The ARC Quality Certification — Hana's Credential
Hana Technologies holds ARC Quality Certification from Auburn University’s RFID Lab — one of only six manufacturers globally to hold this designation. Within each ARC Spec, Hana offers multiple inlay designs with both Impinj and NXP IC options — so you can match the right chip to your deployment without changing suppliers.
What The ARC Quality Audit Evaluates
ARC Quality certification ensures the tag manufacturer has a well-implemented QMS that covers all the critical aspects of design and manufacture of RFID inlays. Building on ISO and other industry standards, the program does not impose an external quality management system — it audits the manufacturer’s own internal QMS practices in a multi-step review process, including site visits. The program publicly validates that the inlay manufacturer has the experience, expertise, and resources to ensure that tag performance is sustained and delivered over time and volume.
Full certification requirements are documented by Auburn.
Understanding ARC Specs
A Spec is Auburn’s way of translating a real-world deployment requirement into a testable standard. Retailers, brands, and operators work directly with Auburn to define what their RFID program needs — accounting for the product type, packaging, environment, and reader infrastructure in use. Auburn calls this a Spec, and each one becomes the performance threshold an inlay must meet for that deployment scenario.
Once inlays are tested against a Spec in the Auburn Lab, approved models are stored in the ARC database and published on the approved inlay list. Retailers then reference Spec numbers in their supplier playbooks, requiring suppliers to source only from inlays on that list. A single inlay may qualify across multiple Specs, which determines how broadly it can be deployed across different categories and retailers.
Industries Driving ARC Adoption
ARC-certified inlays show up wherever RFID needs to work reliably at scale — and increasingly, wherever a mandate requires it.
Retail is the biggest driver. Walmart, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Nordstrom, Macy’s, Lowe’s, BJ’s Wholesale Club, and Zara all require suppliers to use inlays from Auburn’s approved list — across apparel, electronics, home goods, sporting goods, and automotive categories. Get it wrong and your products don’t ship.
Beyond retail, the FDA’s Food Traceability Rule is pushing item-level RFID tracking through the food and grocery supply chain. Manufacturing has been an ARC vertical from the beginning — work-in-progress tracking, tooling, finished goods. Aviation too, where IATA Resolution 753 mandates RFID on baggage globally.
The common thread across all of them: the ARC Spec is how end users define what they need, and the approved inlay list is how suppliers prove they can deliver it.
ARC Certification Beyond The US Market
ARC Quality Certification was created to serve US retail mandates — but the quality standard it represents is universal. For customers outside the US, there is no regulatory requirement to source ARC-certified inlays. But increasingly, procurement teams, system integrators, and brand owners worldwide use ARC certification as a shorthand for manufacturing quality — an independent, academically administered validation that a manufacturer has been audited on-site, against a rigorous standard, with no commercial agenda behind the result.
In markets where no formal RFID mandate exists, ARC Quality Certification does the job that any trusted third-party endorsement does: it removes the need to audit the manufacturer yourself. For a customer in Europe, Asia, or Latin America, it’s a stamp that travels.
