Product Overview

- RFID Readers & Antennas

- RFID Tags

- RFID Printer

- RFID Middleware

- RFID Application

What is RFID?

RFID and Tracking

Brooks RFID Tracking

Brooks provides tracking solutions using RFID technology. Brooks RFID Tracking is a highly-reliable tracking solution that identifies inventory in real-time and supplies this information for immediate decision-making. Data provided will enable users or advanced software systems to operate in a predictive manner rather than a reactive manner. This enables users to realize operational improvements in supply chain visibility, labor reduction, paper trail reduction, reduce inventory loss, etc. These improvements will ultimately result in increased quality, waste elimination, and operational and labor productivity improvements. Improved cash flow for the operation can be the result.

Analst's Insight

Based on Accenture reaseach, a manufacturer cold expect to boost sales by 1 to 2 percent by reducing out-of-stock items; decrease inventory by 10 to 30 percent by cutting the amount of safety stock kept on hand in case demand suddenly rises; and reduce shrinkage by 10 percent. This is in addition to less tangible benefits such as gaining more insights into why goods get returned.

"This will touch every part of a manufacturer's business," says Lyle Ginsburg, managing partner for technology innovation in Accenture's products operating group. He says RFID technology will have a positive impact on the management of raw materical and reusable assets, warehouse inventory, shipments, returns processing, logistics, and many other aspects of manufacturing.

[source: RFID Journal, June 10, 2004; full text can be found here]

Brooks tracking solution comes pre-integrated with Brooks readers, Brooks supply chain management and Brooks advanced decision making solutions. The tracking system is highly scale-able, from controlling just a handful of readers and managing its data to sites that manage and control hundreds of readers with all the associated tags and data. Ease of use, from monitoring and maintaining the operation to self-configuring additional read points provide the flexibility necessary to enable dynamically layout modification, expansion on the fly, and a rollout of same-solution to multiple factories. The result for users is a tighter solution with high reliability and lower system maintenance.

Operation

• A tag may be applied to virtually anything.
• An RFID reader reads the tag and communicates the tag ID to the software.
• In open loop environments, the reader management software than will query the ONS system for the location of the EPC server. Once located, the EPC server is queried for information that specifically relates to the tag ID (e.g. the supplier of the product or material).
• In closed loop systems, this information is typically stored in a centralized database. In some cases it may actually makes sense to be stored on the tag.
• The location of the tagged object is then maintained for retrieval at a later time. This allows for comprehensive inventory control.
• As the object is identified, its ID and associated information is made available to a consumer (person or software). That consumer then is able to act on the information. Note: Brooks also offers these consumer type of software packages that include enterprise performance management, a high-speed temporal data warehouse, automated anomaly management, supply chain execution, etc.
• Errors that may occur with the reader are addressed with the reader management software.
• Testing and tuning parameters can be set and updated with the software tools.
  Features & Benefits

Brooks RF ID is designed with a feature set that is intended to help solve business problems. Some highlights are listed below:

Components

Radio Frequency Identification
Software for Discrete Manufacturers

Improving Enterprise Performance with RFID