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In order to illustrate how RFID tags can really influence the fortunes of a company for the better, we shall take a look at a theoretical case below. Let us take the example of a furniture maker that specializes in the supply furniture to a hotel group.

This may sound like an example with no relevance to typical small businesses, but in fact, hotel chains are awfully choosy and have no loyalty, so if you can satisfy these people, you can please anyone.

The principal requirements of the hotel chain are that orders are complete and on time, the quality of the supplier’s goods has already been considered to be sufficient by means of enforced ISO 9000 quality control and factory visits.

The hotel furniture manufacturer decides to introduce passive RFID tags to follow its items from the point of manufacture to the point of delivery, that is the hotel or its storage area.

Under previous conditions the producer had employed a few people to walk around with bar code readers and clip boards carrying out quality control and tracking the fulfillment of orders.

The problem was that the system was still subject to human error and items still went missing, which lead to management compensating by over manufacturing and over stocking ‘just in case’.

That is a common enough phenomenon., but the difficulties are multiplied when you think of all the separate articles of furniture that are implicated in a hotel room, bathroom or lobby and if they are stored in a 200,000 square foot warehouse. Things get lost, forklift drivers make errors, people forget to fill in stock forms, get sick and take vacations.

In short, administrating a warehouse like this is a nightmare with too much stress on key employees. It sometimes leads to imperfect deliveries or worse, incomplete supply tickets. Sometimes the order might be complete but the hotel would think it was not because the delivery ticket was wrong.

If this company were to initiate RFID asset control they could affix an RFID tag to completed sticks of furniture. The tag would say where it is, what it is, whom it is for, when it has to be delivered and what else makes up part of the order. The tag is being read continuously by the warehouse’s RFID readers forewarning when orders are running late or are still incomplete.

Not only that but the tag can say what else has to be made and whether the object itself has passed quality control. It can also say which defects someone has found with it. In short, instead of a couple of people traipsing around the stockroom hoping that they have covered everything, you could have radio sensors reading every tag in a warehouse the size of a soccer pitch, reporting back to a central computer where the storehouse manager can have access to real time intelligence, not just the state of affairs at close of business the day before.

This should enhance the manager’s opportunity to manage, cut down on waste, guarantee complete orders handed over on time and so superior levels of customer satisfaction, which should lead to more repeat orders.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on quite a few topics, but is currently involved with the RFID asset management. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at Active RFID Management.

All RFID tags are used to store and ultimately send data. They can best be thought of as the replacement for the bar code. However, they have significant advantages over bar codes. For instance: RFID tags can hold much more data than bar codes; they can be scanned from further away and they can in point of fact send data, not only store data.

There are three kinds of RFID tags: passive, active and hybrid. Passive RFID tags are the least expensive, because they are less complex. They have to be asked to disclose their information by taking power from an RFID reader. When the reader’s radio waves hit them, they echo back their information. This is the sort of tag used in goods in a retail outlet or on crates in a warehouse.

On the other hand, active RFID tags have a battery, a transmitter and an antenna so that they are always sending. These units are clearly a lot more expensive and so are used only on more expensive items such as a container, a battle tank, an aircraft, on criminals ankle bands or on an animal of an endangered species.

The hybrid RFID tag is capable of transmitting, but it needs to be told to transmit; it has to be turned on by a signal. This signal could be a satellite passing over head. These hybrid RFID tags are also costly, but the battery lasts longer because they are not ‘always on’. These tags have the same applications as the active tags, but are appropriate for use where it is not critical to know where something is every minute of the day: for instance cattle in a field or goats on a mountain.

Passive tags can be attached permanently by sewing them into linings or placing them under skin because they do not have their own power source and do not wear out. This is a cause of anxiety to some people who worry about an invasion of their privacy or the erosion of their human rights.

Active and hybrid tags are most often clearly visible so that the batteries can be replaced as and when necessary. If this is going to unlikely to happen, as in the case of wild animals, the tag can have a biodegradable clasp which will break sometime after the probable life of the battery.

Some uses for RFID tags are on season tickets so that the holder can pass through the style more quickly than a customer paying by cash. It has uses in security; most of the ID badges you see pinned to jackets have RFID built into them so that security guards do not have to stop and question everybody.

They can be put into trucks that repeatedly cross frontiers so that they do not have to stop for identification. They can be placed on windscreens so that, as you drive through a motorway toll post, either your credit card is debited or the charge is added to your company’s monthly account.

Hospitals use them on patients so that they do not lose anyone or mis-identify them. RFID tags are useful in our daily lives but people are worried about criminals being able to read all this information too easily as well.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on quite a few topics, but is now concerned with the RFID asset tracking. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at Active RFID Management.

How does one go about taking care of one’s property – one’s worldly possessions? Well, the majority of people put their money in the bank, put the jewellery in a safe and insure the rest. But insurance is not really taking care of your possessions, is it? It is taking care of yourself so that you do not have renew them with your own money.

In the old days, and even now, I presume in some places, you would employ a boy to watch over your sheep or cattle or bring them in at night for fear of big cats, wolves or rustlers. These were an early kind of security guard and indeed wealthy people had and often still do have private body guards.

What if you had a large office with a hundred laptop computers – laptops because employees had to do field work too? How would you keep track on all those? A car is another good case in point and construction site plant is being stolen all the time even from under the watchful gaze of (or with the help of) private security firms.

So what can you do? Get dogs? That works sometimes, but they can be poisoned. Get video cameras and passive infra-red movement sensors linked to a control centre? That works and many firms and private houses have it, but it is very expensive.

As a cheap alternative, the police were giving out free pens in the UK, which wrote in invisible ink. The idea was to write your postcode and house number. This ink became visible under a special kind of light. That is fine if you have a suspect or found property.

