CAD Based RFID in Supply Chain

Accurate and Diverse RFID Representation to Faster ROI

Proxigroup’s ProxiTrak RFID Software is an innovative and user-friendly 3D CAD digital double site survey software that allows designing, modeling, automatic optimization, visualization, analyzation RFID zone assignment, range spacing, and optimization of your RFID installation. RFID software deployment and maintenance on various networks require the use of a professional RFID site survey software that negotiates time-centric, cumbersome and extremely complex tasks such as continuous analysis and reporting of signal strength, back scatter noise, interference, zone assignment allocation and data reads, etc.  ProxiTrak can dramatically reduce the time and costs that are involved in deploying and maintaining RFID software deployments and modifications while drastically improving RFID signal performance and coverage at any time in the RFID deployment life-cycle without any loss of service.

Currently in the RFID industry, RFID site surveys are a must because radio wave propagation complexity introduces many pain points regarding RFID read prediction, especially in metal centric or liquid heavy environments. It is further complicated when attempting to consider all the variables that might affect the health and performance of your RFID Infrastructure. Dynamic and fluid conditions, even something as seemingly simple as an overhead metal beam or speed of a forklift, may seriously impact your RFID performance.

Proxigroup has realized and determined that a very important component of any RFID solution is real time RFID site survey planning and design.  By providing real time CAD based RFID signal strength planning, our software can display RSSI coverage throughout a facility or campus through the use of our animated RSSI live dynamic heat map. The RFID RSSI heat illustrator identifies optimal locations for RFID access points based on several factors such as back scatter, noise, interference, antenna beam-width and azimuth, in addition to RFID tag types and tag ranging.

BENEFITS

• Simple and fast deployment through virtual and real-world synchronization
• Deployment in matter of minutes versus weeks and months; generating faster ROI
• Zone modification in matter of seconds without loss of operational service
• RFID planning – design a virtual model and synchronize it with your real-world infrastructure
• Comprehensive  RFID  zone  analysis with easy-to-understand visualizations of signal level, interference, access point coverage areas, data reads, RSSI issues, etc.
• Automatic access point location
• Live modification of any access point including  zone re-positioning, RSSI adjustments and noise  measurement without halting the system

How does the best RFID CAD base design software increase company revenues and shareholder returns at nearly twice the rate of their industry counterparts?

Despite the obvious commercial benefits of many great RFID software solutions, consistently realizing this goal is notoriously and increasingly difficult. Only the very best RFID software that can also provide design- centric functionality now stands out from the crowd, meeting the extraordinary increase in logistic supply chain expectations; instant access to global information from an atomic location and the blurring of lines between RFID hardware, software, and services. The supply chain industry seeks stronger design capabilities than ever before.

With multiple RFID deployments we found a strong correlation between logistic company processes and superior RFID deployment and implementation accuracy and performance. Through our software,  companies have increased their revenues and total returns on investments by 85% – substantially faster than our industry counterparts.

BENEFITS

• Reduction of out of stock goods by 80-90%
• Increasing the accuracy of the inventory to 98% +
• Reduction of assets counting time by 95%
• Lowering the inventory costs to 90% +
• Reduction in time of finding assets to 95% +
• Process efficiency increase up to 95% +
• Sales increase by over 4-21% Lowering IoT-RFID implementation costs to 85%

ProxiTrak software is the example of how to empower companies that use RFID/IoT technology to make better decisions with CAD RFID virtual to real word synchronization and iterative learning. Providing big data and advanced CAD based RFID architecture has created powerful new sources of insights and unlocked important new KPIs such as computational RFID zone design and analytics to value. Fast access to logistics supply chain asset tracking data is readily available through multiple models, notably through smart virtual to real world RFID site survey coalescing. This paradigm places the customer at the focal point of business decisions in a way that the logistics supply chain industry has long craved.

What our previous use cases (https://www.rfidjournal.com/articles/view?16742/4 and https://www.rfidjournal.com/articles/view?18796/3) demonstrate is that the majority of RFID) demonstrates, however, is that the majority of RFID software companies have been slow to catch up. Over 90 percent of RFID software companies cannot provide predictive RFID modeling and design during RFID development, deployment, or implementation life cycles. Over 80 percent admitted that they have no objective way to assess or engineer CAD based RFID infrastructure for the output of their customers. With the lack of RFID software to link RFID infrastructure design to RFID health, supply chain companies are often reluctant to divert scarce resources to implement large scale RFID solutions. That is problematic because many of the key drivers of efficient and accurate RFID infrastructure designs call for company-level decisions and investment buy-in that have clear visibility into measures to ensure quicker return on investment.

The diversity among supply chain companies seeking RFID solutions shows that design-first RFID should be the catalyst in which financial metrics of profitability are used to measure the return or gain from an RFID software investment. From interviews and experience working with companies to transform their asset tracking efficiency, we’ve also discovered that one of the most powerful first steps is to select an

important problem domain and make a commitment to using it as a pilot for getting the RFID infrastructure design right. This approach showed far better financial results than trying to improve a design as a theme within the RFID solution deployment life-cycle of cross-functional work in isolation from related co-located sites.

Important actions companies must take to ensure their RFID infrastructure is solid with maximum optimized efficiency. First, at the top of the organization, adopt a software that employs a model-first analytical approach to design by measuring and researching your RFID software’s capability and performance with the same rigor the company devotes to revenues and costs. Second, put the RFID software ROI propensity front and center in the company’s culture by hardening the boundaries (between non design centric RFID software and services that don’t employ digital interactions and your requirements). Third, support your top RFID experts and empower them in cross-functional teams that take collective accountability for improving their RFID knowledge base while retaining the functional relation to your tracking requirements. Finally, iterate, test, and indoctrinate rapidly, focusing on RFID functional insights from the first pilot until long after the final launch.

Author

Curtis Shull, Proxigroup