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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Sokymat developed one of the first tamper proof jewellery tags in the world. The tag operates in 13.56Mhz. One of its most distinguishing feature is that the tag cannot be removed without leaving behind a physical electronic trace of tampering.

The tamper proof tag is priced approximately USD$1.20 per tag for a quantity of 40,000. In order to reuse the tag, the Sokymat delivers the used tamper proof tags to a factory at the cots of USD0.25 per piece.

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Enterprise Jewlery Software implements a security feature using RFID. The solution approaches the problem with appropriate theft preventive measures and recovery.

Placing antennas into each display space, jewelry items are continously scanned real-time 24 hours. Thefts often happens at the counter when an enthusiastic sales person loses track of the items that are removed from the drawer while showing dazzling jewels to potential buyers. This is the opportune time for the attacker to strike, to conveniently drop off an extra item in his pocket.

Using RFID scanners built into every shelf, the EJS system will pick up if an unusual number of jewelry items are removed from the display. The system immediately alerts the store manager who tunes in to the activity and responds accordingly. EJS can be integrated with panning camera systems to observe any suspicious activity in the store.

This sharply contrasts a jewelry RFID system using handheld readers. A cheaper alternative, however the semi automated solution cannot implement the security feature described above. Missing items detected using a handheld RFID solution is often too late for item recovery.

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