We created a new Facebook Page to host more discussions about EJS system. You can start any discussion threads about the topic and I will try to answer any questions. We also added more pictures showing RFID tagging for jewelry.
In Singapore Science Centre one time, we did this ( see video ) for 10,000 sq metres of space. We started with Ekahau version 2.0. Obviously since that time, there have been improvements to the engine I would think. The most current version is up till 4.1.
This is a typical calibration stage when you train the software to recognize spaces, and context.
Join Us
Do you like to find out more, or meet other RFID folks out there? Join us at Facebook group, RFID Spotlight. Click on the image below to jumpstart.
We like to keep track of the comments that came through emails, customer interactions or even on this blog. And the objective is to implement those great ideas, build them into EJS.
Current users will get their upgrades for free, and new users will benefit from these new innovations.
Comment 1 & Coming Up
Coming week, we are installing EJS Retail for a new retailer situated on the eastern part of Singapore. Following comments from the owner of the shop, we added a feature which allows the retail to handle consignments. This is when a retailer receives new consignments from the wholesale. The retailer may then sell from this consignment or return certain pieces that are unsold.
Comment 2
Someone who contacted us on the email and had earlier downloaded EJS Wholesale asked about
How do I design different label styles in your program ?
At this time, the jewelry software does not have a feature that allows user to design labels, be it barcode or RFID. We thought this is a great feature to include in EJS and we will plan for this.
I hope this has been helpful. Get tune in to tips, tutorials, and more updates on Enterprise Jewelry Software by subscribing to this blog.
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.
Join Us
Do you like to find out more, or meet other RFID folks out there? Join us at Facebook group, RFID Spotlight. Click on the image below to jumpstart.
We built Gold Calculator feature for the goldsmith and jewelers who need flexibility in the way they price their products. Having met jewelers for a number of years now, they share a similar requirement. Almost every jeweler that we have met has a different formula they are using to price their products. And so the case for Gold Calculator feature, which is included in Version 2 of Enterprise Jewelry Software.
The main benefit comes from giving the jeweler the extra edge to customize his unique price formula. Right pricing leads to a profitable business. This pricing formula is then applied to all the products he sells through EJS POS or Invoice modules.
How To Use ?
Let’s take the example of the following gold pricing formula,
( [ { ( FINE_GOLD_BASE x MANUFACT_LOSS } x MARK_UP ] + LABOUR_PRICE ) x UNIT_WEIGHT
You can very easily create a formula like that using the Gold Calculator by clicking on a couple of buttons. The left column buttons are common variables that a jeweler deals with on a daily basis. These variables are:
Manufacturing loss
Markup rate
Labour Price
Fine Gold Base
Unit Weight
Total Weight
Discount %
The right column are the operators - plus (+), minus (-), divide (/), multiply (x), group ( ‘(’ and ‘)’ ). Use the bracket symbols to group the smaller components of the formula.
Coming back to our example, ( (FINE_GOLD_BASE x MANUFACT_LOSS) x MARK_UP ). Two sets of open / close brackets are used to group operations on individual formula units. The formula unit, FINE_GOLD_BASE x MANUFACT_LOSS is performed first, and its result is then multiplied to the value of MARK_UP.
This is one of the latest addition to EJS, do you think this is useful ?
We added a new category “EJS New” to inform interested parties about new developments and adds on EJS software. And YES, same price. In our efforts to update new developments on the fly, EJS New will contain near real time informs. We will in time disseminate this information to our other channels. So do subscribe to this blog if you not already have, its free anyway.
Back to the new adds on EJS,
Support for Mettler Toledo Weighing Machine - Mettler Toledo is a leader and global provider of precision instruments. Click a button in EJS and the machine reports exact weighs for your items.
2 Versions 1 Software - EJS exist in 2 versions namely Retail (with POS) and Wholesale.
Multi-Lingual Support - Tagalog, Myanmarsar … more to come. Drop us a note on the comments area if you are looking for other languages.
If you have an EJS wish list, pop it over by email or drop a note on the comments area and we will see what we can do about that.
