 |
|
SecureContainer uses disposable plastic inserts secured by a pressure-sensitive seal.
|
Just how secure is a disposable shipping case? “Cardboard can be cut open,” warns Peter Atherton PhD, chief technical officer for Mikoh Corp. (New York City). After working to secure RFID tags with a labeling sandwich that destroys the tag upon tampering, Atherton decided to focus on container security. “Criminals could just cut through container walls, leaving the security seals intact. We fear that disposable packages may not be effective when it comes to security,” he says.
Mikoh has offered Smart&Secure loop seals to secure briefcases and other reusable solutions, but Atherton wanted to take container security even further. Mikoh devised a reusable container with a single point of entry that is sealed with a specialty closing system. SecureContainer uses disposable plastic inserts that slide into the container doors and are secured to each other using a pressure-sensitive seal. Opening the container breaks the pressure-sensitive seal, which provides evidence of potential product tampering. The container can be reused without cleanup, because the seal contacts only the plastic inserts.
“We are not asking companies do to anything fundamentally different,” says Atherton. “Companies use reusable containers all the time.” Mikoh has plans to work with an injection molder in Malaysia to produce the containers out of such materials as ABS or other appropriate materials. It will offer a number of containers in standard sizes as well as a retrofitting system for containers from other sources. The firm is also speaking to other molders as well as drug distributors to develop a solution for the drug industry.
Atherton believes that SecureContainer will also increase the read rates of RFID-tagged shipping cases. “There is always the issue of read reliability of densely packed tags in various orientations. Why not just read the RFID tag in the container seal? If the case tag is secure, why worry about reading the tags of individual items? The case tag can tell you whether contents have been tampered with. It’s a simple proposition.”
