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Savi Technology, Inc., founded as a one-person firm in 1989, is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Raytheon Company, an international high-technology company and one of the nation's largest defense contractors. Savi Technology is a pioneer in radio frequency identification (RFID) systems for use in logistics and supply chain management applications, enabling customers to locate, monitor, track, and optimize utilization of their physical assets. In addition to being a major supplier of RFID equipment for the DoD, Savi is a leader in the automatic identification technology (AIT) industry, delivering productivity solutions in manufacturing, distribution/warehousing, and transportation applications.
The DoD sought a method by which it could better track military cargo containers. With $2.5 million in SBIR funding from the Navy, the company developed the SaviTag. The SaviTag is a radio transponder with an embedded microcomputer which can be attached to cargo containers and automatically tracks their location and contents. The SaviTag is solving a real problem for the DoD by effectively tracking military cargo around the world. During operation Desert Storm, over half of the 40,000 cargo containers shipped to the desert, including $2.7 billion worth of spare parts, went unused, according to a General Accounting Office (GAO) report. The Army has estimated that if an effective way of tracking the location and content of the cargo containers-such as the SaviTag-had existed at the time, the DoD would have saved approximately $2 billion. In today's Army operations in Bosnia, virtually all containers are equipped with the SaviTag, achieving substantial efficiencies in the Army's logistical operations.
The DoD's demand for the company's SaviTag has been profitable to the company-Savi Technology has received two military contracts, totaling over $185 million, to provide some 100,000 radio tags. The company's workforce has grown to over 150, and Savi was acquired by the Raytheon Company of Lexington, Massachusetts in 1997. Savi is also making important inroads in the private sector-particularly in manufacturing facilities and distribution centers where tracking is essential to operating efficiency-and sales of the company's technology are projected to exceed $20 million annually.
Pamela Thorton
Tel. 650/428-0550
Fax. 650/428-0444
Email. pthornton@savi.com
Website. www.savi.com
