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If your pet is likely to wander far from home then you should think about putting an identity tag on it. The ID tag can be as simple as you want, but the most modern technique is to use ‘radio frequency identification’ or an RFID tag.

If you have a very young cat or dog, there is perhaps no necessity to tag it yet, but as the animal gets older, ID tags can become critical. If your pet gets lost, anyone finding it can then return it. If you have a cat or a dog, then a straightforward collar might be enough.

Some collars have a metal tag attached to them so that you can have your address or phone number etched on it, others have a ring, so that you can affix a small canister with your details inside it. Some just write their address on the underside of the collar with a felt tipped pen or a marker pen. This is more risky though because you may not be aware if it rubs off.

It is necessary to think about water damage if you are ID tagging a dog. Cats try to stay out of water, rain and snow, but most dogs love playing in it. If your dog’s tag is not waterproof, it will soon become impossible to read. On the other hand, cats often lose their collars.

If your pet is a horse, then it is simpler to have it branded and the brand indexed, so that anyone locating your lost horse can reference the brand and discover your contact details. If your pet is a tortoise, then you can write your phone number around the edge of its shell in a non-toxic fluid like nail varnish, but keep it small or you may poison the animal. Birds can have leg bands fitted. These leg rings have a unique number which can be looked up like a brand.

These are the conventional ways of ID tagging your pets, but the most modern method is to RFID tags them. These RFID tags can be affixed in several different ways. The simplest way is to have a plastic passive RFID tag made up and hang it from your pet’s collar. This works well, until your pet loses its collar or unless someone removes it in order to take your pet.

Another way of attaching an RFID tag, is to have your details imprinted on a chip and have the chip inserted under your pet’s skin by a vet. Some people are disgusted by this idea others do not mind. However, it does not hurt, is not uncomfortable and cannot be lost.

When the police or the pound officials are handed a stray, they scan it for a chip as part of their routine these days. Even people have them installed so that they can move across international borders more rapidly.

The RFID tag is read by a scanner and can be read from distances of several feet to several hundred yards, which makes locating a lost pet a much simpler task if it has an RFID tag fitted.

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on several topics, but is now concerned with the RFID blocking wallet. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at Active RFID Management.

The usage of RFID tags has been picking up speed for a number of years, but 2010 has increased proliferation for three key reasons: 1] cheaper equipment and tags, 2] increased dependability and performance (up to 99.9% accurate now); 3] the agreement of an international standard for UHF passive tags.

Cost has always been a prohibiting factor, but a Korean company has declared that it will have passive RFID tags for sale for about three US cents each by the closing stages of 2011

Historically, the biggest user of RFID tags was and still is the US Department of Defense. The armed forces use smart tags to track the containers of their hardware and sometimes individual pieces of hardware too. The aviation industry has also been using them worldwide for a long time.

The latest industries to find a use for the passive tags are financial services for IT asset tracking and health care, where more than 60% of the top medical apparatus companies are using passive UHF RFID in 2010.

Companies that have not come up with a reliable system to track their stock and know exactly what they have of everything that they sell tend to carry excess levels of stock to ensure they can supply their customers’ requirements.

If you can reduce excess stock by using improved information, you can: reduce investment, storage space, labour costs; and expand asset utilization, boost stock turnover, facilitate faster billing cycles, all of which will considerably contribute to cash flow.

In short, the usage of RFID:

1] Facilitates stock control and item location in real time, which reduces product search time, lowers inventory levels and enhances control of the manufacturing process. 2] Enhances compliance, enhances work-in-progress (WIP) productivity and cuts the cost of the finished goods. 3] Enables the real-time monitoring of production, order fulfillment, and distribution processes and their level of effectiveness. 4] Improves profitably and ability to meet demand rapidly and reduces inventory costs. 5] Lowers labour costs by getting rid of manual procedures. 6] order and shipping accuracy by helping to ensure that orders are dispatched complete, error-free, and on time, which thereby raises customer satisfaction and the likelihood of return orders. 7] Provides extremely accurate real-time data capture by means of warehouse management systems (WMS) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

The way forward is to begin with the goods-in bay. Goods arrive with shipping labels, but they are often inadequate in quality and information. It would be best to create a new ‘identity badge’ for all goods received at this point. All the pertinent information that you have on the items delivered can be put of an RFID tag and attached to the pallet, the crate or even the goods themselves.

Now these articles can be added to stock and the computer will always be able to divulge what the items are in the box, how many of them there are and where they are located in the warehouse.

The simple procedure of creating an RFID tag at the unloading bay and attaching it to the items received can save hours of time wasted checking up on stock levels and thousands of dollars wasted in overstocking.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece writes on quite a few topics, but is now involved with the best RFID printer. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at Active RFID Management.