SMS India Pvt. Ltd, a division of SMS Siemag, is implementing an RFID-based solution that enables the company to track 210,000 pieces of furniture, IT equipment and other assets in three nine-story office buildings. The system, provided by Perfect RFID, has gone live in SMS India’s headquarters in Gurgaon, while tagging is still underway at two other sites, in Chennai and Calcutta. By using handheld RFID readers and Perfect RFID asset-tracking software, the company can complete the inventory of all furniture, electronic equipment and other assets on a single floor in 30 minutes, whereas a bar-code-based solution had required at least a full day, says Sakun Ahuja, the founder and CEO of Perfect RFID.
SMS India, like its parent company, is a provider of equipment and services for metal-processing mills and plants. There are 210,000 assets—including furniture, computers and phones—dispersed among SMS India’s three office buildings. Company policy requires that SMS India perform bi-annual audits of those assets, but the task has been extremely time-consuming.
Initially the company attached bar-coded labels to items such as chairs, monitors and desks, however scanning bar codes was inefficient since it required finding the labels to gain a line of sight for scanning, and its staff didn’t like the aesthetics of bar-code labels attached to office furniture or other assets. The company then began seeking an RFID-based solution to make the auditing process faster and enable labels identifying each item to be better hidden from view.
Perfect RFID was launched in the United States in 2007 by former Motorola executives, including Ahuja. The company’s management found there was a need for the technology in the Indian market and moved the company there in 2010. Perfect RFID predominantly provides its RFID-based software for asset tracking and provides an auditing service by sending its own staff, equipped with handheld readers, periodically to customer sites, to manage inventory tracking. However, SMS India wanted to manage the inventory data on its own back-end system, so Perfect RFID provided asset-tracking software (developed by Redex Technologies) and integrated it with SMS India’s SAP software, and also supplied Nordic ID PL3000 Cross Dipole readers and passive EPC Gen 2 UHF RFID tags.When Perfect RFID began installing the solution at SMS India, about six months ago, a problem arose with the tags. The company found, Ahuja says, that as the tags were being applied, staff were later removing those tags, and in some cases placing them on other assets. He wasn’t clear exactly why this was occurring, but says after applying tags on assets on the first few floors in one facility, it became clear that the system wasn’t going to be effective since tags simply didn’t stay where they were placed and therefore audits would be inaccurate.
As a result, Perfect RFID opted to provide Tageos EOS 500 tamper-evident self-adhesive paper RFID labels. In this case, if the label is removed and placed on a different asset, it won’t operate properly.
When the company wishes to conduct an audit, it assigns employees to carry the Nordic ID reader through each room of the facility. As they enter the room, the reader accesses Perfect RFID asset-tracker software (via a Wi-Fi connection) in order to display a list of what items should be located in that room. As the individual walks through the room, the handheld reader captures each item’s unique ID number, sends that ID to software, and updates the item’s inventory status. To indicate that the item is accounted for, the color of the listed item as displayed on the handheld changes from red to green. If software determines that an item’s tag read is in the wrong room, the item’s listing appears in yellow. The worker can then use the software to determine that item originally belonged and determine what steps to take next to address the problem.
SMS reported to Ahuja that while it used to take a day or more to audit an entire floor of a building, it can now be accomplished in about 30 minutes. Although audits are not necessary carried out more than several times a year, the company has been conducting the inventory spot checks about once a week to confirm the location of assets.
By the end of March, Perfect RFID, which is assisting in the tagging of assets, expects all three facilities to be using the technology, and all assets will have been tagged.