RFID, The Better Way To Track Your Assets

Over the last decade, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) has become more popular and more advanced to help companies track and manage their fixed assets UK. However, RFID is still not completly optimised for use. Presently the technology is overly expensive and is only really used at the manufacturer stage or on more expensive products. The ideal use of RFID would be to track individual items off the shop shelves.

RFID is a form of tracking assets, similar to a barcode. A barcode uses a visible tagging system to store data about the product, this is then read by a scanner. An RFID tag it attached to an item and stores information about the item on a chip, this chip is then activated and read using an RFID reader, all from a remote location. The reader uses radio waves to activate the chip which then sends the data about the item.

Alas, asset tracking UK hasn’t managed to get to that level, however a significant amount of companies within the United States are already taking advantage of the RFID tagging. New passports, public transport payment methods, libraries and museums are just a few of the services that use the RFID tags. A great deal of the companies using this method of tracking are government controlled.

Many companies do understand why RFID is so good, however, they haveb’t invested in it. In recent years the important of tracking all your company assets has become ever more important. However, many companies find auditing their assets costly as it can slow their business down. Many also find that after auditing, they have missed some of their assets.

By adding these tags to your assets, you can then track hundreds of your items all at the same time, remotely. This makes the task of managing all your assets alot easier.

One example of where RFID have become useful is in a Unilever factory. They have added the tracking tags to around 20,000 items on their production line. These tags make it easier for them to audit their assets remotely, if this was done manually, they would end up shutting down the production process.

This is just one example of where RFID can help your business save money. There are many other examples. Another example would be in the emergancy services, allowing them to track vital pieces of equipment, saving time. It also ensures that a rescue vehicle doesn’t travel to an incident without the required equipment.

Unfortunately, RFID tracking can be expensive. With the better RFID tags costing between $40 and $60, it’s not cheap to efficiently track your assets. Hopefully these costs will come down as the technology comes closer to it’s optimal usage. Once more industries adopt this method of asset tracking, fixed asset register UK programs will become more advanced.