Are There Any RFID Use Cases Regarding Harness Identification?

If so, what can you tell me about them?

—Manickavasaham

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Manickavasaham,

In 2008, Capital Safety released an RFID-based system for its DBI-SALA fall-protection harnesses that allowed users to better track where their harnesses are located, as well as who is using them and when they were most recently inspected. Every DBI-SALA harness has an embedded 134.2 kHz RFID tag, with its unique RFID serial number printed on the harness itself.

With the i-Safe Intelligent Safety System, companies can purchase a PDA containing a CompactFlash RFID interrogator. When a harness is sent to a warehouse for storage or to a job site, for example, or is inspected before a specific employee uses it, a company can use the device to read the harness tag at a distance of up to 6 inches. Data regarding each harness—such as its tag's unique serial number and any details keyed in by the construction company crews (inspection status, for instance)—is made available to the construction firm via a web portal. After establishing a Bluetooth connection to a laptop or desktop PC, the PDA uses Microsoft's ActiveSync utility to upload its data in XML format. The company must first enroll in the i-Safe system (participation is free) and receive a password to access its own data on the web portal (see Safety Harnesses Get Smart).

PeakWorks, a Canadian provider of fall-protection equipment, training and inspection services, puts high-frequency (HF) RFID tags on all of its products, ranging from harnesses to anchors and lanyards. The RFID tags are used to keep tabs on the products from manufacture to the point of sale and beyond, in order to help ensure that these items are regularly inspected, as well as repaired or returned in the event of a recall (see RFID Helps Manage Product Inspections).

Havoc has launched a high-frequency (HF) RFID solution with ruggedized hardware for tracking inventory, inspections and maintenance on fall-protection and other safety equipment, as well as additional assets used on construction sites. The system consists of cloud-based software known as SuperTrack.CT, in addition to 13.56 MHz HF RFID readers and tags, both encased in material designed to prevent damage at a worksite (see Havoc Provides RFID Asset-Tracking Solutions for Construction Industry).

In 2014, Honeywell Safety Products field-tested an RFID-enabled safety gear tracking and management solution, known as Enabled Safety Products (ESP). The system is designed to enhance safety for equipment users, by enabling them to collect and store every item's inspection records, along with details regarding where and how each piece of equipment is being used, and by whom. By reading passive EPC Gen 2 ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) tags attached to equipment, a user can know, for example, at which site that equipment is located, as well as its condition and the employee assigned to it (see Honeywell's Safety Products Division Helps Automate Inspections, Equipment Tracking).

I hope these articles are helpful.

—Mark Roberti, Founder and Editor, RFID Journal