Applications

The advantages of high memory RFID

High memory tags deliver a compelling value proposition in many applications beyond aviation, evidenced by customers of Tego technology in the renewable energy, chemical, medical, transportation and defense industries.

High memory tagging solutions transform the life-cycle management and overall effectiveness of business assets, and do so in a manner that delivers the lowest total cost of ownership, and initial deployment that is rapid and inexpensive.

The benefits of high memory UHF RFID technology are detailed here as follows:

• A compelling value proposition
• High memory tags or license plates?
• Solution advantages and benefits
• Lowest total cost of ownership

A compelling value proposition

High memory tagging solutions increase the effectiveness of organizations in leveraging their assets by ensuring that necessary information is always available, and this typically delivers significant value in the following areas:

• Optimizing the management of lifed parts and periodic maintenance — studies show that lifed parts are often taken out of servive with 15% of their economic life remaining and that periodic maintenance is often overlooked because of the poor availability of information;
• Increasing time spent on value adding tasks — instant, automated access to key information at an asset greatly reduces the time spent searching for information (and then documenting work done), and the increased quality of information can greatly reduce the occurences of conditions like "no fault found" or recurring problems;
• Improving operational risk management — for example by providing on-site indication that maintenance of critical assets has been performed and reducing liabilities by providing a verifiable audit trail;
• Increasing asset value by providing pedigree information — reducing the time taken to document configuration for events such as initial delivery and off-lease return, and providing an accurate pedigree of proper maintenance that can maximize both the expected life and residual value of assets;
• Automating compliance documentation — reducing the time spent recording activities as a result of legal requirements or internal quality procedures.

High memory tags or license plates?

Many users are familiar with the use in retail supply chains of an ID-only tag to access a networked database, and assume that is the best implementation. But the short life-time and disposable nature of retail supply chains is hardly a good analogy for applications like the life-cycle optimization of important assets – and nor is it therefore a good blueprint on which to base a solution.

High memory tags are not in competition with networks or databases, although it is certainly possible to implement solutions that do not require that infrastructure.

Typically, high memory tags and networks are implemented together in a synergistic manner that leverages the strengths of both approaches. For example, high memory tags can address all the concerns identified by users considering a cloud strategy.

Solution advantages and benefits

Operating anywhere

Remote locations do not have easy access to networks

High memory tags take RFID outside the "four walls" and provide information where it is needed in the field, reducing wireless data costs, and even extending the reach of the technology to locations where there is no network because of remoteness or the shielding effects of metal in typical industrial environments.

Sharing information across organizations

Several organizations are typically involved in the process of manufacturing, using and maintaining any asset, and within an organization, several groups are involved in procuring, installing, using and decommissioning it. As a result, the key life-cycle history information for that asset is widely distributed, and the implementation and integration complexities associated with making this information available over a network can be punitive in terms of both cost and time-scale.

Moreover, in the modern world of competitive outsourcing, it is not uncommon to see so called "coopetition" where the original manufacturers compete with each other, and even sometimes with end users, to manage and maintain the equipment. There are thus genuine organizational issues and concerns that make widespread data sharing impractical.

High memory tags enable the "Goldilocks" scenario where organizations can share "just the right amount" of data with each other by putting it on the tag, such that the organization with custody has the information it needs about that asset but no more than that. Controlled dissemination of data reduces the probability of any liability issues occurring, and also prevents aggregation of data by competitors.

Lasting the lifetime of the asset

Most RFID devices are designed to meet the needs of the retail supply chain where only short time periods are involved. As a result, they are able to use inexpensive memory technologies used in consumer markets, where the data is held in the form of a charge. This charge dissipates over time, especially as temperatures increase, and is vulnerable to corruption by intentional or background radiation. For this reason, the predicted memory life is rarely cited, and then only under the most benign conditions.

In contrast, high memory Tego devices incorporate a "bullet proof" memory technology that can withstand time, temperature and radiation. Accelerated aging tests indicate expected memory retention is at least 100 years under benign conditions, and decades when continuously exposed to very high temperatures.

Tego high memory technology therefore represents the safest solution for long-life assets in any environment, and greatly reduces the risks of an expensive field recall or maintenance activity to address tag memory issues.

Increasing security

Not only do high memory tags allow organizations to limit with confidence how much information is being shared, but they include a tamper-proof memory technology for extra security.

The high memory payload also supports the use of strong cryptographic technologies, such as NSA Suite B, which is approved for "top secret" use. Such techniques can be used to both encrypt the data for secrecy and to sign the data for authentication. This allows the tag to be used safely to hold private internal organizational data while sharing public information with other organizations.

Ensuring availability

High memory tags assist recovery after incidents like adverse weather

With high memory tags, the information about a tagged asset is always available with the asset, ensuring availability of information at all times.

This is especially valuable when for example infrastructure is impaired as a result of a disaster such as catastrophic weather conditions. After such events, if any telecommunucations circuits remain intact, they are typically overloaded. Despite this, high memory tags can still provide valuable information about the maintenance and configuration history of parts and accelerate the process of getting infrastructure up and running again.

Simplifying deployment

As high memory solutions are designed to operate anywhere, they can be deployed rapidly without the need at the outset for complex IT integration or additional server and networking capabilities. All of the components necessary for a solution, such as hardware, enabling software and interoperability standards are already in place. Indeed, may customers have been live in less than a week reading and writing information to key assets. Such deployments are readily upgradable to full scale integrated solutions should the organization subsequently wish to make that step.

Lowest total cost of ownership

While the fact that high memory tag solutions offer the lowest upfront cost is attractive, a far more important metric is the total cost of ownership.

When compared to pure identification-only license plate and active tagging solutions, passive high memory has by far the lowest total cost of ownership with significant advantages throughout the entire life-cycle as follows:

• Acquisition — as both active and passive high-memory tags can operate without a network, the IT and network costs are significantly less than a passive system. Even where a network is installed, the requirements for latency, bandwidth and availability are significantly descoped, yielding significant cost savings. Passive high-memory tags have a lower cost of acquisition than expensive and proprietary active tags, and the surrounding infrastructure is based on widely deployed Gen 2 equipment available from numerous suppliers. Indeed, many organizations have the infrastructure they need already deployed for use in their supply chain.
• Operation — as in acquisition, both passive high-memory and active solutions have greatly reduced infrastructure footprints, and this reduces the operating costs of these systems compared to passive identification only approaches. The savings are especially significant compared to architectures requiring real time wireless data outside the "four walls" of the organization, or where large volumes of data drive the need to operate server farms.
• Support — high memory solutions have a clear advantage in terms of support compared with the other approaches. Active tags are more complex devices, with a much lower mean time between failures, and incorporate batteries, which mean that they have a finite life and that the tags themselves become maintenance items. Identification only passive tags are also maintenance free, but have a much higher infrastructure footprint in terms of computing and network assets that require ongoing support.
• Disposal — at end of life, passive high memory and identification systems are battery free, making disposal a far easier process than is the case with active tags which contain batteries and require special disposal procedures as a result. Because of the reduced infrastructure foot-print, high memory tagging systems are also much easier to remove from service than passive identification counterparts.