Bar codes are not practical, the pen is better. It all comes back to insurance or surveillance.

However, there is another way that is becoming reasonably priced. The idea has been around for approximately 85 years, but it was too pricey to use on anything smaller than an airplane or a battle tank.

I am talking about radio frequency identification or RFID for short. The idea is the same one that aircraft have been using since during the Second World War – a transponder emits precoded information in answer to a demand from an RF reader.

Details regarding ownership and details of what the item is can be written to an RFID chip also known as a tag and the tag can then be taped inside the item that it is to safeguard.

There are two varieties of tag: the passive and the active. Passive tags will only respond if information is requested by a reader, whereas an active tag is always broadcasting.

Many entrepreneurs use RFID tagging to keep track of their assets. In the instance of livestock, most cattle are tagged these days. Most big offices have their IT devices tagged as well and we all know that clothing stores have been tagging garments for years, although maybe you did not know what that button was that they were taking off at the checkout.

People are already tagging their dogs, cats and cars and it will not be long before these asset management techniques will be used extensively at home too. Insurance companies may demand on it.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on quite a few topics, but is now concerned with the RFID asset management. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at Active RFID Management.

An Automatic Identification System, or AIS, is basically an electronic transponder that is usually installed on a boat that identifies it. This is most common in marine locations. The transponder sends out a VHF signal on a continuous basis that provides information about a ship such as it’s name, type, position, and call sign.

VHF signals are often received by other ships as it transmits data about the course and speed of the transponding vessel. As the VHF signals come in, the receivers are able to display all AIS-equipped vessels that are transmitting within a certain range. This system is important to the safety of water vessels because it helps to track the movement of other vessels within a certain VHF range. This marine identification tool therefore helps to reduce the likelihood of vessel collisions on the water. . The information that is received by other AIS-enabled boats is most of the time viewable on a personal computer display or placed as an overlay on a chart plotter. This will help to verify radar readout.

Ship navigators utilize AISAIS as a navigational tool to reduce the risk of collision and to chart a safe course to travel. Maritime search and rescue operations can be made much easier by automated identification devices that will specify the exact location of the distressed vessel regardless time of day or the weather conditions.

Automatic data exchange allows for real-time adjustments in maritime navigation. Ships with over 300 tons of cargo & all passenger ships are required by the International Maritime Organization to be fitted with the marine guidance system. Recreational boaters are not required by law to use the technology, but the maritime technology is increasing in demand by those users. Worldwide, 40,000 vessels are thought to be equipped with this special marine technology. The numbers are increasing everyday.

This maritime technology is used primarily to avoid collisions. The tracking does not work alone. VHF radio communications can be limited and considering the fact that every vessel isn’t required to have it, it is not the perfect solution. It is not an automated collision avoidance system as defined by the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGS). In the hands of a skilled captain however, it is one of many tools utilized for safe travel.

During sea navigation, identifying other ships in the area is crucial for captains to make the best decisions on any voyage. That likewise does not mean that all other forms of navigational observation is discarded. There is certainly, of course, visual observation where the captain will frequently use binoculars to find far away objects or boats. There can also be acoustic observational warnings that a captain must pay attention for such as sirens, whistles, or VHF radio. Finally, there is radar or Automatic Radar Plotting Aid (ARPA) that can provide valuable navigational information to enhance what the AIS is plotting. Even with all this technology, incidents can even now occur. It is frequently because of time delays and the natural limits of radar or even just plain human error whenever this takes place. The graphical charts and all the other observational tools must be utilized if water travel is to be safe and AIS is a small part of that.

Visit AIS and read more about AIS

Radiofrequency Identification is not a new technology. The application has been around for decades and it has never stopped broadening its application ever since the 1940s. Radio Frequency Identification or RFID can be described as multi-component solution. Equipment include micro transponders, readers, as well as present day computer applications that set off a steady feed of data.

An internal circuit and antenna happen to be crucial in each and every RFID transponder. The IC is coded with an electronic product code (EPC) making it distinct among the remaining tagged objects everywhere. When the label is inside range of an RFID scanner, information concerning the tagged piece is sent out through the antenna to the scanner, providing information to a processing system.

RFID technology was first applied for military purposes in World War 2. Subsequently, it has been utilized in various areas. The application became a real help in travel. automotive, shipping, security, not to mention trade businesses.

Although it is dubbed as “wireless bar coding”, RFID are better than simple bar code readers. Through of RFID technology, scanning can be completed regardless of whether the tagged item is in the scanner’s line of sight or not. Other strengths feature its capacity to read tags within 90 feet radius.

RFID is really a self-reliant tracking method. This identification method functions free of human involvement. Moreover, it can certainly read plenty of tags all together while preserving high degree accuracy in analyzing each item.

Typically, RFID systems are categorized in two ways. The first group comes from its storage and recovery benefits: Read-only or Read-write and Passive or Active land sources. The following is dependant on the frequency it utilizes: Low Frequency, High Frequency, or Ultra-high Frequency.

Read-only labels can only attain stored data such as a product information and stuff like that. These systems can simplify fabrication and distribution schemes. Read-write tags on the other hand are purposefully designed to both interpret and input data.

Passively, a RFID reader provides energy for the tag to become functional. Without a scanning device in close proximity, the ID couldn’t provide any data. In essence, a passive scheme is inferior when compared with an active system.

A dynamic system has battery power implanted in tags to aid in the transmittal of data between tag and scanner. Dynamic systems tend to be more sophisticated than passive systems and scans bigger ranges. Also, they are equipped with extra features like infrared scanners and consequently have a longer life span.

More info about Automatic Identification Systems at RFID transponder