Wireless Networking – It Will Find You

The use of wireless technology is growing to include applications that we may never have thought of 10 years ago. Many organizations are now taking advantage of the combination of wireless networks, radio frequency identification (RFID) and instrument connectivity to track the movement of assets and people. This ability has a wide-ranging impact on the day-to-day operations of companies and communities, allowing them to ensure the safety of their employees and the whereabouts of valuable equipment.

The tracking of people in and out of secure locations is one of the more common applications of RFID badges, but safety is another primary issue it can address. Recently, after an explosion at a refinery in Texas City, Texas, BP expedited their implementation of a RFID personnel tracking system. To ensure the safety of its refinery workers in the event of future emergencies, BP has developed badges with active RFID technology that can locate employees and visitors throughout their 64-acre plant. Additionally, it can set off an alert if an employee badge is motionless for a set period of time.

Nowhere are wireless and RFID technologies more prevalent than in the medical industry. Many hospitals started placing active RFID’s on high-value equipment. Seeing the value, they then moved on to medical equipment such as syringe pumps, mobile monitors and other highly utilized medical equipment such as wheelchairs. An area hospital estimated that before they invested in Cisco Location Based Services, they were spending $28,000 per month trying to locate wheelchairs. They had greeters and orderlies running around looking for them. After they tagged approximately 25 percent of their wheelchairs, the issue was almost completely eliminated. Now patients wait no more than a few minutes for a wheelchair and the hospital doesn’t waste time and money looking for them.

There are now many different applications that are taking advantage of the ability to track the location of people and assets. A great example is the deployment of a mobile network in Stockholm, Sweden where everything from the city traffic, to the subway and shopping malls provide “context aware” targeted applications to users’ personal devices based on their location. So as users prepare in the morning they are able check traffic on local streets and then decide whether or not the subway would be faster. Then as they near the subway station they are provided information about the trains’ schedule and destinations. As they enter the mall, they now have a detailed map of the mall, including the location of restrooms, stores and restaurants compared to their current location.

One of the obvious concerns with any location service is the issue of privacy. The knowledge that a person’s location may be tracked can have both a positive and negative impact. So before making the decision on what you can track, you should first consider the why. The why we’ll save for another article, however don’t hesitate to contact me at ChrisM@cdh.com for more information on your company’s wireless networking needs.