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•White Paper: Understanding The Benefits of Active RFID For Asset Tracking

Active RFID technology is ideal for tracking of high-value items and repeated use in supply cycles. The low-consumption power requirement extends the battery life of active RFID technology up to seven years which in turn dramatically reduces the total cost of ownership.

Before committing to any particular system, the decision maker must evaluate a number of important considerations. Doing this will enable a true calculation of the total cost of ownership and the ability to then recoup the investment as quickly as possible through choosing the most appropriate RTLS system.

Why is there a need for an RTLS system?
While the concept of knowing where all the organisation's assets are right now, together with the added benefits this knowledge brings, is an enticing one, the ROI will be maximised in the shortest possible time if the RTLS system addresses specific needs within the business and the correct auto-identification technologies are employed. Reducing shrinkage, locating critical equipment quickly, utilising assets to the fullest, identifying attempts to remove or tamper with assets, or automating labour intensive systems are all valid reasons for implementing RTLS systems provided the cost saving over the life of the RTLS system is greater than the total cost of owning it.

What will be tracked and what will the benefits be?
In an ideal world an RTLS system would use an active RFID tag which is very small and flat in size, that works consistently irrespective of environment and orientation, while offering a very long battery lifespan, and costing just a few cents. In reality, until electronic and battery technology progresses significantly, active RFID tags will be relatively large, expensive and only suitable for use with assets that can accommodate them.

How accurately must assets be located?
If you merely need to know that an item is on site, then employing an expensive system to tell where precisely it is on site is a waste of money and will reduce the ROI achievable. Consider carefully how accurately assets must be located to achieve the business objectives and then select the RTLS system that provides that level of accuracy.

It is commonly assumed that an RTLS system must provide tag location data in two or three dimensions, usually by means of triangulating a tag's position using multiple readers (see the panel alongside for an explanation on how this is done). Much is made of the accuracy of one system over another, but while knowing an asset's location to within a few centimetres sounds impressive, does the business case truly warrant that level of detail?

A very cost effective alternative to triangulation is the use of ‘zones' in RTLS systems to locate assets. A zone can be defined by logically grouping one or more readers together in the software and it can be as small as a single room or it can cover an entire site. The system will not identify specifically where in the zone the asset is, but merely that it is in there. ‘Zonal' RTLS systems do not require a dense network of readers or WiFi access points with overlapping read ranges as triangulation RTLS systems do, thus significantly reducing the infrastructure costs.

Click Here To Download:
•White Paper: Understanding The Benefits of Active RFID For Asset Tracking