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RockFish Systems is a company that provides business solutions using RFID, barcode and Internet of Things (IoT) technology to automate systems in manufacturing and distribution. Ben Boney of Rockfish needed an RFID reader that would read more items at a faster rate. He turned to FEIG, whose LRU1002 Fixed UHF Long Range Reader provided the needed results; however, FEIG’s unrivaled technical support played an important role in his decision. In a recent phone interview, Mr. Boney praised FEIG’s technical support and product performance:
“I would say the reason we went with FEIG was their technical support in the U.S. and ultimately [the] performance of their product,” said Mr. Boney. “I was just kind of surprised – FEIG is a German company so I was concerned about having support in the U.S., but their support was really… quick and good.”
According to Mr. Boney, “Our niche … is with manufacturing and distributors – usually some type of automation – so we’re using RFID to automate a process, a lot of times [during] packaging.”
Item In Chamber
RockFish Systems’ specific use case involved reading and validating vitamin bottles with RFID-enabled labels prior to shipping. Unhappy with the performance of their current system, RockFish began looking into other RFID readers to get better, faster performance. FEIG’s long-range UHF RFID reader was able to read 436 vitamin bottles in about five seconds, which provided the superior RFID performance needed for RockFish’s application.
RockFish also needed to ensure that the correct products were in each shipping box. Mr. Boney said that FEIG’s reader helps them “Automate the carting [and] shipping of the UPS or FedEx label, but then be able to validate that the shipping labels … on the outside of the box match what’s on the RFID tag inside the box.”
Reader Setup
Using RFID for a final quality check helps reduce shipping errors. Mr. Boney said, “You can get out of sequence, and when it gets out of sequence you know you’re shipping of a bunch of wrong stuff to people. So this final check using RFID [has] really been a big deterrent of that.”
As with the implementation of any new technology, switching to a new reader required a lot of programming work. Not only did FEIG technical support help with this, but FEIG also provided sample code that made the switch easier. Mr. Boney said of the sample code, “Just getting started … how do you connect to it and keep the connection alive? How do you check the status of the reader and make sure it’s doing okay? Just even those types of code samples are helpful when you’re … working on a brand new device.”
RockFish Systems’ overall customer satisfaction came from a combination of the product’s superior RFID performance and FEIG’s outstanding customer support. “Besides the device operating really well, the other big thing for us was their support and … the folks that they have doing support,” Mr. Boney elaborated. “And [they’re] accessible, you know, and that’s big. You know when you need to get ahold of somebody and you can.”
FEIG’s line of UHF long-range readers provided the results RockFish Systems needed – something competitors’ readers were not able to do. Any company looking for better automation results in distribution or manufacturing should contact FEIG today to see how their state-of-the art software can optimize their operations.