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BERKELEY, Calif. - July 19th 2011 - For eighty
years Lawrence Berkeley National Labs has been the hub
of numerous scientific breakthroughs. The research at
Berkeley Labs has saved lives, reduced energy costs, inspired
generations and has changed the world for the better.
Continuing their commitment to new technology, the lab
has deployed an RFID
Asset tracking solution from AssetPulse to track and
manage their sophisticated lab equipment. The RFID solution
from AssetPulse helps the lab quickly locate equipment,
and keep track of equipment as it moves between different
buildings at the prestigious facility.
The Advanced Light Source (ALS) of the Lawrence Berkeley
Lab owns specialized high value equipment such as vacuum
pumps that are accountable to the Department of Energy.
The equipment is loaned by the inventory personnel to
lab scientists and visiting scientists whenever it is
requested. The equipment then moves through the ALS to
various beam-lines and sometimes to other buildings. The
inventory personnel need to periodically know the whereabouts
of every asset, apart from keeping track of which team
is using it and if it was still being used. The current
location and status of these assets needs to be gathered
without impeding the activities of the scientists and
technicians who are using the equipment. On many occasions,
technicians request for a specific piece of equipment
that cannot be located in the storage area, and there
is no trace of who is currently using it. In these situations,
the inventory team spends many hours performing a search
for assets at the large facility spanning nearly 80,000
sq. ft.
The management at LBNL was cognizant of the RFID technology
and desired a solution to the above problem. AssetPulse
was deputed to understand LBNL's use-case and requirements.
After thorough analysis, AssetPulse found that there were
potential use cases for both Active and Passive RFID to
be deployed, both having their individual challenges and
advantages. AssetPulse presented the pros and cons of
both approaches to LBNL and it was decided to commission
a pilot to evaluate both options and then select the best
methodology.
A fixed passive RFID reader, a handheld passive RFID reader,
a fixed active RFID reader and a mobile active RFID reader
were deployed in two stages of the pilot. The AssetGather
real-time
asset tracking platform of AssetPulse was already
designed to work with all types of RFID and sensor data.
For rapid deployment during the pilot, the AssetGather
server software was provided as a cloud service. Two sets
of equipment were tagged separately with active and passive
RFID tags. The process of physically tagging assets revealed
certain discrepancies in the existing inventory data,
and provided an opportunity for making corrections.
During the course of the pilot, LBNL personnel and AssetPulse
worked together to record observations, and gauge business
process efficiencies of both active and passive methodologies.
After an extensive three month evaluation period, it was
found that both Active
and Passive RFID were much more efficient than the
manual tracking process. However, inventory scanning and
search for equipment in the ALS is better served with
the use of Active RFID.
At LBL, active RFID produces the ability to read assets
for over 200ft. This was quite desirable for LBNL personnel,
because just a quick walk around the Light Source picks
up the entire inventory from all floors of the building.
It also allowed personnel to just walk by closed labs
and read the tagged assets inside. This was very useful
because the inventory personnel do not have permission
to enter all of the labs in the facility.
Prior to the deployment of RFID, a manual process of inventorying
and locating equipment was very time consuming. In some
cases, equipment could never be located. In cases of extreme
emergency, if a piece of equipment was not found it would
be purchased or leased for thousands of dollars. With
passive RFID, inventorying and search of a building was
5 times faster (efficiency was improved by 500%) compared
to the manual process. With the active RFID system, an
inventory
of equipment dispersed over four buildings was 8 times
faster (800% better) and search was 3 times (300%) faster
compared to the manual process. (Depending on where the
person started searching and where the asset was actually
found).
"The AssetPulse active
RFID solution meets my needs for managing the ALS
vacuum equipment pool. The inventory and search capability
of the active system is invaluable during the yearly wall
to wall inventory of the entire lab. Having an up-to-date
inventory record of all assets will cut the time and labor
cost to the lab to an ultimate minimum. Previously, wall-to-wall
inventory has taken multiple weeks to manually find and
scan these assets." said Frank Zucca, Sr. Mechanical
Engineering Technical Associate at LBNL.
"It is an honor for us to have deployed our solutions
at the same site which housed the cyclotron where many
Nobel Prize winning discoveries were made. There were
a few interesting challenges that were posed in this project,
due to the heavy presence of metal, and other interferences
at the lab", said Sujatha Bodapati, CEO of AssetPulse.
"Through a pilot, we helped LBL evaluate the various
options and choose the right technology for them. AssetPulse
specializes in working closely with customers to provide
them the most optimal RFID asset tracking solution that
will deliver an immediate and tangible business value".
After the successful completion of the pilot, the AssetGather
active RFID
solution has been rolled out to the rest of the assets
in the advanced light source lab. The use of passive RFID
is being discussed for other departments at LBNL.
About AssetPulse
AssetPulse is a leading provider of RFID asset tracking
solutions that integrate seamlessly with fixed and mobile
RFID readers using Passive, Semi-Passive and Active RFID
Technologies. Apart from major commercial establishments,
AssetPulse has deployed its solutions at various U.S.
Government sites including the US Army, US Air Force and
the Department of Energy.
For more information, please call (408) 872-3104 or visit
www.assetpulse.com.
| AssetPulse and AssetGather are
trademarks or registered trademarks of AssetPulse,
LLC. All other company and product names mentioned
may be trademarks of the respective companies with
which they are associated. |
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