Embracing RFID for School Technology Asset Tracking

Easy RFID Tagging of Student Laptops and Tablets for Schools

Challenge: A school faced the tedious task of keeping track of hundreds of student administered laptops (Chromebooks). The challenge was to print RFID based asset tags for each of their laptops. The school had wasted a year of resources with another vendor without achieving their goals. Pre-printed tags from packaging vendors required too much administrative management, lead time, and didn’t allow the team to be agile and react quick enough to hardware failures and replacements when swapping student laptops. The goal was to take control of their own on-site tag printing, allowing for quick and painless hardware turn around.

Solution: The RFIDLinked Bundle with Scanner, Printer, ARC Compliant Tags. The solution empowered the school to immediately print RFID tags (EZ Tags) for each Laptop. The RFIDLinked feature EZ Tag allowed the school to customize (4) data fields on each RFID tag: Make, Model, Serial Number, and Date Acquired. With the laptops RFID tagged and in the technology storeroom, collecting inventory could now be done with a single scan in seconds, rather than pulling each laptop individually. The inventory scan is saved and exported via xls/csv, creating a detailed record of laptops on-hand. The “Scan Match” list verification feature allowed each month’s inventory scan to be tracked over time and compared. The tag locator and filter features made it faster and easier to find a specific Chromebook when required. Self printing each tag resulted in quicker turn around with the growing fleet of student laptops. RFIDLinked made it easier to manage the laptops, and the school now has an easy-to-use, affordable, and repeatable method for staying on top of the laptops and tablets.

Solution Resources:

• Software Provider: RFIDLinked.com

• Hardware Bundle Provider: (Scanner + Printer + ARC Compliant Tags):

  https://www.barcode-arena.com/rfidlinked-hardware-bundle.html

Key Benefits:

1. EZ Tags

• Not all use cases require understanding and implementing the complex industry supply chain encoding standards. EZ Tags allowed this school’s technology department to quickly print RFID tags to track their assets, while including all of the data points important to them.

2. Efficient Data Retrieval

• Validate inventory in seconds, rather than hours. The school was able to verify their laptops in seconds with a quick sweep of the RFID scanner, compared to previous methods of individually scanning 2D barcode based asset tags.

3. Direct Printer Connectivity

• Direct connectivity to the printers via Bluetooth or Network eliminated the need for additional software or using computers/workstations. Using a single device and application for both scanning and printing simplified the conversion to RFID tags.

In adopting RFIDLinked and the associated hardware bundle, the school addressed their immediate need for laptop and tablet tracking and organization. By bringing RFID tag printing in-house, they were able to take control of their asset tracking, build a solution tailored specific to their use case, and removed the need for working with a packaging vendor for tags.