RFID Software Explained Part 2: Business Applications
Posted by Bret Kinsella on Sun, Oct 24, 2010
In part one of RFID software explained, we covered the 
foundation of the stack: RFID Device Management. Device management involves device control, integration and edge services. It is the infrastructure and management features that are in the background and make the system work. By contrast, the features that users interact with are the business applications.
RFID business applications are designed to take advantage of RFID capabilities by providing workflows, business rules, reports, graphical user interfaces and data storage. For example, a user may need to view a packing list for a kit, assign a location status to a weapon or find a missing IT Asset. Business applications provide functionality to address these scenarios.
What about Existing Business Applications (ERP, WMS, HIMS, EAM)?
The logical question is, “Why wouldn’t you just enable the functionality in existing business applications such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Warehouse Management Systems (WMS), Healthcare Information Management Systems (HIMS) or Enterprise Asset Management (EAM)?” Most organizations already have numerous applications utilized daily to execute business processes.
The challenge is that many business applications are not designed to capture the additional location, time stamp and serialization provided by RFID. Others can view items discretely (i.e. one at a time as in a bar code scenario), but are not equipped to process hundreds of items simultaneously and link them dynamically to a bill of material (BOM). In addition, the cost and time to change an existing application is routinely too great to meet business objectives. When companies do go to the trouble of modifying existing applications, they are then saddled with custom extensions and that must be supported internally.
RFID business applications fill this gap and provide commercial off the shelf (COTS) solutions for a wide range of business needs. These applications grew up specifically to address new business processes, workflows and rules enabled by RFID. For example, a medical device manufacturer’s ERP system doesn’t support automatic receipt and delta analysis of full sets of orthopaedic implants. EasyKit™ fills that gap and then passes the full inventory and order reconciliation information up to the ERP. Maximo doesn’t provide in-depth location and tracking detail for IT assets out of the box. IAM™ and solutions from other vendors were developed capture and present this data for use.
Can you deploy RFID without RFID business applications?
Here is a secret that most RFID software companies won’t reveal. You can deploy RFID without RFID specific business applications. To do so, you must connect the readers directly to your existing systems utilizing RFID device management software such as EasyEdge™. Since RFID devices are capturing data, you need some application as the destination of that data. Your choice is between existing in-house business applications or RFID specific business applications.
Lesson for End Users
As end users consider adopting RFID, the first step is to conduct a gap analysis of the new features required to fully leverage the technology and those already offered in existing business applications. If you already have all of the features present, there is no need for RFID business applications. You can connect directly from the devices to your existing applications utilizing RFID device management software or agents. If there is a gap, you should evaluate available RFID business applications for a match and then determine which application, the new or existing, will be the system of record.
Next up, RFID Software Explained Part 3: implementation architectures
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