For an Ivy League Medical School that receives hundreds of millions of dollars in sponsored funding annually, completing federally and grant-mandated biennial inventories used to be a necessary but time-consuming, labor-intensive process. Audits conducted every two years required physically inventorying assets spread across a campus of two million square feet, made up of eighteen different buildings with a total of 960 rooms.
Accuracy had to be that the assets were not only found, but were found in the documented location. On average, it would take two hours for two people to identify about 50 assets, as they entered each lab and visually identified barcodes on equipment. Asset information and real-time location would be manually recorded with pen and paper for future entry into an excel spreadsheet. In total, the process required a minimum of 172 hours of work.
Why Adopt a Passive Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Solution for Inventory?
When it was recognized that the cumbersome process failed to account for over 250 sponsored assets valued at nearly $18 million, with an additional 809 non-sponsored assets worth millions more unaccounted for, it was apparent that the school needed to reevaluate its approach to inventory.
In developing a remediation plan, the University researched a range of asset tracking technology and different options for improving their inventory process, including both active and passive RFID technologies. After completing several rounds of RFPs and reaching out to other universities for reference, the Ivy League ultimately selected Radiant’s Passive RFID Solution, citing its unique software, flexible approach, and impressive track record of customer support.
Deploying the Passive RFID Solution
During the 2018-2020 inventory cycle, the University worked to deploy the passive RFID solution, a process that required tagging existing assets with new passive RFID enabled barcode labels, in addition to tagging over 270 brand new assets with the correct type of tag.
Because the University typically holds on to assets for a long time, passive RFID tags worked best for their needs since they are activated by an RFID reader and do not require an internal power source. In comparison, the continuous readability of active RFID tags or battery-powered BLE beacons was not necessary for this use case and both come with shorter battery life. The passive RFID solution was easily integrated with the existing Oracle Fixed Asset (OFA) system that the school had in place. However, one obstacle to adoption did arise and was not anything that could’ve been predicted: COVID-19.
Despite campus closing as a result of the pandemic, they were still able to fully implement the passive RFID solution by allowing the researchers to tag and inventory their own equipment, a circumstantial exception that was possible only because of the nature of the new approach. In fact, the University was so successful in its deployment of the passive RFID solution, that they were nominated by the RFID Journal in 2021 for their “Best RFID Implementation” award.
Passive RFID Solution Delivers Results
Ultimately, the school was able to reduce its total inventory time by more than 75%, while also improving the quality of their data through the adoption of Radiant’s passive RFID solution. The passive RFID system has also helped in improving other processes involving the movement of assets, such as lab moves and transfers.
Inspired by the results found at the elite Medical School, several other University departments, as well as another Ivy League school, have recently begun their own deployment of our passive RFID solution, joining the growing roster of higher education customers that have found similar success with Radiant.
Asset Management Systems Used in Education
Learn more about Radiant’s Passive RFID solution for Higher Education or request your demo today.
PASSIVE RFID SOLUTION: The Passive RFID Edge Read tag is a revolutionary RFID label for smart tagging both metallic and non-metallic assets. It is extremely flexible and has a low profile to fit small assets like smart phones and tablets.
PASSIVE RFID SOLUTION: With a small footprint and low profile, the Universal Mini RFID easily fits where other tags may be too large and obtrusive and still provides incredible read ranges compared to other tags in its class.
Last Updated on January 26, 2023 by Radiant