How Top Businesses are Using RFID to Track their Assets

The past 10 years has seen the development of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) rocket, making it easier for all companies to track and manage their fixed asset tracking. However, the tech has not yet reached it’s optimial usage. Currently RFID tagging is too expensive to use on everything, so far it’s only really been used on the manufacturer stages. The most ideal use of RFID technology would be to track items off shop shelves.

RFID is a form of tracking, very similar to barcodes. A barcode uses a visible tagging system to store data about the product, this is then read by a scanner. An RFID tag is a type of chip that’s attached to the asset and store data about the item, this tag is then activated and read by an RFID reader device. Radio waves are used by the reader to retrieve information off the chip.

In spite of the fact that, radio frequency idenfitication for asset tracking is still in its early stages of adoption, there are a great deal of companies in the US that are already using the technology for other purposes. A few of the services that have started using RFID tagging include mass transit ticketing, payment methods, libraries, museums and new passports. The majority of industries using RFID are run by the government.

Although many companies haven’t invested in RFID, they understand why it’s so important. In recent years the important of tracking all your company assets has become ever more important. However, all companies know that auditing their assets slows down business. Many also find that after auditing, they have missed some of their assets.

By adding these tags to your assets, you can then track hundreds of your items all at the same time, remotely. This makes the task of managing all your assets alot easier.

Just one company that is using RFID tech is Unilever. They have added the RFID tags to over 20,000 assets across their production lines. The tagging system allows Unilever to audit their items from a remote location, whereas if they had to do this manually, it would result in shutting down the production line.

This example is just one to show how RFID can really save your business time and money. There are many other examples. Another would be in the fire service where they track vital equipment, this helps to save time. It also ensures that a rescue vehicle doesn’t travel to an incident without the required equipment.

Unfortunately, RFID tracking can be expensive. With the more advanced tags costing around $50, tracking your assets efficiently is not check. Hopefully the costs of the tags will fall as the money needed to develop them does. Once more industries adopt this method of asset tracking, asset tracking software programs will become more advanced.

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