Jan 31, 2005This article was originally published by RFID Update.
January 31, 2005—The average time spent weekly searching for files in Georgia's DeKalb County Juvenile Court is estimated at 10 hours. It is this enormously inefficient and expensive process that the Court hopes to avoid by installing an RFID system to tag, track, and better organize its 12,000-file mess. The system carries with it a cost of $50,000, an intimidating sum at first blush. But when considered alongside the $30,000 in annual savings the system is projected to generate, the return-on-investment comes within a very impressive twenty-four months.
Most of the system's hardware and software will come from 3M, while Texas Instruments will supply the passive RFID transponders used to tag the files. Key features include file check-in and check-out, PC-based file searching, and integration with the Court's existing case-management software.
While supply chain management (SCM) receives the lion's share of attention regarding RFID applications, the implementations of systems like the DeKalb County Juvenile Court's are quietly gaining traction. Why? For the same reason that SCM systems have thus far been slower to materialize: ROI. Even at $0.80 per tag, the Court's RFID deployment will pay for itself very quickly. As we all know, the same unfortunately cannot yet be said for many SCM deployments.
InformationWeek has more
