Standard safety procedure demands that life vests are counted and their expiry dates checked before an aircraft is released for any flight. This check is usually conducted after the last flight of the day as there is enough time before operations begin the next day, but the exercise is expensive as the airline requires having people working late nights just to audit lifesaving equipment. Checks are not done during different halts because of paucity of time and the fact that life vests are stored either in compartments above or below the seats. Expiry labels cannot be checked without taking each life vest out to check.

Dolphin RFID has developed a RFID based solution to audit life saving equipment quickly and efficiently. It requires one person to walk down the aisle of the aircraft with a UHF Handheld RFID reader scanning all the life saving equipment. By the time the auditor reaches the back of the aircraft he get real time information on whether all the life vests that are supposed to be present are present and whether any of them have passed expiry. As each life vest is linked to a specific seat the auditor knows exactly where any life vest requiring change out is located. The system allows audits can be conduct before every flight.

The Dolphin RFID solution allows airlines to meet standard safety audits speedily, efficiently and with compromise. The system allows airlines to manage their inventory of life saving equipment across all their operating locations.

The post RFID SOLUTION FOR EFFICIENCY IN AVIATON appeared first on Dolphin RFID.

Aviation:

International Air Transport Association (IATA) has mandated that by 2018, airlines must track each pieces of baggage that comes in at check-in and goes out at arrival. It means that airlines will need to analyse their existing monitoring systems, and implement appropriate technology which can do this in a fool-proof manner while saving on cost and time. Delta Airlines, one of America’s top airlines, has invested over $50million in RFID for baggage tracking and management. Delta Airlines have realized that RFID signals can be picked by receivers 99.85% of times as compared to a 90% success rate of manual scanners. And, the difference of 8% could be the cause that leads to loss or delay of more than 20 million baggage pieces. RFID in baggage tracking will lead to a considerable reduction in lost baggage by 2024 and will enable the air transport industry to save over $3 billion within the next seven years. In addition, airline operators, maintenance and repair organizations (MROs) and manufacturers across the supply chain will rely on RFID to streamline the pace of operations, and ensure fastest possible turnaround for passenger as well as cargo flights.

The scope of RFID in aviation is immense. At Dolphin, we are privy to this global interest and are feeling the pulse in the form of requests from our foreign partners for helping airlines in the respective countries to implement RFID systems to gain a clear business advantage. In India, we are in talks with multiple airlines to help them to adhere to the IATA guidelines and be operationally superior by implementing RFID technologies.

Retail:

In 2016, 4.6 billion clothing items carried RFID tags. However, this does not represent even 10% of the total apparel market, thus the potential for growth in retail and apparel is immense.

In a survey of 60 retailers with revenues of $500 million and above undertaken by Kurt Salmon, 73 percent have said that they are either deploying or are doing a pilot on RFID technologies. That number is more than double the 34 percent for the same study done in 2014.

Retail majors such as Marks & Spencer and Decathlon have had major RFID implementation in 2016. Even RFID tag providers Avery Dennison, Impinj and NXP have all reported a strong growth in tag sales. Avery Dennison has had nearly 30 percent growth in 2016 despite a slow apparel market in the US.

The other micro-segments that fall in the broad retail ambit such as cosmetics, electronics, auto ancillary, sports goods, jewellery and small home appliances are all seeing RFID tagging and tracking. The retail space, it’s entire supply chain, right to the warehouses, are all potential areas for robust RFID implementations. The ever-burgeoning retail market and retailers are seeing the benefits of RFID hence we would see a huge fillip in this space for RFID technologies in 2017. RFID is a must in the emerging Omni Channel sales which is the way forward for Retail.

IT & ITeS:

The IT services opportunity is huge world over. There are many mid-tier to small-tier IT companies in India which employ thousands of people. The laptops, desktops, dongles and mobiles assigned to people are the assets that organizations would want to tag, track and protect.

IT companies are now broadening the perimeter of operations. Important business data can be accessed by employees from home and on their mobiles with policies such as “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) becoming increasingly prevalent. These companies often work with critical data from the clients; hence their server and data centers need to be safeguarded from unauthorised access. RFID systems allow seamless entry and exit of company’s assets and restrict unauthorised access to key servers and data centers.

In a huge IT and ITeS organization, there could be over 100,000 assets. Research shows that if RFID is deployed to track these assets, the annual labour cost savings would exceed $150,000. This cost saving carries forward to subsequent years and goes on forever. Hence, RFID investments lead to significant returns and value over time.

