RFID for Tracking Tools

Filed in archive RFID Basics on June 24, 2005

From InformationWeek comes this article about using RFID to keep track of tools that have a tendency to disappear:

"Radio-frequency identification tags aren't just for the supply chain. Robert Bosch Tool Corp. has begun selling tools with embedded RFID tags and asset-tracking software to help businesses protect tools from theft.

The company's Digital Power Tools division is tagging 66 tools--things like circular and reciprocator saws and hammer drills--that are typically sold to businesses for construction work. The RFID-tagged tools are part of a new anti-theft service from Bosch called Safe & Sound. Customers who opt for the service will have to pay a little more for their tools, but with the service "it's less likely the tools will grow feet and walk off the job site," said Gregg Mangialardi, RFID project lead in the accessories division at Robert Bosch, speaking last week at Intermec Technologies Corp.'s I-Comm user conference.

Job-site equipment theft cost the construction industry last year between $300 million and $1 billion, with 71,873 reports of theft in the United States and less than 10% of the stolen equipment recovered, according to the National Equipment Register Inc., which keeps a database of registered and stolen equipment."

Sounds to me like this form of asset-tracking isn't so much about finding lost equipment on the job site, but more about knowing who was the last person to sign out a tool.

This application uses Intermec tags/readers and Blue Dot software.