Oct 18, 2013CribMaster, a division of Stanley Black and Decker, is selling a new solution known as Live Tracking that combines CribMaster's existing passive RFID tracking technology for the industrial market with Wi-Fi-based active RFID tags and real-time location system (RTLS) software from Stanley Black and Decker's AeroScout division. With the solution in place, product manufacturers, mine operators and other businesses could not only track small tools or other items fitted with smaller, less expensive EPC Gen 2 ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) passive tags, but also obtain real-time location data regarding larger or high-value items fitted with AeroScout battery-powered tags. The passive UHF tags come from a variety of vendors, including William Frick & Co., using RFID chips from Impinj. The passive-tagged tools are stored within CribMaster cabinets with built-in RFID readers. With Live Tracking, users can also obtain location-based alerts related to active-tagged items, via CribMaster software.
More than a year ago, AeroScout and CribMaster began working together to create a solution that would combine AeroScout's RTLS Wi-Fi tags and MobileView software with CribMaster's passive RFID solutions for the industrial market. According to Mike Ratteree, CribMaster's project manager, industrial companies already use combinations of active and passive RFID systems. However, he says, those systems are typically independent—for example, one solution may track employees via active RFID badges, while another might monitor small assets or tools via passive RFID tags. By combining the two technologies into a single system, Ratteree says, companies would be able to do more. For instance, CribMaster software could trigger an alert to management in the event that an individual with an active RFID badge is located in a restricted area, and is associated with specific items containing passive tags that should not be in that area.
CribMaster set up a demo room containing a miniature installation of the technology, in order to demonstrate to the members of its integration project team how the technology might work. The company then spent the past year integrating its own software with the MobileView software. While CribMaster's software displays data about all items fitted with passive tags, and issues alerts, MobileView calculates active tags' locations and forwards that information to the CribMaster software.
The solution consists of AeroScout T2, T4 or T5 tags that could be affixed to assets, or built into staff badges. The active tags beacon their unique identifiers to Wi-Fi access points within an end user's facility. Passive CribMaster tags, which could be attached to tools or small equipment, would be interrogated via CribMaster readers mounted in tool cribs or built into CribMaster's AccuDrawer, AccuCab or AccuPort storage cabinets designed for industrial users.
An installation could be used in the following way: A staff member may wear an active AeroScout badge indicating her own identity, as well as authorized activities linked to the unique ID number on her badge. She could then check out a tool from a CribMaster cabinet using her badge ID. CribMaster software would be updated to indicate she had removed that item. If she failed to return it, company management could access the CribMaster software to identify who had that asset, use the RTLS data from her badge to determine where she was located, and proceed to her location to retrieve the tool.
In another scenario, an active tag could be attached to a CribMaster storage cabinet itself, as long as it was mobile (such as the AccuDrawer, which comes equipped with wheels and is designed to be moved). In that way, management would have data indicating which tools were in a given AccuDrawer, as well as that AccuDrawer's location, via the AeroScout active tag.
In addition, the active tags can be used to send reorder reports. For instance, if consumable items in a non-RFID-enabled cabinet had reached their minimum level, an employee could press a button on the AeroScout tag, and the MobileView software would forward that event data to the CribMaster software, which could then send a purchase order to a vendor, or an alert to the warehouse staff to replenish that item.
The Live Tracking system—which is also being marketed and sold by both CribMaster and AeroScout—will operate as an added function to existing systems running CribMaster software (version 9.6.5 or later), Ratteree says. His company's sales staff will offer the solution to existing CribMaster and AeroScout customers in the industrial sector, he reports, though he adds that the solution would be offered to new customers as well. He expects a variety of use cases that may be tailored to customers' individual needs. "We're always listening to customers," he states. "We've always operated that way."