RFID systems also enable to arrest any corrupt practices at entry and exit points and safeguard from tampering of technology assets. There is utmost transparency and accountability at all times as RFID systems can track and monitor all assets within seconds. This particularly helps IT companies that have set up huge development centers in SEZs, hence they are prone to sudden inspections and compliance checks. Companies such as Verizon already track their IT assets worldwide using RFID technology.

Healthcare:

Healthcare is among the fastest RFID adopters globally. The benefit of implementing RFID in hospitals is immense as it enables hospitals to focus on a greater cause – treating patients well and saving lives in a cost-effective manner.

Asset tracking and management in hospitals benefit immensely by use of RFID. About 20% of a hospital’s mobile assets (on average) are lost or stolen during their useful lifetime. The average cost works out to more than USD 3000 per item. Also, 75% of the time for maintenance is spent searching equipment. Hospitals typically over-stack up to 40% of spare inventory to mitigate the risk of running short of equipment during emergency. RFID can solve all these problems and ensure significant savings for hospitals without adversely impacting patient care. The savings can eventually be passed on to the patients to enable more people to afford better treatment.

Another area where RFID significantly benefits hospitals is in patient tracking and management, wherein a smart RFID device accessible by a mobile interface helps doctors and nurses to ensure perfect administration of medicines to patients at the right time. The hospitals are also able to track and manage documents and files of patients better and thus, ensuring seamless and effective treatment. Several hospitals all over the world have embraced RFID. Progressive hospitals in India such as the Apollo group of hospitals, and the Tata medical centre have been pioneers in leveraging RFID. The power of RFID in improving healthcare is such that even progressive Muncipal Corporations like the BMC are looking at introducing RFID based Asset Management in their hospitals.

Hospitality:

There is a latent demand for safe and secure hotel accommodation all over the world. The fact that start-ups like Airbnb are gaining serious momentum is testimony to this. With pilgrimage, medical tourism and leisure travel on the rise, safe, secure and reputed players in hospitality would be in great demand.

For the budget hotels to survive and compete with international counterparts and tackle disruptors in the space like Airbnb, leveraging RFID has become the need of the hour. With smart RFID based locks and energy systems, the customers are assured that their belongings are safe in hotel rooms hence enhancing the perception of safety. This leads to more people opting to stay at budget hotels that offer great service and helps the sector to flourish. The linked energy management systems also enable hotels to bring down their electricity costs. The “audit trail capture” feature of these locks helps to keep a check on any illegal use of rooms for nefarious activities and subsequent loss of both brand image and revenue. With the use of RFID readers, tracking and management of hotel’s assets can be done seamlessly and any unwarranted loss of assets can be kept in check. Hotels, after implementing RFID technologies, have seen a reduction in the inventory shrinkage from a 10% to 66% of the common shrinkage which leads to considerable savings in cost, enhances service efficiency and improves the bottom line.

Dolphin has introduced smart, RFID powered and energy efficient locks namely Aster, Sleek and Vidala that enables the budget hotels to offer the same sense of safety and security as luxury hotels at half the cost. The demand for these locks among the luxury properties is also catching up with hotel chains opting for Dolphin’s RFID powered locks and security systems. By assembling and marketing these locks and energy systems in India, Dolphin is giving a serious boost to our honourable Prime Minister Shri. Narendra Modi’s “Make in India” initiative.

Why Dolphin?

Dolphin RFID is one of the leading RFID service providers in the world with over 14 copyrights, 3 patents, and its own proprietary JAVA based middleware that can integrate with any core system irrespective of the sector or industry. With a network spanning 6 continents and a clientele comprising Forbes top 20 companies, Dolphin has been creating disruptive innovations, which has helped large organization and SMEs alike.

While Dolphin is on track to be a world leader in end to end RFID solutions, our larger mission is to empower all industries, especially across these five sectors, to leverage RFID and create disruptive business models for the larger good.

I hope all companies, be it large corporations or SMEs, embrace RFID in 2017 and give their businesses a better chance to succeed and prosper.

The post 5 sectors which will see impactful RFID disruption in 2017 appeared first on Dolphin RFID.

