In order to illustrate how RFID tags can greatly sway the fortunes of a business for the better, we shall look at a theoretical case below. Let us take the example of a furniture maker that specializes in supplying furniture to a hotel chain.
This may sound like an example with no relevance to normal small businesses, but in fact, hotel chains are extremely choosy and have no loyalty, so if you can please these people, you can please anyone.
The main requirements of the hotel chain are that orders are met and on time, the quality of the supplier's goods has already been determined by means of compulsory ISO 9000 quality control and factory visits.
The hotel furniture manufacturer decides to use passive RFID tags to track its items from the point of manufacture to the point of delivery, that is the hotel or its depot.
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 different items of furniture that are implicated in a hotel room, bathroom or lobby and if they are kept in a 200,000 square foot warehouse. Items get lost, forklift drivers make errors, people forget to fill in inventory forms, get sick and have vacations.
In short, running a warehouse like this is a nightmare with too much stress on key employees. It sometimes leads to imperfect deliveries or worse, incomplete delivery tickets. Sometimes the order might be complete but the hotel would think it was not because the delivery ticket was incorrect.
If this company were to initiate RFID asset control they could affix an RFID tag to finished 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 warning 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.
This may sound like an example with no relevance to normal small businesses, but in fact, hotel chains are extremely choosy and have no loyalty, so if you can please these people, you can please anyone.
The main requirements of the hotel chain are that orders are met and on time, the quality of the supplier's goods has already been determined by means of compulsory ISO 9000 quality control and factory visits.
The hotel furniture manufacturer decides to use passive RFID tags to track its items from the point of manufacture to the point of delivery, that is the hotel or its depot.
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 different items of furniture that are implicated in a hotel room, bathroom or lobby and if they are kept in a 200,000 square foot warehouse. Items get lost, forklift drivers make errors, people forget to fill in inventory forms, get sick and have vacations.
In short, running a warehouse like this is a nightmare with too much stress on key employees. It sometimes leads to imperfect deliveries or worse, incomplete delivery tickets. Sometimes the order might be complete but the hotel would think it was not because the delivery ticket was incorrect.
If this company were to initiate RFID asset control they could affix an RFID tag to finished 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 warning 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.
About the Author:
Owen Jones, the author of this piece writes on several 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.