Are you interested to meet with fellow RFID developers, source out RFID Hardware folks? I recently started a RFID Spotlight Facebook Group with the aim to bring together RFID programmer and hardware providers to share resources and experience. Its just a great way to network and meet people in this field. I made it easy for you to find us, so come and join us by following the link below.
Coming back to the subject of this post. Previously I shared When do we use Real Time Location Systems (RTLS), I will continue to share on the pros and cons of using WIFI based RTLS. We had previously used both Ekahau and Placelab for projects. Although I do not rule out some situations that suggest to us RFID based RTLS system is more superior, in general there are just more tangible benefits to choose WIFI based RTLS systems.
Some benefits of using a WIFI based RTLS are:
Depending on the requirements for location granularity, if done properly WIFI based RTLS systems like Ekahau produce high tracking accuracies. Ranging on average between 1 metre - 3 metres indoors.
Reuse and leverage on existing WIFI infrastructure. Why spend all that money to invest in a proprietary RFID infrastructure that cannot be reused?
Quick ROI for WIFI investments by enabling other location-based applications or wireless applications.
With growing categories of devices built-in with WIFI, organizations can also track other assets such as PDAs, mobile phones, laptops and any other WIFI enabled devices. Ekahau client application supports a number of PDA devices.
The cons associated with WIFI based RTLS are :
Lack of Scalability : RTLS like EPE requires pre-calibration.In the language of Placelab, it means we need to train the system to “learn” about places on the map in relation to actual real locations. It is fine if you are calibrating for a bunch of classrooms in a small area, however it becomes increasingly complex to calibrate for large spaces - *think* stadium, 30-floors building, airport. EPE has a feature to “merge” calibration data of different maps ( e.g. one map for each floor ) which allows us to distribute that load among a few good persons. However the results from the merged calibrated data often falls short of the required accuracy, in fact occasionally erratic. Packages like Placelab also do not have “merge” capabilities.
Location Model. WIFI based RTLS builds a location model ground-up from inputs such as RSSI of any given location. RSSI as you know can be affected by structures, especially solid steel structures and even moving bodies, partitions etc. Several environment issues may potentially affect these variables - access points ( *imagine* a segment of WIFI access points crash out ), structures that block signals, new partitions etc. Particularly in a museum environment, where new exhibitions are frequently replaced every other quarter and new walls/partitions being built, the original location model may be “damaged”. In situations like this, the rule of thumb is to update the calibration model every three to four months.
WIFI Power Intensive. This is as plain as vanilla gets. WIFI is a pure power sucker. Its pure wishful thinking that a PDA with WIFI turned on can last more than 3 hours. Bearing in mind the fact, PDA internal battery actually performs poorer over time. It means a new WIFI PDA may last 2 - 3 hour the first time it is used; after several months of continual usage, it may last no more than 1 hour with WIFI turned on.
Well I hope we provided some notes (above) to help make your final decisions on RTLS implementations. Look forward to any form of comments to add to my points…
This is part 1 of 2 on RTLS. The idea is to give an introductory to RTLS and follow up with the pros and cons of RTLS in relation to an actual implementation.
Since the rise of RFID, everyone has something they want to track. From the big boys in the ranks of Wal-Mart, Metro AG, to small-mid-size inventory based setups, are quickly harvesting every RFID feature to reap its benefits. We have received some enquiries from tagging jewellery (*obviously*) , to producing RFID labels for medical bottles, tracking WIP items on manufacturing floor, to keeping tabs on people/patients real time. So the question is, can “one size” fit all?
Certainly not. RFID comes in several types and each may likely be more suitable for specific applications - (1) Passive based RFID (2) Semi-Passive RFID and (3) Active based RFID. For passive based RFID, they are further sub divided into LF, HF, UHF.
What I hope to share is on the practicality of Active RFID, or the term coined “Real Time Location Systems”. First to explain what it is. Real Time Locations Systems, commonly abbreviated RTLS generally falls into two implementation groups. The first uses RFID technology while the second approach adopts Wireless LAN, specifically what is commonly known as WIFI. It is debatable which technology was first used in RTLS; some say RFID and the other camp claims WIFI.
