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As a case in point, O’Boyle cites the
example of a customer that was losing 20
percent of its handheld bar-code scanners
every year, running up a hefty replacement tab for the units, which cost $1,500
to $2,000 apiece. “And more important
than the replacement cost is the ability to
outfit the next shift,” said O’Boyle. “They
need the handhelds for picking, packing,
and putaway.” Balanced against those
two costs, the customer easily justified its
investment in RFID tags to track its assets.
Another of Barcoding’s customers
turned to RFID to help it keep tabs on the
tractors used to move heavy rolls of paper
around a facility. “These are big pieces of
equipment, but [the client] often couldn’t
find them in the 3 million-square-foot
facility because certain workers would
hide the vehicle by parking it behind
other equipment,” O’Boyle said. “That
way, when [the driver] came back for his
next shift, no one would have adjusted his
seat, moved his mirrors, or changed his
radio station.”
NEXT-GEN RFID
Until recently, companies looking to track
supply chain assets had just two choices
when it came to RFID tags. The first
option was the passive RFID tag, which
is a relatively inexpensive item costing a
dollar or two. The tag cost is only part
of the story, however, since users also
need to invest in readers and software
to gather the information encoded in
the tags. That’s because passive tags lack
an internal power source and cannot
transmit a signal. In order to collect the
tags’ data, users must scan them with a
handheld reader within a 10-foot range or
pass them through a fixed-read zone like
a tollbooth portal.
Option two was the active RFID tag,
which costs anywhere from $25 to $150.
Active tags, which contain their own
power supply, are capable of transmitting signals that can be read from as far
as 50 to 100 feet away. The signals can
be detected by stationary readers with
overlapping coverage areas, and then triangulated to pin down the tag’s location.
Now, a third option is emerging that
combines some of the best features
of active and passive tags. Known as
Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), the tech-
nology was originally developed for
smartphones, so the signal can be read by
consumer devices that run on the iOS and
Android operating systems.
The standard was first deployed for
“location-aware services,” such as retail
applications in which tags affixed to
store shelves beam discount offers to
the smartphones of passing shoppers.
But BLE tags have since been ruggedized
to meet industrial standards for shock,
temperature, vibration, and battery life.
And since they communicate on the common wireless standard used in consumer
mobile devices, they require far less infrastructure investment than other tracking
technologies do.
BLE tags can communicate limited
information, but their falling price will
soon open up new opportunities in supply chain asset tracking, such as keeping
track of specialized tools or even keys to
equipment. “We’re at the leading edge
of that technology now, so they cost $15
or $20 or $25 each, but they are at the
highest point,” O’Boyle said. “My guess
is that in three to five years, they will be
under $10.”
E-COMMERCE DRIVES NEED FOR
ASSET TRACKING
Interest in RFID and BLE is particularly
strong among retail industry distribution operations that are struggling to fill
e-commerce orders within ever-tighter
time windows. “Fulfillment centers were
designed with an order turnaround time
of X, and now they want to drive that
to half of X,” said Mark Wheeler, director of supply chain services at Zebra
Technologies Corp., a supplier of tracking technology.
For these types of facilities, asset tracking is mainly a matter of ensuring that
workers can lay their hands on the warehouse tools and equipment they need in
their daily operations—items that can be
easily misplaced when a DC is running at
full steam. A shortage of even the most
basic totes, carts, or pallets can throw
a wrench in the works of a fast-paced
e-commerce fulfillment operation. With