RFID scores over manual systems

Even the most meticulous manual system will fail with such large volume of assets to be managed and hence the arising permutations and combinations. An RFID system enables the company to place a small tag on each asset. This tag can be read at the room/ floor level by room readers and also at the entry and exit points. In fact, at the entry/ exit points, it can be matched with the employee’s details (batch tags, ID card data etc.) and it can immediately throw up a discrepancy in data and disallow the asset to enter/leave the premise. It leads to safeguarding the assets and almost a 100% efficiency and accuracy in tracking and management of assets.

So, how does it work?

The RFID system is simple to understand and easier to use. Each asset’s RFID tag stores all relevant details about the asset. This includes the employee that the asset is assigned to, its manufacturer, its due date of maintenance etc.

The RFID reader can read the asset and check for any anomaly with respect to the asset. The monitoring is constantly on and real-time notifications are issued to the employee using the asset, the manager etc. through SMS.

RFID asset tracking tags can thus seamlessly replace sticky notes used for IT asset tracking. Instead, it can enable to track these assets in real-time for visibility, thus efficiently utilizing the “spend” on IT for better purposes.

It doesn’t stop there. Huge IT and ITeS companies are using RFID to tag critical data storage assets such as servers, storage devices that store sensitive data and also laptops and desktops. They use RFID to also store and safeguard each customer’s data thereby ensuring that they do not breach any compliance or allow unauthorized access to business critical data.

Data Center Asset Tracking, Maintenance and Management

With businesses becoming increasingly “digital” and Big Data laying the foundation for important initiatives such as Analytics, data has become a critical part of our existence. The need to store this data and to manage it efficiently has assumed significant importance. Over 2.5 Quintillion bytes of data (i.e. 2,500,000,000,000,000,000 bytes) is generated every single day. “Cloud” surely has become a buzzword and a lot of applications and underlying infrastructure is moving to the cloud. However, there are still a lot of critical applications and their underlying infrastructure that needs to be hosted in-house, either due to security concerns or owing to regulatory mandates.

More than 90% of the generated data in “unstructured” which means it is not recorded in tables in an orderly manner. This data could be tweets, emails, videos, photos, customer’s purchase logs and even call logs.

Thus, huge IT companies with dedicated business process outsourcing units or global firms establishing their back office in India have huge data centers. It’s a struggle to understand where the data is stored – which rack and row and in which data center. Any amount of meticulous manual recording would still always leave some room for unintentional errors. Such mistakes could, however, lead to loss of an asset (which can cost a lot of money) and more importantly, data which could prove fatal to business.

Will Manual tracking systems work?

There are a lot of companies which have tried to deploy the most orderly manual systems. The manual inventory process can be extremely slow to architect, create and deploy. Moreover, it utilizes time and energy of skilled engineers – which by itself is a currency for any IT or ITeS company. The manually tracked data centers also require highly skilled manpower to be recruited to understand the sensitivities of managing data and operating datacenters.

RFID enabled systems

Move to RFID enabled systems. With a tag on each asset and a reader that can track and monitor the asset, RFID changes the whole scenario, makes it simple and helps companies enhance the life of their assets. It also enables such companies to save millions of dollars, otherwise spent on tracking, maintenance and replacement of lost/misplaced IT assets.

Centralized Tracking and monitoring of assets

With RFID systems at its core, tracking and monitoring across delivery centres and data centres all over the world can be done by an IT company from a single centralized location.

Using such systems enables the following:

Real time inventory tracking

• Real time inventory data tracking with rack level granularity
• Tracking of the life cycle/ history of maintenance of an IT asset
• Assignment of tickets and scheduling of maintenances well in advance

Real time notifications

• Real-time notifications on asset misplacement can enable prompt action, hence enhancing the probability of tracing the lost/ misplaced asset
• Real time notifications on asset maintenance to ensure that the maintenance activity is carried out as per schedule

In-depth analysis:

The system enables the centralized monitoring system to track and filter asset information as per customer, type of asset, location of site, asset ID, manufacturers name etc. This leads to a wealth of drill-down knowledge on asset and provides valuable insights into the purchase decisions.

Customized reports:

The centralized monitoring system can also create customized reports and alerts about their IT assets all over the world. This is invaluable for IT and ITeS companies as it enables them to avert mishaps save costs and prepare for the future with data driven insights on performance and management of IT assets.

