RedPrairie have integrated radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology into its Yard management system – a module of its WMS – to provide customers with a new level of visibility and control over yard operations and asset management.
By using the area-awareness properties of RFID to track trailers from gate check-in through check-out, customers will be able to reduce the time, cost and uncertainties of managing trailer movements within their campuses.
Tom Kozenski, RedPrairie’s Vice President of Product Strategy, comments that customers with hundreds of trailers in their yards found that even with previous generation yard management systems and RF technology, tracking and locating individual trailers for yard movements and audits was challenging, especially when the impact of the weather elements is considered.
He added that those without system support were even worse off but the ability of RFID technology to read all of the tags in a given area make finding trailers and verifying movements a natural by-product of proximity to fixed or mobile readers. He concluded that this makes yard management more accurate and efficient.
With the new WMS Yard management release, RFID readers at gates read passive RFID tags on trailers as they enter or leave the yard to verify and record their presence on-site.
Fixed zone readers or mobile readers can be used to locate trailers within the yard, confirm trailer movements, and support yard audits. Built-in Event Management capabilities in the WMS can alert managers and initiate resolution to exceptions uncovered by the RFID reads.
The RFID-enablement of Yard management is contained in RedPrairie’s latest release of Warehouse Management Solution (WMS).