Tracking loose diamonds using RFID
One of the biggest challenges that diamond traders face with is in managing the hundreds if not thousands of loose gems. Imagine walking into the office with all these envelopes of precious loose stones stacked in boxes and …………………
try figure what is the current inventory status for the goods.
If you are using a barcode scanner, life is probably prettier although still rather tedious. For some it is an entirely MANUAL task, an extremely laborious job. It will take ages just to make sure all the numbers tally.
What if there is a better solution? Like sticking the box through a tunnel-like scanner, and everything about your inventory reads out to you on the screen?
The RFID Answer
Diamonds are placed in an individual envelope, and each envelope is stacked in a box like the above ( see figure above ). RFID tags are then stuck to the envelope (paper label) or inserted (non- adhesive plastic card), one tag for each envelope. When the user pushes the box through the scanner, it reads the information stored in the tag for each envelop and display the entire inventory for a single box on the screen. This is a HUGE man hours saver.
RFID ROI Question
100 tags can be identified in 1-2 seconds.
Take a scenario of 10,000 diamonds. In terms of equipment resources using this solution, it will require 2 x MTR units (the tunnel like scanner above), operated by 1 person. In terms of time, it will take approximate 5 hours to complete inventory check procedure. Contrast this to a manual system. For 10,000 diamonds, it will require 20 persons over 3 weeks thereabouts.
That comes up to 15 minutes per diamond vs 5 minutes per 100 diamonds. It’s a great saving in man-hours, no doubt about it.
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