One of the fastest growing IT companies, with its BPO arm, were among the early stage implementers of RFID and the results they derived from the implementation was staggering:

• They managed to reduce IT asset management cost by about 2.5%. For a company with delivery centers and data centers all over the world and a huge employee base, this created a significant and clearly visible impact on their bottom line.
• They were also able to considerably bring down the estimated time for auditing their IT assets all across the globe. They were able to thus deploy their skilled IT manpower for more productive core business functions.
• They managed to reduce the inventory tracking expenses by almost 50% and created a fully integrated system which could monitor leasing of assets, the entire asset management cycle and also the ticketing system to address issues
• Due to RFID, they were also able to eliminate penalties that could have resulted from not returning the leased IT assets in time.
• In the process, they were able to also prove the overwhelming belief of RFID being a costly investment; completely wrong. They managed to recover their investment on RFID within a year.

RFID installations have also enabled ITeS companies such as BPOs and call centres to only allow authorized vehicles into its premises. The information about such vehicles is stored at the system and the RFID reader in the gates can quickly check and help decide if the vehicle can be allowed in.

The IT and ITeS industry (even after having done the above and after having reaped its benefits) has still not scratched the tip of the “RFID opportunity” iceberg. With IoT, Digital, Big Data and Analytics, and Cloud technologies becoming increasingly prominent, RFID in IT is set to grow leaps and bounds.

Dolphin RFID is among the world leaders in end-to-end RFID solutions and capabilities. With our own proprietary JAVA based middleware, we undertake the entire RFID implementation lifecycle – consulting, implementation and post-implementation support and maintenance- for our customers.

Doesn’t the future of IT and ITeS look sparkling with an RFID backbone? If you believe in this future and would like to deliberate on it, I am just an email away at [email protected]

The post Seamlessness and Efficiency like never before appeared first on Dolphin RFID.

Before we begin, I would love to revisit the concluding part of our introductory blog. Our objective of creating this blog is to provide:

Empowerment:  The investment one makes in RFID is worth because it is durable. It is much better protected, and can be attached inside an item in transit so it can be read in any environment. This enables RFID to provide real-time insights, even while items are in transit or stored at distant location, which empowers seamless decision making.

Security: RFID tags are difficult to replicate. Data in the tags can be encrypted, password protected, and the tag can be completely formatted if required, so information stored is as secure as desired. However, a barcode can be tampered with or counterfeited without much effort hence it is not  secure. RFIDs can also send triggers to alert the accountable people in case of an unauthorized entry or access. Thus, it becomes highly useful in preventing thefts and loss due to events such as pilferage.

Is RFID worth the investment?

One of the key questions is whether RFID is worth the investment. We believe one needs to look at a long term view here. RFIDs obvious advantage over barcodes is accepted. The adaptability is easy if the mindset is to tweek our processes, bring more orderliness in tracking or assets, inventory etc. The value from storing all the required information, analyzing it to make better business decisions and avoiding losses due to pilferage by systematic information storage as well as event triggering (alerts sent when an unauthorized access to a product is observed) is immense.

Conclusion

If we have explained the difference clearly, our objective is achieved. However, if there is still any ambiguity with adoption of RFID, we are open to deliberate. Please drop a comment and we will be happy to engage with you.

The post Difference between barcode and RFID appeared first on Dolphin RFID.

Why should one read our blog, then? A very valid question and we endeavor to give a compelling answer in the next few lines as well as through all the subsequent blogposts that you will read here.

While we are in the business of RFID, we do not want to hard sell it through a blog. Our aim is to ensure that every person, whether he is a layman or an entrepreneur, should have a source of correct information about RFID, its uses, and its advantages. We wish to dispel all myths about RFID in a slow and steady manner. But, why would this be required?

This is because we, at Dolphin RFID, believe that good business decision are based on accurate knowledge and research. We want to ensure that one ventures into using RFID technologies only if she/he is completely convinced on the value it can bring. As a pioneer in the RFID space, we believe it is our responsibility to make this accurate knowledge repository available ubiquitously to one and all.

If we make this available, does it help bust all the myths and misunderstandings about RFID technologies?

We believe this would be only step 1. The next step is to ensure that we present this knowledge in a very comprehendible manner. We wish to give examples from one’s daily life so that our readers can visualize and understand the impact of RFID technologies on their daily lives.

