zebra Premier Solution Partner — Advanced Printer Repair Specialist
+ Premier Industrial Automation DistributorRFID SpecialistAdvanced Card Printer

Authorized Zebra Elite Service Center — in-house depot, Next-Business-Day onsite. Plus the RFID ecosystem bench:

ImpinjXemelgoHIDXerafyKeonnTimes-7Avery DennisonRFMAX

Organizations we serve

Apple
Coca-Cola
Nestlé
Walt Disney
Mayo Clinic
Amgen
Grifols
Curtiss-Wright
GE monogramHealthCare
Intel
MANN+HUMMEL
Raytheon
Banner Health
Shamrock Foods
City of Phoenix
Arizona State University

Customer names shared in confidence for partner evaluation — not for external distribution.

04How we work

Five stages. Every one runs on software we wrote.

The deployment engine is ours end to end — so estimates hold, installs verify, and pilots convert.

01 · MODEL

Design the RF

RFID Design Studio

Link-budget engine, 3-D read points, margin heatmaps, BOM & quote handoff.

02 · SURVEY

Walk the site

iPad Field Survey

Pencil-inked plans, equipment pins, cable routes — submitted immutable.

03 · DEPLOY

Stand it up

Reader Setup + POC Deployer

One-click FX-series onboarding; a branded pilot live in under 30 minutes.

04 · VERIFY

Verify it works

Reader Lab · Print, Encode & Verify

RF tuned on live tags; every label read back — EPC + TID.

05 · RUN

Operate daily

RFID Workshop + Mobile Apps

Workflows, fleet health, Geiger locate, APIs into ERP & WMS.

Every screenshot in this deck is our own software or our own field work, captured live.

05Stage 01 · Model — RFID Design Studio

We model the RF before a single bracket is hung.

RFID Design Studio: dock-door read point with zones and the installation workspace — portal config, per-port power, traffic simulation, routed RF cable

RFID Design Studio — a dock read point with traffic simulation, routed cable loss, and installation scoring in one workspace

  • A real UHF link-budget engine — path loss, cable and connector losses, polarization, backscatter return, EIRP checks.
  • Margin heatmaps up to 64 × 64, with click-to-probe detail per antenna.
  • Traffic simulation — enter, dwell, walk-through — played against the design before hardware is ordered.
  • Routed cable loss per run and an installation-complexity score — before the quote.
  • 21 parametric environments — docks, carts, workstations, all editable.
Friis FSPLEIRP-checked352 unit tests48 end-to-end tests
06Close the loop

Predicted vs. measured — we close the loop on every design.

  • Every approved design is hash-pinned. Field measurements import against it, and every test point is classified.
  • Calibration is governed — 30 samples minimum, ten held out, no extrapolation.
  • The tug rig tests it in motion — the model calls the coverage bands and fade zones; the rig logs what actually reads.
AGREEMENTDISAGREEMENTFALSE-POSITIVE ESTIMATEUNTESTED REGION
Supplied CP ceiling patch tugging the cart — modeled coverage bands from 21 to 30 dBm with fade-risk regions, tag at 0.95 m on the left side rail

The model's call — read bands 21–30 dBm down the cart length, fade-risk hatched, tag at 0.95 m

CAD render: autonomous robot hitched to a wire-cage cart with a mast-mounted antenna reading down the cart length

The tug rig — robot hitched to the cart, antenna aimed down its length, logging what actually reads

07Stage 02 · Survey

The site survey rides on an iPad, not a clipboard.

  • Apple Pencil capture — ink, pins, and cable routes straight on the calibrated drawing.
  • Surveys submit immutable — revisions reconcile against updated drawings.
  • A stamped leave-behind before we leave the lot.
  • Every marked read point becomes a Design Studio read point with a BOM line.
Swap-in slot

Your live field-survey iPad screenshot goes here — the mockup at right holds the layout until it arrives.

FIELD SURVEY — BUILDING C · DOCK LEVEL REV B SUBMIT IMMUTABLE SURVEY STAGING ZONE IDF-2 CAT6A · ~210 FT · UNISTRUT RACK ROW A–C mount @ 12 ft — clear of door track ✓ PRELIMINARY FIELD SURVEY SUBJECT TO ENGINEERING REVIEW

Survey capture, as the crew sees it — reader pins, read arcs, cable routes, zones, and Pencil ink on the calibrated plan

08The platform · apps.arrowheadcorp.com

RFID Workshop: the whole toolkit in a browser tab.

