RFID Asset Tracking Overview

A significant challenge with asset accountability and tracking is the amount of time that is required to inventory assets. The time that is required to perform asset inventories can be more time than an organization wishes to invest in the inventory itself.

The primary utilization and benefit of RFID technology for asset management is the ability to rapidly inventory assets. With manual or bar code systems, assets have to be individually handled in order to read and transfer asset tag information, or, bar code tags must each be identified and oriented for close-proximity bar code scanning.

The advantage of RFID technology is that assets can be rapidly inventoried ‘many at a time’ from long-range. Portable RFID scanners have a standard scan range up to 20’. Because inventories are easy and fast, inventories can be performed as-needed for accountability and compliance purposes.

Another important benefit of RFID technology is that antennas can be installed at storage room doorways, dock doors and at any ‘choke point’ within a facility to track the movements of assets and goods real-time. Wherever RFID antennas are installed, assets will be tracked real-time as-assets-move, without requiring human effort. With RFID asset tracking, asset locations are automatically updated ‘passively’.

RFID antennas installed at exit points, such as a dock door, can be easily integrated with security protocols. If an asset is detected at an exit-point, but the asset is not authorized for exit, RFID antennas at any exit point can trigger alarms, flashing lights, software alerts, email alerts and/or SMS alerts.

If an asset is missing in most organizations, the ability to find the asset can be difficult or virtually impossible. With RFID, the portable scanner can be configured to look for specific assets, like a metal detector looking for metal objects. With approximate 20’ foot detection ranges, the portable scanner software utilizes frequency of beeps, cold-warm-hot graphs and numeric index to guide Users to within a few inches of the need asset.