RFID Systems Integrator Lets Small Businesses Try Before They Buy

Feb 01, 2011A company that provides a variety of services to health organizations affiliated with the Stony Brook University School of Medicine recently carried out a pilot of radio frequency identification, thanks to a low-cost, low-risk program offered by Applied Computer Technologies (ACT), a local systems integrator. Although the system was ultimately uninstalled, the pilot was considered a success by all parties involved, demonstrating a way to market RFID solutions to small and midsize firms that had previously considered the technology outside their price range.

The company's IT department retrieves computers, printers and other electronic equipment from three locations, for servicing or storage. In late 2010, it sought a solution that would let it automatically record when computers left one of those sites and later returned to that same location, thereby providing an electronic log of the equipment's movements.

The pilot's purpose, says Blake Benz, the company's information technology director, was to prove the technology works. "We were testing RFID to see if it could help us better track our equipment," states Benz, who requests that his company not be named.

ACT, based in nearby Holtsville, N.Y., offered Benz's firm an affordable way to test the technology—made possible, in part, through the use of low-cost RFID software provided by RFIdeaWorks Corp. The agreement enabled the Stony Brook organization to try the hardware and software, and then to return it at the end of the two-month pilot, paying only for labor.

At its customer's service location, ACT installed an Alien Technology ALR 9900 stationary reader and four antennas at the building's entranceway, and also provided approximately 100 RFID tags to be applied to computers. RFIdeaWorks' RFIdirector software, which acts as middleware for filtering and collecting data from RFID reads and transmitting the information to back-end software systems, was installed on a notebook computer wired to the reader. ACT also provided a Motorola 9090-G RFID handheld reader for the Stony Brook staff to take to various locations as they picked up or delivered electronic equipment. In this case, the handheld's Geiger counter function could help Benz's employees locate a specific computer or other tagged device.

Altogether, the Stony Brook firm spent $5,000 on the RFID system. "The technology worked as expected," Benz says. The only problem, notes Seth Schneider, a partner at ACT, was that Benz's quickly realized he needed an RFID system that could do more than the one he had originally envisioned, and would thus require a more extensive deployment—something his department couldn't afford. At Benz's request, therefore, ACT uninstalled the system and refunded all of the money his organization had spent for the hardware and software (about $4,000), charging the company only for ACT's labor cost to deploy and then remove the solution.

Nonetheless, Schneider says, ACT views the pilot as a success since it proved RFID could be demonstrated to end users, and trialed by them, at a minimal cost. This, he says, helps to make RFID technology accessible to small and midsize companies that had previously considered the technology out of their price range.

Since determining that such a low-cost pilot could successfully provide the end user with the information it would need regarding RFID deployment, ACT is now in discussions with other companies looking to conduct similar pilots in which they would pay just a few thousand dollars for a proof of concept, with some of that expense later returned if they opt against adoption. For ACT, Schneider says, it's a good business arrangement—any software and readers that are returned can be reused in other projects, while the tags, which cost about 15 cents apiece, are a minimal cost for his company.

With the Stony Brook pilot, which took place in December 2010 and January 2011, Benz's staff applied the tags inside and outside a computer and the housings of other electronic devices, in order to determine read range. The workers then carried the machines out of the building. Each tag's unique ID number was captured by the reader installed at the doorway, and was sent to the RFIdeaWorks software, which linked that ID with data regarding each tagged device, including its serial number, and displayed that item's status—for example, having left the service facility. Reports could then be printed indicating, for instance, when computers entered the facility for maintenance and, based on the particular work station at which the computers were located, how long they spent at that location. "It helped that we could go back to the provided reports to see in and out times," Benz says.

When a member of Benz's staff went to fetch a computer from one of his organization's offsite storage locations, he or should would use the handheld reader. In such a scenario, the user would input information about the computer being retrieved. The RFIdirector software loaded on the handheld could then link the computer's serial number with the RFID number of that machine's tag, and the user could walk to a closet, for example, and the handheld would then read the tags and flash a light when the proper item had been located. This, Benz says, helped the staff more quickly identify computers or other equipment in crowded closets.

One shortcoming involved ensuring an accurate read by the portal reader when tags were placed inside equipment. "We were unable to put the tags inside the computer," Benz states. "We realized this was due to the metal in the machines." He had hoped to hide the tags to ensure they were not pulled off, he says, as they might be if placed on the outside of the equipment.

In the end, however, Schneider says, Benz realized he needed a more elaborate RFID system that would capture events within its maintenance facility, by reading the tags at various work stations during repair or service work, thereby providing details indicating how long the computer spent at each location, while also making it easier to locate the specific machine. Installing additional readers, Schneider notes, would have been feasible with the RFIdirector software, but would have led to greater hardware and installation costs, beyond what the company could afford. Someday, Benz says, if his company's budget allows, he may eventually install such a system.

In recent years, ACT had found RFID to be a difficult technology to sell, due to the high upfront installation or piloting costs. "This project was revitalizing," Schneider says, "because it changes the entry cost for RFID dramatically. For us, it is a visual marketing tool."

According to Schneider, ACT intends to conduct additional similar pilots, which the company believes will lead to full, permanent deployments, while minimizing end users' initial risk. "The idea is that if they want to go forward, they've already purchased some of the equipment," he explains—typically, a fixed reader portal, software and a handheld interrogator. "If not, they are out for our time and labor, but the hardware can go back."

For more complex installations, Schneider adds, in which RFID readers may need to capture multiple events in more than one location, the low-cost pilot is a way for potential RFID users to perform some early testing of the hardware and software before committing to a full deployment. "In this way," he says, "they can test its functionality on a small scale—usually by fleshing out the trickiest part of the system."