RFID Workshop launcher: What do you need to do? Six guided actions with hardware requirements

The Workshop launcher — one-click reader setup · no software install · works in your browser

  • Guided workflows — discovery, batch search, verification, Geiger locate — each labeled with the hardware it needs.
  • Drives Zebra hardware from the browser — WebSerial to sleds, Browser Print to printers, IoT Connector to fixed readers.
  • White-labeled — every customer gets an isolated, branded instance.
  • Live and free to try — no signup.
Mobi InventoryReader LabPrint StudioPrint · Encode · VerifyReader SetupDevice ManagementPOC DeployerMP72 ScaleData HubAI Capture
Print Studio label designer — drag-and-drop template with barcode and RFID EPC encode elements

Print Studio — the browser label designer with RFID EPC encode on the canvas

09Reader onboarding

An FX9600 goes from box to cloud in one click.

Plug inPoE + power
Discovered~4 seconds
ConfigureOne click
Reads liveIn the cloud

Our signed desktop app speaks the same ISO 24791-3 discovery as 123RFID — finds the reader, pulls model, firmware, and serial, and pushes the IoT Connector endpoint. No terminal. No IT ticket.

Reads appear on the Devices page in seconds — then the wizard flips itself to "connected, you're done here."

Reader Setup — as it ships today
  • Pairing codes — zero-login onboarding for techs.
  • Readers ship pre-provisioned — power and PoE is the whole install.
  • The manual path is codified too — firmware gotchas baked into a guided flow.
FX9600FX7500FXR90ATR7000
Arrowhead Reader Setup v2.2.0 — reader discovered on the network at 192.168.168.47, admin credentials, Configure Reader

Reader Setup — the signed one-click app, reader found on the wire (WS-Discovery · ISO 24791-3)

Devices page — FX9600 online with 32,984 tags today, per-port antenna power, and read-mode settings

…and the Devices page it lands on — 32,984 tags today, per-port power, RF settings

10The lab — RF & print verification

Prove the RF. Prove every label. Before the site depends on it.

Reader Lab

An install-time RF bench, in the browser

Tune ports, power, and sessions on live tags — then copy the exact IoT Connector payload you just tuned. A bench, not a database.

Print, Encode & Verify

Every label read back after printing

EPC plus full TID on every pass off the printer, checked against an immutable manifest — printer odometers logged per run.

▲ DUPLICATE EPC DETECTED — SAME EPC, DIFFERENT TID

One EPC alive on two chips — the failure EPC-only checks can't see. Ours catches it and quarantines it.

Live run · PO-R008 — 1,099 / 1,099 verified · 0 missing without disposition

Also on the bench: our FXP20 sled app — live RSSI, per-antenna power, v1.0 → v1.0.23 in one week.

Print, Encode & Verify live run — printer and reader station chips, run PO-R008, 1,099 of 1,099 verified, counter grid

The verification station live — ZT411R + FX9600 attached, 1,099 / 1,099 verified, every counter accounted

Production Order Master Verification Report — contract summary, duplicate protection, roll history with PASS verdicts

…and the receipt: the master verification report, generated straight from the station

ZD621RZT231RZT411RZT610R
11In the operator's hand

Native apps on iOS and Android — same workflows, same truth.

RFID Workshop on iOS — home screen: Inventory capture, Found/not found, Locate a tag, Items, Print & encode
Locate a tag — Direction view: compass arrow at 49% signal, 'Tag is ahead, walk forward and watch the signal'
Inventory capture — 13 unique tags, reader power slider at 30 dBm, live EPC list
  • Native Swift on iOS, native Java on Android — on the Zebra RFID SDK.
  • Geiger locate at 20 Hz — compass, haptics, and filtered RSSI walk an operator to one tag among thousands.
  • Inventory, verify, locate, print — uploads land in the same cloud the fixed readers feed.
  • Mobi Print — mobile label printing for Zebra printers, deployed worldwide.
RFD40RFD90TC22RMC3300xRMFi-listed · App Store submission in flight
12Deployment, fast

A branded, live POC in under 30 minutes. On site. On LTE.

