Anyone using or know of anyone using RFID tags to perform inventory transactions?
Yep - I do! That’s what the company I work for does. We manufacture RFID tags for many purposes. Asset tracking and inventory being one.
Do y’all use your own tags and do you have an Epicor integration built out?
At a previous company we implemented RFID for rental inventory, but the rental system was a different software, not Epicor.
RFID is great, but there is also a lot of unwarranted hype around it. For most scanning processes it was basically the same idea / efficiency as regular barcoding – not needing a line of sight to the barcode is awesome, sure, but it doesn’t end up saving that much time.
Where it really made a difference – and I mean a HUGE difference – was its ability to locate assets. We had an RFID reader with what we called the “Geiger Counter” app where the user enters/selects the asset they’re looking for, and then scans around the warehouse following the chirping of the app to get closer and closer to the asset. A TON of money used to be wasted by people not being able to find the needle in the haystack of inventory, and RFID basically solved that problem overnight.
Tom thanks for the use case.
That is what I am trying to figure out, is RFID worth the hype.
We have been thinking about implementing scanning, but I had the notion that RFID was a better alternative to scanning because there is no need for human interaction.
I guess in any case you would still need to report how much you were using on a job.
It comes in handy when you’re able to scan a bunch of things in bulk. Something like an inventory move where you can enter values like PartNum and To/From Bins in your device’s UI, and then RFID scan a big pile or pallet of items where the tag is a Lot number. There is also PCID in Epicor for a lot of stuff like that though.
It is also not great with metal products, though you can buy more expensive tags that work better.
I’ve heard of people using it to do inventory too, basically replacing cycle counts. Put an RFID tag on anything you want to track and then have drones carrying RFID readers flying around the warehouse scanning the shelves. An integration pushes data to Epicor and carries out whatever business logic you want it to. There was some dude at Insights a couple years ago who had a booth for something like this.
Do you recall his name or anyone that might know him?
I don’t, unfortunately. I can tell you that it was the 2018 Insights in Nashville and that he was a very tall guy with a ponytail.
Alright, thank you.
Another thing that people don’t understand when they hear RFID is that there are different types of tags, Active and Passive (I think those are the correct terms)
The Active tags have their own power source and emits it location that can be picked up. Think of the Apple airtags or tiles.
The Passive require a device to “activate” it to be read. Basically a barcode.
The active tags are too expensive to use for inventory (unless the product it is on is already expensive). The passive are nice, but really only useful in a few situations. The best use case that I can think of for the passive is if you want to store a lot of data in the tag that is too much for a barcode.
2 Likes
I liked the idea of combining the passive RFID tags with beacons. Let’s say a fork lift has a reader and is constantly reading the tags around it as it moves around the warehouse. The beacons tell the forklift where the tags are when they are read. The readings are sent to a service that logs the time and location of the tag. If the location hasn’t change, the record is dumped. If the location is new, then the current location is updated and a history record is written.
The other place I like the idea of RFID is catching things as they move in and out of warehouses. This way you have some idea when a package/pallet arrived or left.
1 Like
I agree Mark, that seems to be a common use for them.
Thank you for the clarification John, I didn’t know there was “active” and “passive” tags.
I have two customers using an RFID solution. One has it connected to Epicor and uses it for tracking inventory, people and tools, and the other customer uses it as a standalone tool locator. Eventually, it will also be used to track jobs. Private message me if you want more details. This is not the appropriate platform for me to promote our company or services.
Will do Matt, thank you for reaching out. I am looking for someone to talk to about it.
Not sure how to PM on this site. It doesn’t appear to have that functionality or its not intuitively evident. However, we receive RFID parts form our over shores company. We were wondering if there are any other Epicor users that have success with integrating a RFID gateway/arch for use in mass receipts into Epicor? If so what solutions do they use and do they have any native Epicor integrations? I imagine we would start there then expand with other RFID capabilities at some point
You have to move up a trust level to be able to private message.
Participation in the forum is how you do that.
I do believe you can receive them as a basic user though.