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Jan. 13, 2012—Baas Plantenservice, a horticulture distributor based in Holland, is among the first companies to operate a large-scale tracking system that takes advantage of the EPC Gen 2 passive ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID tags attached to the 3.84 million plant trolleys put into circulation across Europe earlier this year by Container Centralen (see Container Centralen Says RFID Provides ‘Substantial’ Cost Savings).

This month, Baas Plantenservice began identifying all inbound plant trolleys at two of its distribution centers—in Hazerswoude, measuring 26,000 square meters (280,000 square feet), and in Oostrum, measuring 7,000 square meters (75,300 square feet). During high season, the company handles 12,000 to 15,000 inbound Container Centralen trolleys daily. Last year, volumes totaled roughly 330,000 trolleys, and the company expects that number to rise to 500,000 by 2014. With a focus on purchasing, logistics and innovation, Baas Plantenservice reports annual revenues of more than €100 million ($126 million); its main customer is the Praktiker Group, which operates the Praktiker and Max Bahr chains of home-improvement and do-it-yourself stores throughout Germany.

During 2012, Baas Plantenservice plans to expand the application to track outbound plant trolleys as well. In the future, it also intends to track trolleys during their brief stays at its DCs.

Baas Plantenservice developed the RFID-based application in 2011, with help from Netherlands-based systems integrator Mieloo and Alexander and other partners, though it does not consider the software proprietary. Instead, the firm wants as many supply chain members as possible to collect and share data with each other, says Edwin van Lenthe, Baas Plantenservice’s supply chain manager, in order to minimize costs for all parties involved in this low-margin business.

Baas Plantenservice, van Lenthe reports, immediately recognized the potential of having all Container Centralen trolleys tagged, given the company’s primarily pen-and-paper process for collecting information about the trolleys and tracking them, as well as its high volumes. “We really believe in the ID,” he says, noting that during peak season, 300 to 400 trucks can arrive at Baas Plantenservice’s DCs within only a few hours.

Snap elections in Kazakhstan on Sunday will bring an end to one-party rule, adding at least a veneer of greater democracy to an oil-rich republic which in recent weeks has seen its political stability under strain.

The central Asian country is holding a pre-term parliamentary vote less than a month after at least 14 people were killed and 86 injured when riot police opened fire on demonstrators in the western oil city of Zhanaozen.

The violence, after months of protests by oil workers demanding better pay and conditions, posed the biggest challenge for years to Nursultan Nazarbayev, the authoritarian president who was ruling the country when it was still in the Soviet Union.

A law change will ensure the second-placed party will get into parliament alongside Mr Nazarbayev’s Nur-Otan (Fatherland) party, which now holds all seats, even if it falls below the 7 per cent voting threshold required to enter the assembly. But even Akzhol, the likely second-placed party, is widely seen as loyal to the government.

“There will be a façade of a multi-party system,” said Lilit Gevorgyan, an analyst at IHS Global Insight. “But this is all about managed democracy. It is pretty similar to the situation in Russia” in the years before last month’s disputed elections there, she added.

Although the Kazakh poll was called before last month’s violence, it is seen as an important part of official attempts to stabilise the country and give the impression that it is responding to calls for better social protection and fairer wealth distribution.

Events in Zhanaozen unsettled markets. Kazakhstan is making an increasing contribution to global oil production and is hosting ambitious projects to boost output involving several of the world’s biggest energy companies.

The protests coincided both with celebrations of the 20th anniversary of Kazakh independence from the Soviet Union and with the unexpectedly robust backlash against alleged fraud in Russia’s parliamentary elections.

But while the situation remains tense in Zhanaozen, where a state of emergency and a curfew have been extended to the end of the month, analysts see little prospect of Kazakhs taking to the streets elsewhere.

“I don’t see any potential for the kind of protests we have seen in Moscow,” said Ms Gevorgyan. “[Kazakh authorities] have done everything they can in the past weeks to prevent the fire from spreading.”

Mr Nazarbayev, 71, popularly known as “Papa” in the republic of 16m, has attempted to present himself as a champion of the workers, and fired several senior officials after the Zhanaozen violence.

These included Timur Kulibayev, Mr Nazarbayev’s son-in-law and head of Samruk Kazyna, the state sovereign wealth fund long seen as a potential presidential successor. Others fired were the head of KazMunaiGas, the state energy company, and its regional subsidiary, and the governor of the western Mangistau region.

The president this week overturned an earlier move by the country’s constitutional council to cancel voting in the election in Zhanaozen, which had risked exacerbating unrest in the region.

Yermukhamet Yertysbayev, a senior adviser to Mr Nazarbayev, said on Thursday the government would develop a three-way dialogue with unions and industry. He also made clear the government expected the country’s “oligarchs” to contribute more to improving social welfare.

Despite rapid economic growth, Kazakh officials say privately the country is not ready for western-style democracy, although they insist they plan to move gradually to a more open system. Sunday’s election has been presented as a first step in that process.

The pro-presidential Nur-Otan party is expected to win 60-70 per cent of the vote, and at least 85 per cent of seats in the parliament. No other party is expected to meet the 7 per cent threshold.