Element ID

Element ID was founded in 2006 by two ex-AccuSort employees, Jack Romaine and Dave Martin. While at AccuSort, the two invented a new way to do automated dimensioning that resulted in better accuracy at a much lower price. This created widespread adoption of automated dimensioning (FedEx, UPS, RPS, USPS, WalMart, Sears, Macy’s, etc). Today, when shipping and faced with “dimensional” surcharges, this capability is largely based on technology invented by the founders of Element ID. The two worked on parts of most of the barcode readers AccuSort produced in the 90’s. Romaine started the RFID group at AccuSort in 1997.

Since starting Element ID, Romaine and Martin invented a new way to combine RFID middleware and RFID reader hardware into the same low cost device, greatly reducing the cost, risk, and complexity of RFID deployments. Since then, the company expanded into being one of the only vendors in the world offering complete, full turnkey RFID solutions. The founders also invented a way to link RFID tags with the items to which they are attached. This technology is critical in the application of RFID on conveyor systems and allows linking RFID data with other information such as dimensions, weight, and barcode data. It also creates the ability for RFID tracking (the ability to control the routing of product using RFID data).

Element ID’s core expertise is a combination of embedded software and practical automation experience. Most of the company’s competitors typically do hardware or network-level software, but there are very few, if any, that integrate software and hardware together. This integration results in lower cost, lower risk, and better functionality for the customer.

The founders’ extensive field experience in barcoding, dimensioning, and RFID makes Element ID one of the only complete solution providers in the industry. Data has shown that projects are more likely to fail when they are patched together by a collection of component vendors. Having a full turnkey solution provider like Element ID that is willing to implement a combination of barcode and RFID technology reduces cost and risk.

“Our initial goal when we started Element ID was to leverage 30-40 years of auto ID innovation from the barcoding industry. We didn’t feel RFID should be treated as a separate industry, but instead should be looked at as an extension of barcoding in the same way vision systems improved performance over laser scanners.” said Romaine. “We wanted to make an RFID product that was as easy to deploy as barcode and backwards compatible with the existing barcode infrastructure. We’ve achieved that and expanded our focus to full turnkey solutions that provide the benefits of RFID technology without all the risks.”