|
Changing Views on RFID Asset Tracking
Issue #120 | Oct. 19, 2007 | by Andy Kowl
Asset tracking. Four wall solutions. That is what we are constantly hearing about. With all of the emerging success stories and buzz on asset tracking have come more questions.
For example, a month back we ran an RFID Street column about how passive, Gen 2 RFID tags are probably viable solutions for two-thirds of asset tracking implementations. Some people were surprised, or even doubtful, after hearing so much about active RFID, some of it right here.
Active RFID solutions can overcome some environmental and physical limitations of Gen 2. With the added functionality available and real time locating capacity, active RFID is powerful technology, in its various manifestations. On the other hand, especially with high numbers of assets to track, the 10,000% cost differential between tags can add up.
So RFID Switchboard has been researching the “ins and outs” of this to share with you as a webinar on using passive UHF tags for tracking assets of all size., We are looking at applications and profitability of tracking files, books, in-store inventory, and other items. I am pleased to thank our friends at Alien Technology for sponsoring this, underwriting the effort and contributing great insights and expertise.
Once you start to look closely at most anything it starts to look different than you first thought, doesn’t it? In working with conference editor Dennis Sullivan, an award-winning business journalist, we are finding some questions where the answers may not be decided yet. For example, when you look at certain asset-oriented RFID implementations, they can start to look like WIP applications. So here is a question for you: if tacking assets creates working efficiencies, when does that asset tracking cross the line and become a WIP solution? [Nobody can even agree if it means Work in Progress or in Process!]
Asset Tracking and WIP
An article we are about to publish in our RFID Guide includes a story of Boart Longyear Ltd. (Salt Lake City), a manufacturer of drilling equipment for the mining industry, applying RFID to its multistage production of drill bits. These are the big, rugged bits used for exploratory boring through heavy rock.
During seven stages of the process, the material-transporting bins are tracked, each associated with a specific work order by a passive RFID tag. In a way, those seven stages along the manufacturing floor represent a chain of asset tracking solutions.
Obviously, call it anything, but spell it ROI. The definition is quite secondary to the results. Nonetheless, for now I’ve concluded WIP is “asset tracking gone wild.” I suspect that any RFID implementation that tracks products with tags (asset tracking) and results in increased operational efficiencies (asset tracking), especially with changes to internal procedures (asset tracking) – it will be called WIP. [It’s my job to think about these things so you don’t have to. Aren’t you glad?]
I’ll leave this conclusion to Joe Milam, of system integrator PICS (Bogart, Ga.), who implemented this solution. “ROI and true benefit come from identifying issues in the existing process to improve upon them.” It is people using “what data you have in front of you, no matter what the process control system you’re using, to make the necessary improvements,” he says. From “a ‘real world ROI’ perspective,” he stresses, “this relates to hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings (in Boart’s case).”
Asset Tracking and Supply Chain
The retail store is usually thought of as the end of a supply chain. Japanese retailer Mitsukoshi, according to reports by Nikkei Realtime Retail, began testing item-level RFID in their women's shoe departments in late 2004. “Item-level RFID reduced the time spent serving each customer by 50%, from 12 minutes to 6 minutes. Sales increased by 10% during the time when the pilot.”
“Sales agents at shoe shops generally need to go back and forth between a sales floor and a stock room to check availability of shoes with different sizes, colors, etc. In the Mitsukoshi trial, RFID tags attached to shoes enable customers to check availability by putting shoes on a device (or sales agents use portable scanner devices to check availability without going back to a stock room.)” They began deploying chain-wide beginning in May, 2005, and haven’t looked back.
In addition to benefits from having better historical data to analyze and to big reductions in time spent on inventory clearance, Mitsukoshi found a great, unexpected byproduct. “Since customers didn't believe that paper-based inventory book was accurate, they often demanded sales agents to go check a stock room even though the book indicates no availability. The store found that customers tend to trust numbers displayed on computer screen and are less likely to demand sales agents double check availability.”
If you track assets in one segment of the supply chain, are you engaged in Asset Tracking or Supply Chain activities? Correct answer, class: Call it anything, but spell it ROI.
Join our webinar
There are hundreds of stories like those above, maybe thousands. On November 15th we are presenting a webinar that will not be so much about the stories, as the lessons learned and the best practices that result from them. You will get valuable tips on calculating real savings, including soft costs; choosing solution providers; getting buy-in from your entire organization; structuring service agreements; and lots more.
To find out more about our webinar and to register, click here.
Last edited by AndreaC : 11-30-2007 at 11:22 AM.
|
