Application of RFID technology in special uniform management

The company has established an RFID information management system to track and manage various uniforms, which greatly reduces the time to find and collect uniforms, reduces the replacement cost of lost uniforms, and improves the quality of customer service. The company has the world's leading IoT intelligent management system for emergency service protective clothing, clothing and personal protective equipment (PPE). Its customers include multiple fire brigades, clothing companies, special equipment manufacturers, etc. across the country.

Challenges faced by RFID technology in the application of special uniform management: (Take fire alarm uniform management as an example)

1. In the traditional uniform management process, when taking inventory of uniforms, a code scanner is used to scan each piece of clothing, which is time-consuming and labor-intensive, and sometimes errors may occur.

2. Since the distribution and delivery of uniforms in some fire alarm point warehouses does not have specialized personnel for statistical management, there is usually no way to know in real time which uniforms and equipment have been collected.

3. In the actual police dispatch process, due to the urgency of the task, the action must be fast and efficient. Before dispatching the police, it is often required to quickly organize the equipment. At this time, you may not know the specific location of the required police equipment, or some uniforms. The equipment was placed in the wrong location, which resulted in equipment logistics being unable to keep up and attendance efficiency being low.

4. How to ensure that specialty uniforms and equipment are found in the correct location each time they are used and returned.

Solutions given by the company:

Each newly manufactured uniform is equipped with a passive RFID tag, which automatically tracks the item through a unified system process. RFID tags encapsulated in waterproof fabric can be securely sewn into the pockets of each piece of clothing, and RFID tags with adhesive backing can be directly attached to hard objects such as helmets. Fabric labels can withstand temperatures up to 180 degrees, which means they are guaranteed to function under most fire conditions and after professional cleaning procedures. The key point in this management process is that handheld or fixed RFID Readers need to be used to read uniform equipment when entering and exiting the warehouse.

With RFID technology, information on uniforms and other equipment can now be collected faster from fire stations. Barcode scanning usually takes 15 minutes to complete the barcode scanning of a complete set of uniforms and other equipment, but now it only takes a few seconds to complete, greatly improving the inventory efficiency and saving a lot of manpower, material resources and time costs.

In small fire stations, there is usually no one responsible for sending, receiving and inventorying various firefighting supplies. The application of RFID technology can eliminate the trouble caused by missed and misplaced fire supplies, and reduce losses caused by lost and misplaced items. Customers who use RFID technology to manage uniforms can now benefit from additional data from an online database that displays the inventory and consumption status of various uniform equipment. In addition, RFID technology’s tracking of uniform data is critical for fire stations to understand whether the equipment is meeting specific KPIs and meeting SLAs (how quickly they can maintain or clean uniforms, such as a seven-day turnaround time for repairs).