Last but not the least, we want to ensure interactions, deliberations and discussions. We are confident about our domain knowledge and expertise. We are sure that even if we build the best possible knowledge repository on RFID technologies, readers of our blog are still bound to have questions and would want to discuss it with experts. We want to facilitate a platform for our readers to discuss their queries with our experts as we consider it our privilege to educate any person willing to learn more about RFID technologies.

To sum up, our readers can expect the following from this blog:

1. Correct and accurate knowledge on various aspects of RFID
2. Simple and easy-to-understand presentation of knowledge on RFID with examples from daily life
3. Opportunity to discuss and learn more about RFID from our experts

RFID technologies is much more than our business. It is our passion and we want to make this blog a temple of accurate knowledge which we will worship perpetually!

The post Why should I read this blog? appeared first on Dolphin RFID.

3. In this scenario one of the best emerging technologies to help startups harness their resources – both material and human- would undoubtedly be RFID. To corroborate my thought process, I spoke to a number of entrepreneurs to see if indeed RFID could help them be one of the “survivors” in the startup eco system. The aim of the interaction was to educate startup founders (mostly youngsters) on the use of RFID technology and its benefits and to dispel myths around RFID technologies and its implementation. This blog is a result of this interaction and  highlights the 5 key reasons for startups to embrace RFID technology.

A) Efficient Asset management. Whilst the cash rich startups buy new assets whenever the need arises, inefficient use of the same leads to over stocking of such assets. In recent studies it has been proved that the inventory of assets can be reduced by as much as 25% if RFID tags are used on the assets permitting an efficient tracking of the same and thus enabling maximum utilization of assets. For example, in hospitals it has been found that the number of mobile equipment quantities can be reduced just by being able to track equipment by use of RFID.

B) Make optimum use of available human resources. Startups are in a dynamic state all the time. The human resources are scarce and it is critical to make the best use of those available. For a start up doing mass recruitment, it will always happen that some employees take undue advantage of lax HR policies and wander away in working hours. RFID systems can ensure that employees can be efficiently tracked thus ensuring optimum productivity thus reducing the need to increase manpower. This becomes critical in the service industry where timely availability of services makes or breaks a startup.

C) Controlling the sellable inventory .  A good example of this is Justbooks, a Bangalore based startup for renting books. The company has automated some parts of one’s library usage, for instance RFID based unmanned kiosks. Owing to RFID tagging, JustBooks’ kiosks have the real time information about books (current owner/location of the book etc.) that helps them keep the cost low. The unmanned kiosk outside the library equipped with the Library Management Software (LMS) and the tag reader acts as a one-stop shop for all requirements of the reader, right from finding the book of choice to depositing it after reading. The LMS is mapped according to the layout of the library and is also linked with the inventory and back-end, which helps to point the exact location of the book. Due to effective use of RFID, JustBooks has been able to maintain optimum inventory, reduce cost of resources and track and manage its assets efficiently.

D) Automation and hence, less hiring: Startups cannot afford to hire people and teams for all activities. It is important to automate many processes, especially non-core ones. Efficient tagging and maintaining of assets and inventory and generating reports for senior management can all be automated by efficient use of RFID. Smart startups, especially in sectors such as logistics, food delivery can use RFID based tagging and reports to not only optimize their operations but also serve their customers better. It also enables startups to hire less people at the beginning and hence saves time and effort on administration and human resource management.

E) Leveraging Data Mining for better decision making: By effectively using RFID technology, startups are able to access and gain invaluable business relevant knowledge by Data Mining. The RFID generated data can be analyzed by startup’s to understand patterns and insights on usage of resources and map the return on investments. With effective use of Data, startups are able to alter strategies and make better decisions. This enhances the probability of their success and helps them to grow much faster.

4. It would be evident from above that RFID can actually address the top reasons why startups fail. The natural next question is if it is worth the investment for startups. As a keen student and practitioner of RFID technologies, I would urge startups to think of RFID as an investment which can yield short term benefits in automating operations and long term returns by effective Data Mining. It also gives clarity on the execution at the ground level and efficiently aligns strategy with execution. This enables startup’s to sharpen focus on revenues and profits and thus, attain profitable growth.

5. I would invite your comments, especially if you are a startup founder or part of a startup team, on this blog and would be happy to engage in a discussion on why RFID is not an expensive technology given its great ROI and how startups can implement RFID technologies efficiently and cost-effectively.

The post 5 Reasons for startups to embrace RFID technologies appeared first on Dolphin RFID.