RFID Asset Tracking

 All the assets of a company are very important for its day to day functions. Hence you need somebody to take care of it. Something has to keep a track of all the assets. Doing it physically could be time consuming and could also require a lot of manual labour. The RFID technology comes to use when things like these need to be taken care of, RFID tracks a lot of assets simultaneously and without a lot of hassle to be prepared for the things that need to be scheduled In the company. RFID is a type of technology that uses an electromagnetic wave frequency to detect and send data from the tag to the reader. Hence, it’s the most effective way to track data when dealing with a lot of assets simultaneously.

RFID tags can come in two formats of active and passive tags. The differences are not too distinctive as they both share similar type of functionality. The passive RFID tags are smaller, less expensive and also have a nice lifespan, but have a limited range of detection and operability.

Passive tags are not powered and they work in a very interesting way. The passive tags send data back to the reader after getting powered by the radio frequency energy transmitted  by the reader. Ultra high frequency passive tags are commonly used in many range of things like pharmaceuticals and small electronics, being light weight and less expensive they can be tagged or embedded into many things without any trouble.

Where as active RFID tags are more expensive, have more range of detection and are powered themselves, without needing power from the radio frequency signal emitted from the reader. Active RFID tags are more rugged and can report metrics like temperature and humidity. And hence they are easily embedded to large cargo containers which usually go through more abuse and operate in harsher environments.The type of RFID tag you use is therefore heavily dependent on the environment, the data requirements and the size of the items that need to be embedded by the RFID tags. 

RFID tags can be built in to portable computer systems that can scan through the tags material to read the data, without physically having to see the tag all by itself. Unlike bar codes, where the person has to physically point straight at the bar code which might also fail to read sometimes, hence a lot of physical manual labour to just scan about one product at a time. It’s so hard sometimes that the person has to go to the exact physical location of the barcode, that might be behind the desks, or at times even climbing ladders to access codes that are placed high.

Hence with the invention of RFID technology all that hard labour is minimised to zero, now the person could just enter the room and scan a dozen of assets at the same time, without moving from his initial location.

RFID tags with a larger in built memory can store data, that would be useful in hard to reach places like internet prone areas, hence all the backend instructions could always be present within the tag itself.

The barcode might have its own advantages but the RFID asset could have multiple benefits when compared to the barcode. Like reading multiple assets at once, and also doing it very quickly, instead of checking and scanning each code unlike in barcodes. More important, confidential and critical matter could be stored in the RFID tags, hence making it more secure and hard for hackers to access.

The RFID technology can also be tagged to GPS tech, and also can be used to provide accurate information about things like temperature, location and other types of harsh data.

By integrating the RFID tagged Asset to a LAN network , the data and other information can be accessed remotely within seconds.  The time taken to track an inventory could be reduced to mere hours instead of days.

The assets can be tracked at all times, hence you will quickly get alerts if the asset has been transported to a different location or a wrong location.The overall productivity of the entire organisation could be improved when you use RFID asset tracking technology. 

Hence tracking a long set of logistical assets should be an issue, hence it’s quite efficient to track the entire thing.