Real time track and trace of high-value assets for optimal resource utilization

High-value assets, ranging from Jewelry, apparel, wheel-chairs, Returnable Transportation Items (RTI’s), IT assets such as laptops and server, oil and gas equipment etc. constitute a significant CapEx outlay for any organization and is an area that’s plagued by poor asset management through their lifecycle leading to poorer return on investment, and lost or stolen assets. In addition to obtaining real-time inventory snapshots to enable loss prevention, all of these assets have a real need to be managed and tracked across their lifecycles to increase life span utilization and provide businesses better returns on existing and future expenditure outlay.

An illustrative customer example in the area of high-value asset tracking is the tracking of casing sections in the Oil and Gas industry.

The use-case at a high level involves the following simplistic steps:

1. Casing sections stocked at warehouses nationwide
2. Each section potentially had a different length than the other
3. These sections were transported to the drilling site and stored in smaller quantities for consumption
4. Based on depth and other parameters, an installation plan is created and the casing sections are moved to rig floor
5. The Casing segments must be handled and inserted in the proper sequence and correct overall casing length as per plan

Without real time visibility, issues that were being faced were:

1. Mis-ships in inventory shipped from warehouse
2. Frequent mismatches in installation plans and casing sections required for plan on-site
3. Manual errors in pick sequence of casing sections for installation plan on-site leading to incorrect pipe insertion sequence
4. Lack of electronic audit trail for compliance with safety mandates and inspection requirements

Solution:
By utilizing the S3 Edge RTVS™ based solution for High-Value Asset tracking, the customer was able to track and trace the casing sections in real-time and cut down on errors during installing casing sections during pipe insertions at drilling time. The solution allowed the end user to:

1. Locate and ship the right casings on time
2. Ensure right casings are matched to right plan
3. Casings are inserted in right sequence reducing deployment errors
4. Provide an electronic audit trail based on RFID tags through the lifecycle of the casing

The schematic below outlines the real time workflow in action to track the high-value assets from ship to return and the resulting improvements:

Benefits

• Minimize human error around length measurement, and insertion sequence
• Closed loop of automation along with verification at pick time
• Manage on-site and warehouse inventory efficiently
• Maximize asset utilization, manage hold times
• Minimize over/under casing deployment errors
• Holistic asset visibility: warehouse view + operations view
• Real-time In-stock visibility by length, maintenance history, test results

Our strategic partnership with S3Edge allows Microsoft BizTalk RFID users to exploit the Speedway® reader’s advanced capabilities and performance. I highly recommend S3Edge as a partner to work with in building end-to-end solutions on the Microsoft RFID platform.