ASSET MANAGEMENT deals with the physical assets including selection, maintenance, inspection and renewal that plays a key role in determining the operational performance of any government or any other establishment taking care of assets as part of their core business. It is the art of making right decisions and optimising these processes for best possible utilisation.
A good assets management programme can be of invaluable assistance during emergencies and crises. It could provide, for example, the details of furniture, parcels, containers, computing and other resources available at different locations and allow for re-routing them during business emergencies.
There are certain issues that drive the need for improved government assets management. Due to ongoing decentralisation process, the state and Central governments have to provide an increasing number of services with limited financial resources. The real property assets of the local governments are often significant vis-à-vis their annual budget revenue or expenditures. While many properties are not intended to generate revenue, it is possible that revenues out of them could be substantially increased.
Moreover, assets management software with the help of a tracking device can do wonders for maintaining records of all the assets an organisation wants to monitor. It can store details of their service schedules, maintenance records, depreciated value and schedule for replacement and, above all, where they are. It can even be customised to send in alerts for any of these to help maintain regular cycles of repair and renewal.
On the other hand, low expenditures may be interpreted to show that there is a need for increasing spending on maintenance of the city’s assets.
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is essentially a state-of-the-art technology that makes the task of management of assets easier for the government. It has a unique advantage of rendering the requirement of human intervention useless thereby adding to business value and saving a lot of time.
RFID is a generic term used for describing system, which transmits identity of a person or an object or even an animal wirelessly by making use of radio waves. A typical RFID system has three components -- an antenna, a transceiver (it reads the radio frequency and subsequently transfers the information to a processing device) and a transponder or RF tag (containing RF circuitry and the information for transmission).
RFID solutions for the government can address a wide range of applications. The government agencies around the world are using RFID and sensors for tracking a variety of assets like shipments, high-value equipment and personnel.
There are also solutions to address national security issue involving emergency response systems. Other major initiatives at government agencies that use or propose to use the technology include physical access control, tracking of assets, documents, materials and surveillance.
One of the most popular applications of RFID is in tracking assets. A wide range of RFID system is used for an effective assets management programme. In India, RFID will be used extensively across the country in near future. As of now, the Department of Posts has stated using RFID to track parcels. The Delhi Municipal Corporation is also using it to keep a tab on stray cattle in the areas under their jurisdiction. Some enterprising Indian farmers are also keeping track on the movement of their cattle through using this technology.
The government agencies across the world are piloting the asset tracking application for tracking and streamlining their in-bound and outbound logistics through RIFD. A good example of this is the Department of Defence in the United States which was an early adopter of this technology. It has deployed RFID for streamlining its supply chain and improving its process in collaboration with their suppliers. The railways are also early adopters of this technology in the public transportation sector. The railways in the US and Germany are using RFID for tracking wagons and cargo by embedding RFID chips inside them, which transmit to the readers that are strategically placed near the tracks. The information is then collated by a centralised server and allows the rail yard employees to get in-transit visibility, sequence, maintenance status and to analyse freight utilisation.
Legal firms turn to RFID for tracking or automating files while the airlines use the technology for tracking the location of luggage trolleys. Construction companies make use of RFID tags inserted to concrete blocks for instant dissemination of results over the Internet. In a nutshell, RFID results in avoiding of a lot of wasteful expenditure thereby reducing the chances of human error to a great extent.
RFID technology is fast moving and complex. Vendors and organisations alike are working together to ensure interoperability and open standards that will make it easier and more cost effective for organisations and governments to implement.
The Cisco RFID-Ready Network with assets management software is a tightly integrated, wired and wireless network that can classify electronic product code (EPC) traffic to prioritise it anywhere in the network.
Cisco’s resilient and robust networks support using and directing RFID information across the enterprise. With Cisco networks in place the organisations can respond more quickly, track assets more accurately, improve adaptability and create a highly effective, sustainable, end-to-end supply chain based on this technology.
They provide the expertise, experience, and a complete set of resources needed to respond to today’s RFID networking requirements. Users also take advantage of the Cisco complete data, voice, and wireless capabilities over the same IP network.
Rather than offering RFID technologies as an isolated system, Cisco networks simplify implementation by adding RFID information as another data type to its already powerful networks. Based on these proven network-centric systems, inventory information is shared among suppliers, partners, distribution centres, and logistics.
In the West the para-medics hold a mobile computing device with a RFID reader near the card and thus obtain critical patient information required to administer immediate medical treatment to stabilise a patient in critical condition being taken to the hospital. The card is again scanned upon arrival of the patient at the hospital and the doctors and nurses are intimated to attend to him. The hospital management systems can also be integrated to automatically capture the patient's details and track his progress.
Solutions involving RFID, wireless, sensor networks and mobile computers can provide automated data capture to make critical information available for fire, police and other emergency teams to rush and co-ordinate their responses during an emergency. Several trials are already underway in India and across the globe where all the emergency teams (hospital, ambulance services and police) are networked and special RFID cards (RFID wrist bands) are given to patients during an emergency.
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