Sun Trials RFID Asset Tracking
The application and business processes in the solution rely on RFID technology to determine the real-time location of critical assets and issue an alert when an asset being tracked is not in its assigned location. "We saw the need in our own facility to track assets," said Julie Sarbacker, director RFID business unit at Sun.
Sun has more than 1,500 labs worldwide to support its multibillion dollar research and development efforts. To reduce costs and increase efficiencies, it has begun to consolidate its labs and found that it needs a better method of tracking its equipment.
Bar codes, which are typically placed on the back of equipment, for example, where it's difficult to read, provides information about the asset, but not the location or the last person to use or move it. Jim Clarke, chief RFID architect at Sun, said companies most interested in this asset tracking system are hospitals to track IV pumps and beds, airports to keep track of travelers' luggage and equipment, and large companies that just want to track PCs and printers.
The Sun RFID Industry Solution for Physical Asset Tracking has already been deployed internally at two locations -- the Sun Shared Lab in Newark, Calif., and the Sun Tradeshow Equipment Distribution Center in Milpitas, Calif.
Within the Sun Newark Shared Lab Project, Sun plans to maintain 10,000+ servers and computing devices within a 6,000-square-foot facility. Within one hour, Sun can verify the location and physical characteristics from type, to age, to expiration date, to temperature for all assets at the facility without the need of a network connection. It takes much less time to take inventory, too. In fact, it takes a few seconds to read 50 server racks for those tagged with RFID vs. five to 20 minutes to read each a server rack with bar code tags.Sun's system includes the Solaris 10 Operating System, Sun Java Enterprise System, and Sun Java System RFID Software. The solution also has third-party applications, such as the RFID-enabled mobile asset management system from Applied Logistics Solutions. It is capable of working with many of the commonly available RFID readers, including Intermec RFID readers and Intelleflex ultra-long-range battery-assisted semi-passive RFID tags and readers.
Although Sun has yet to sign any major deals, there is a market for asset tracking using RFID technology. I.D. Systems Inc. on Tuesday reported it has signed a three-year deal valued at approximately $900,000 with an undisclosed North American aluminum manufacturer to deploy a vehicle tracking system for forklifts and other equipment at an aluminum production facility in New York.