Fresh instance5 min
Their brand1 min
Name zones2 min
Draw the map5 min
Register readers5 min
Load their EPCs2 min
LiveSame visit
  • Zero network footprint — isolated network, 4G LTE. No firewall changes, no IT queue.
  • Kits arrive pre-provisioned — reader, antennas, PoE, 250 tags. Plug in and tags appear.
  • Antenna-port-to-zone mapping in the UI — a screen, not a spreadsheet.
  • 30-day pilot, one-click conversion — the pilot is the deployment.

The customer watches their own containers move on their own floor plan — the same afternoon the hardware shows up.

Technician scanning tagged pallets with a handheld RFID reader beneath wall-mounted fixed antennas

Deployment services — handheld sweep under a live fixed-reader install

13Field craft · the Apple program

When the site needs a part that doesn't exist, we make it — on site.

Custom facility tag

The tag that had to hang — and stick

Apple's facilities program needed one tag that could hang or apply, survive metal, and print in-house. We engineered the STOCK DELTA carrier — RF-transparent, 0.030″, recessed label pocket — plus printed on-metal variants for steel assets.

STOCK DELTA label carrier — mounted on a pole in the field, plus dimensioned views: 2.92 × 1.62 × 0.030 in, recessed label pocket, 100% nonmetallic, RF-transparent

STOCK DELTA carrier — in the field and on the drawing, to the mil

3-D printed carrier variants in white and carbon beside a Xerafy Metal Skin Delta on-metal tag

Printed on-metal variants + Xerafy Metal Skin Delta

Datacenter deployment

3-D printed conduit covers, printed at the dock

Mid-install, exposed antenna feed runs failed an Apple datacenter's finish standard. We 3-D printed custom covers on site, same visit — no re-mobilization, no slipped go-live.

The antenna feed run at the door track with the printed cover installed
Close-up of the 3-D printed cover where the cable channel meets the wall — printed to match the finish

Printed onsite, installed the same visit — matched to the facility finish

200,018
encoded labels on one Apple production order — every delivered label verified EPC + full TID
1 : 1
one EPC per chip, enforced per read against the customer's full EPC registry
0
re-mobilizations — problems get solved the visit they appear
14Results, with numbers

Zebra hardware + Arrowhead implementation = results customers repeat.

Curtiss-Wright · manufacturing — published on zebra.com

Order processing: 7 days → 24 hours

85%
lead-time reduction
90%
less WIP inventory
24 hrs
order processing, was 7 days

I have nothing but compliments for all parties involved. This has been the smoothest integration and implementation I have ever experienced.

Lillie Walsh · Senior Manager of Supply Chain, Curtiss-Wright
With Xemelgo & ZebraSitewide FX9600MC3300 RFIDZT400 series
GE Healthcare · container tracking

White-labeled tracking, zero network footprint

Zone check-in, rack audit, and Geiger locate on FXR90 portals and Zebra handhelds — branded as GE's own, running over LTE.

GE Healthcare Container Tracking dashboard — facility map with zones, portals, racks, and live container counts

Their floor plan, live — zones, portals, racks, 50 tracked containers

Apple · production labeling & datacenter

Verified at Fortune-10 scale

A 200,018-label production order verified label by label — EPC + full TID, one EPC per chip, master report straight from the station. Plus the datacenter deployment on the previous page.

Also on Arrowhead installs: Banner Health specimen tracking · Intel manufacturing · MANN+HUMMEL · Raytheon. References shared in confidence.

15Working together

The work we're built for.

Our kind of job
  • WIP, asset, or container tracking — live before budget.
  • "We tried RFID once and it didn't read."
  • Hard RF — docks, metal, dense racking, datacenters.
  • Labels that must be verified, serialized, audited.
  • Timelines measured in weeks.
How an engagement runs
  • End to end on Zebra — readers, handhelds, printers, antennas, tags.
  • Pilots live the same visit — production on the same platform.
  • Elite Service Center behind every install — depot + NBD onsite.
  • Modeled, measured, documented RF on every read point.

One call reaches an RFID engineer. First conversation scopes it, second one demos it — on the customer's own floor plan.

16Next step

That's why Arrowhead.

Talk to us

sales@arrowheadcorp.com

1-877-437-3028 · Chandler, AZ · Mon–Fri 8–5 MST

Try the tools

apps.arrowheadcorp.com

The live RFID Workshop — free, in the browser, no signup.

See the work

arrowheadcorp.com

Case studies, services, and the full RFID solution catalog.

Arrowhead Corporation Arrowhead Corporation RFID, barcode & mobility since 1989 · Zebra partner since 1999