Asset Tracking Best Practices - First Hand Account

After moving to our new office in the previous year, SimplyRFiD is now starting an asset tracking program of our own. While figuring out what to tag and going through the process of tracking those items, we thought it could be instructive to show how we're figuring it all out for ourselves.

RFID Tagging Tips

• Determine what items need to be tagged. We focused on items that cost over $100. 


• Figure out the material the items are made of. Certain RFID tags can work on metal and and others on non-metal, but figuring that out before actually ordering or printing tags saves time  and money.   


• Create a spreadsheet first, before any items is physically tagged. The spreadsheets we created allowed multiple people to work on the same project easily.


• Our spreadsheet contained the following information


• 
  
  • Tag number 
  
  
  • Item description
  
  
  • Item location  
  
  
  
  


• Tags might need to be strategically placed for optimal readings. Our experience told us that visible tags were read the easiest by our handheld reader. 


• Arranging the tags so that they're all on roughly the same level also helped make the scans go faster. 


• Using the Nox Core to keep track of the items being tracked allowed the person tagging to change the spreadsheet on the fly. This can then be synced up with the master list on the computer later. Of course, it's much easier to do the changes on the computer, but the Nox Core can still be used as an editor. 

More Thoughts on RFID Asset Tracking

 What was one of the the other thoughts we had during this process? It was very easy! Our project leader said she would be confident in letting anyone handle the tagging and scanning, with very little training necessary. As long as the proper tags are chosen for the project, it can be completed in relatively little time, as well. For our group of about 70 items, it only took about an hour.

Once the tagging is completed, we now plan on scanning our items once every few weeks. That process should only take about 15 minutes at a time. In our case, the biggest delay comes from traveling between all the different rooms the items are located in. If the items were all in a central location, it would be even faster to scan everything.

Final Thoughts

Now that we're finishing this initial asset tracking project, we've got plans for the future using all that we've learned. We also are learning even more about the process so we can help all of our customers use our system more efficiently in the future. If you need help with your asset tracking systems and want to know if RFID could work for your company, contact us at support(at)simplyrfid.com address, or by calling 1 703.343.1689