RFID is the recognized acronym for Radio Frequency IDentification. The basis of RFID technology is that every RFID chip or tag is capable of sending a radio signal on a frequency wholly unique to itself.
Therefore, every RFID tag must have its own identifying frequency and the RFID tag readers must be sensitive enough to be able to distinguish between frequencies that are only a very minute bit different from its neighbouring tags. The disparity can be microscopic.
Therefore, the technology has to be sensitive and selective, but not fragile, because the apparatus has to be used on the shop floor and by people who are often in a hurry and in weather that may be inclement.
In order for RFID to work, you need a tag, which is an upmarket kind of bar code and a radio receiver, often called a (tag) reader. However, whereas a bar code can only hold a small amount of information and the bar code reader has to be pointed at it, an RFID tag can store much more information and can be read from a hundred yards or more - even out of line of sight.
Passive tags will only divulge their details when asked to by a reader, whereas an active tag is constantly broadcasting its contents. Clearly, active RFID tags are more expensive than passive tags, because they have to have a long life battery.
These tags can be utilized to track goods from the moment they leave the manufacturer of the items they describe to the in-bay of the vendor. The tags can then be up-dated or renewed and stored in the warehouse. Once there, RFID readers can keep management up to date about which goods are where and if the sell-by-date is impending.
This has implications for the levels of stock that a business has to hold, the amount of items sold cheap because the sell-by-date is very near and for theft, all of which should increase company profits more than funding the cost of the tags, the readers, the printers and the programmes.
At the click of a mouse, managers will be able to read how much stock they have in real time and if this is all connected to the checkout cash registers, which are the most and least profitable items. This makes reordering simple . Easy to the point of computerization. For instance, when supplies of the top ten percent of the best selling products falls below 1,000 order 10,000 more. Automatically, no questions asked.
RFID has many other uses as well. The ideas outlined above can be applied to farm animals, a call centre’s IT hardware, a fleet of commercial vehicles, an record of domestic items, your pets, your car and even your garden furniture. Some people who work over a border are even having them put under their skin so that they do not have to wait at customs.
And do not forget that criminals on early discharge are also tagged. It is the same technology.
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.