Deployment

Asset Tracking & Public Services

Everything the balance sheet owns and nobody can find at 4 pm on a Friday.

Asset tracking is the least glamorous RFID business and the one that pays back fastest, because the baseline is almost always a spreadsheet that nobody trusts. The project is not a reader purchase; it is a count that has to reconcile. That means the tag has to survive the asset, the read point has to match how people actually walk, and the software has to accept a batch upload from a device that was out of coverage for two hours. We quote the handheld and the antenna, and we are explicit about which assets a handheld can find and which ones need a fixed portal.

Who actually makes the purchase

Facilities and estate teams, hospitals and labs, utilities and municipal works, telecom tower operators, and the RFID integrators who deliver the inventory count.

Where these projects stall

Typical software in this stack

Send this requirement

The asset register is wrong before the project starts

Most sites begin with 15-30 percent of records that cannot be matched to a physical object. The first pass is always a discovery walk, not a go-live, and the device has to be fast enough that a two-day count does not become two weeks.

The tag fails before the reader does

Metal shelves, liquid containers, autoclaves and outdoor poles each break a different tag. On-metal UHF labels, ceramic tags, or a simple printed 2D label with a photo in the record beats an RFID tag that reads at 20 cm.

Nobody owns the sync

Basements, plant rooms, tunnels and lift shafts have no signal. Batch mode with a timestamped queue and a duplicate-safe upload is the requirement; real-time sync is a nice-to-have that becomes the reason a count is rejected.

Data flow

How the information actually moves

This is the part that decides the device. Each step below has a different requirement for screen size, scan engine and connectivity.

01Tag and registerEvery asset gets an identity: an on-metal UHF label where it survives, a printed 2D label where it does not, both carrying the same asset number so the record works either way.

02Discovery countA handheld with a 4 dBi circular antenna sweeps a floor in a pass, logging location zone and timestamp. The gap list - records with no read - is the deliverable, not the read count.

03Fixed points where it mattersServer rooms, pharmacy stores and tool cribs get a portal or a shelf antenna so movement is captured without anyone scanning. This is where a handheld stops being enough.

04Move, repair, retireThe same device records transfers, sends an item to repair and retires it, with a photo attached. The audit trail is the product; the hardware just has to not lose it.

05Reconcile and reportCounts export to the fixed-asset register and to the finance period. Anything that cannot be reconciled is flagged rather than quietly written off, which is what auditors actually ask for.

Reference deployments

Asset tracking programmes we can talk about

Same workflow, same failure points, different scale. The kit column is what was actually deployed.

All deployments

8 h → 30 min Retail & apparel

Fashion chain, 200+ stores

Full stock-take of a two-floor store, done before opening instead of after closing.

UHF RFID handheld + fixed reader at the stockroom door

10 M parcels / day Parcel & logistics

Global logistics hub

Sortation reads at belt speed; no manual re-scan when a label is creased.

Pistol-grip UHF reader + vehicle terminal on the tug

1,800 spindles Production & MES

Smart textile mill

Spindle-level traceability replaces paper travellers on the spinning line.

Rugged tablet at the line + UHF handheld for the doff round

Hardware

Devices we quote for this deployment

BH-C6100

Android 10 / 13 · RFID

UHF RFID handheld, 20 m class

UHF Bluetooth reader, compact

10.1" Windows rugged tablet

FingerprintNFC2D scan

View specs

BH-I61J

Windows · Handhelds

6.5" Windows rugged handheld

UHF Bluetooth reader, multi-platform

Rfid

View specs

Questions we get

Before you ask

The questions that come up on almost every project in this sector, answered before the first call.

All questions

01UHF RFID or just barcodes?

Barcodes if the assets are few, close together and read one at a time. UHF when the job is finding things: a shelf of 300 tagged items reads in seconds and tells you what is missing, which a barcode never will because you have to see each label.

02What read range is realistic indoors?

A handheld at 2 W with a 4 dBi antenna gives 3-6 m on a well-placed on-metal tag, less through shelving and much less around corners. Vendors quoting 20 m are quoting an open-field number with a fixed reader. Plan the count by zone, not by radius.

03Can this run on the devices we already own?

If they have a UHF module or a 2D imager and a keyboard-wedge or SDK path into your EAM, yes. We will tell you which of your existing units can carry the workload and which will need an external Bluetooth reader instead of a new fleet.

04Can you supply five units for a pilot?

Yes. A pilot is the normal entry point. We quote single units at sample pricing and support the pilot with spare parts on the same order — a spare battery and a cradle, not a pallet.

05Do the Android units ship with GMS?

Most Android models ship with GMS. For builds where Google services must be absent, we supply a GMS-free firmware on the same hardware — say so at the quotation stage, because it is a firmware decision, not a setting.

06What warranty do you give?

One year as standard, covering the unit and the battery against manufacturing faults. Extended cover and advance-replacement terms are available for fleets — ask for them with the quotation, not after the first failure.

Handheld UHF RFID across eight industries: what the tag has to survive

Medical, power, energy, construction, mining, oil and gas, electronics and agriculture — the asset, the tag problem, the read distance that matters and the device each one needs.

Running a asset tracking project?

Send the workflow and the software stack. You will get two models and the caveats, not a catalogue.

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