What good is the future if you can’t track your assets in real-time? Sure, end-to-end tracking is great. But even better for the retail, wholesale and medical sectors; real-time asset tracking is here now. This technology allows you to manage your inventory, analyze your usage, reduce loss, increase productivity and lower costs. It’s a win all around.
How Real-Time Mobile Asset Tracking Works
Old school tracking has two major problems: First, it’s slow. You only get updates when assets go through specific points in your supply chain. Second, there’s a human element involved. Actual people enter tracking information. This introduces a far greater possibility of human error into the equation. One mistake by one person at one point in the supply chain can mean a misplaced or completely lost asset – the last thing your small or medium business needs.
Mobile asset tracking, however, utilizes radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology. It’s like a GPS tracker for your inventory. RFID chips can track every container in your inventory without any human element involved, beyond installing the chips in the first place. What’s more, RFID chips are extremely unobtrusive. Unless someone knows they’re there, they won’t be noticed.
Your Asset Tracking is Only as Good as Your Software
Removing the human element means the digital element becomes more crucial, and your mobile asset tracking is only as good as your software solutions. Fortunately, a number of solutions exist from top companies like U.S. Cellular, Motorola, Trackit and AMI. What’s more, most asset tracking solutions allow you to track your assets in real time from your desktop or mobile device.
There are also slight differences in technology. For true real-time asset tracking you will need “active” RFID chips. They offer greater range thanks to their battery power, but at the expense of a slightly shorter lifespan. Active RFIDs provide a greater degree of security, and also come at a lower cost than their passive counterparts.
Real-time tracking assets can be purchased outright, leased, or financed depending on the specific needs of your business.
Why Real-Time Asset Tracking Is Right For Your Business
While real-time asset tracking is certainly a boon for companies looking for greater transparency and efficiency in their supply chain, it can be an absolute must for others. Especially in the medical and other sensitive industries, clients are increasingly insisting upon real-time asset tracking. Either way, lower labor costs mean significant savings, not to mention those from reduced human error and theft.
Consider that every link in your supply chain is a potential loss point for your assets. It doesn’t matter if you’re processing prescription medicine or bottles of beer. You have loss. RFID chip-powered real-time asset tracking can help your company shave that loss down to the bare minimum. For example, upstate New York’s Ellis Medicine saw $700,000 in savings simply by switching to this new technology.
Stop losing assets -- and profits -- due to outdated, 20th Century tech, and start planning for the future with RFID asset-tracking technology.