It was 2002 when we started working on RTLS based projects. Since that time, I have consulted in several projects that make use of RTLS. Our team has also developed several mobile applications using engines such as Ekahau Positioning Engine and Placelab.
Now, there are several options available in the market for RTLS. This is a list of WIFI based RTLS products, and you will notice one on the list is based on open source :
At the time of this writing, RTLS systems have also been implemented using Ultrawide Band (UWB) technology. RTLS setup at its basic, consists of a battery operated tag/badge that communicates with readers/beacons strategically placed within a building, park etc. In WIFI based RTLS, the active tag wireless transmits RSSI data to the location engine server on the wireless network. The location engine acts on the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) information for each device and calculates the coordinates which represent the device’s location on the map.
Not to be confused with passive based RFID, RTLS serves specific usage scenarios which cannot handled well (or efficiently) by HF or UHF RFID systems.
RTLS Use Case : In general RTLS use case will have a specific requirement to track assets or people whose locations are arbitrary at any point of time. For example, in a hospital there is an increasing requirement to track hospital mobile assets such as infusion pumps, beds, wheelchairs. With these assets, there are no associated planned routes that can suggest strategic placements of HF/UHF RFID readers. It is almost impractical to plant RFID interrogators at every corner, on every floor of a facility. Because of the short reading distance of passived based RFID systems, you will need at least one RFID reader every 3 - 5 metres (for HF systems every 1.5 metres) !!
In relation to this, a typical RTLS use case will require the future system in providing very fine granular localized information of its asset. Engines such as those from Ekahau, AeroScouts and NIST can provide tracking average accuracy of mere metres. Walking along corridors, Ekahau Positioning Engine in particular performs localization on average accuracy of one to two metres.
A key deciding factor on using RTLS, as the name implies concerns timing. Active tags being powered by batteries can be programmed to repeatedly send out signals (packets) in very short intervals of time. The location engine consumes these packets calculates the device’s approximate location. Typically active tags is able to “contact” a nearby beacon or access point in distances ranging from 25 metres to 100 metres, depending on the grade of access points used. In stark contrast, passive tags relies fully on RFID readers to power itself. With the uncertainty that a passive tag may be sufficiently close enough to a reader, there is considerably low chances the tag can even be detected to begin with.
In summary a typical RTLS use case will have at least one of the following requirements :
No pre-determined path. Need to “find” assets or people who can be anywhere at any point of time.
Application needs to track the exact position of an asset or person down to mere metres within the facility
The word is real-time. Use case requires real-time monitoring and reporting of the asset or person’s locality, in very short intervals of time (seconds or minutes)
Reading distances further than 3 -5 metres on average
NEED HELP? Please feel free to give us your comments below or if you need additional help tell us your problems with EJS in the comment area. We will be releasing a series of EJS Videos in the coming weeks. So stay tune to this development by subscribing to this blog.
We are glad to announce a brand new microsite ( jewelry.innovez-one.com) for Enterprise Jewelry Software ( EJS 2.0 ). You can download EJS 2.0 for a free trial period of 30 days. There are several new features we incorporated into EJS 2.0 :
Support for Single User if you are a Jewelry Startup or Multi-users versions
“GOLD Formula Calculator” - allows you to create your own pricing formulas.
Further support for Barcode or RFID technology
More than 15 new business reports
“1-Click EJS Installer” - makes it easy to install and register your license all in one application
We have all heard about RFID tagging of animals and pets now chipping is happening to fishes.
RFID is certainly going places, recently in Singapore it has gone under water. The Singapore Underwater World recently announced the latest RFID enabled sea aquarium exhibit. Several species of fish - Arapaima, Alligator Gar, Flower Ray, Pacu, Redtail Catfish, Shovelnose Catfish and Walking Catfish are implanted with RFID. In the past, visitors would have to match fish by their shape and colour to static information wall panels to figure them out. After a couple of tanks, it gets too tedious to find which is which - I know because I was there too.
NOW, when a fish moves within the vicinity of the RFID reader, the information about the fish runs up on the touch-screen display. And of course the visitor can interact further with the device to learn more information about the fish - its really something!
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