Tools are important and indispensable assets of an enterprise. No matter in the aircraft maintenance workshop, power management workshop or other operation industries, the staff will inevitably deal with tools every day. How to realize the automatic and quick borrowing, return, positioning, search and maintenance of tools is a very important part for enterprise management .

· Industry Background

◆ Aviation：

 According to the research, tool losting is one of the main factors for air accidents.

FOD high quality control requirement in aviation industry.

◆ Railway：

Most of the railway maintenance is at night. The dark environment will easily cause inventory missing, which may lead to railway security risk.

◆ Power Station：

Electric power maintenace is a high standard work. There is a very strick management standard for the tools, including the temperature, humidity, and other tool condition tracking. 

◆ Prison：

The labor tools have a potential risk to cause a secondary crime.

· Tool Management Painpoints

◆ Manual Operation Missing：

Manual inventory is a complicated work. It will easily cause mistakes when scanning and recording the tools manually, and lower the accuracy of tool management. 

◆ Low Efficiency：

When borrowing the tools, the users have to line up to deal with the complicated borrowing procedure, which will be a waste of time.

◆ Traditional Barcode Limitation：

Traditional Barcode or QR code easily get broken, dirty, or even peeled off.

Low scanning efficiency.

◆ Unable to realize Real-time Detection：

Adminitrator cannot realize a real-time inventory checking for the tools. He is not able to know it in time, whether a tool lost or overtime returning. 

◆ Lost Tool Searching Difficulty：

When a tool lost, it is hard to search for it, and will cost a lot of time.

· How does our solution work?

Using RFID technology, put the tools with RFID tags into the specially customized tool cabinet/trolley, which is equipped with RFID reader and antennas, to realize the functions of fast borrowing, returning, searching, and inventory management of tools.

◆ Solution Procedures：

◆ RFID Smart Tool Cabinet / Trolley：

The RFID Smart Tool Cabinet/Trolley integrates various intelligent devices such as RFID reader, RFID antenna, Android all-in-one PC, IC card reader, etc. It can automatically manage the tools with RFID labels inside the cabinet. 

The user scans the IC card to unlock the door → borrow/return the tools → close the door to automatically confirm the operation. The system will show the user’s information, tool details, borrowing time and other information. There are also daily/monthly checking and other functions, which can help collect the quantity, types and status of tools in real time, realizing efficient and intelligent management of tools.

◆ One-touch Inventory：

Finish tool inventory checking within 3 seconds. And generate inventory reports.

◆ Safety：

User should login by user card, face recognition or finger print to unlock the cabinet. Realize safety control for tools.

◆ Real-time Reminding：

If there is any overtime returning tool, or tool needs calibration, the system will alarm to remind the relavant users.

◆ Easy Management：

3 seconds finish tool borrowing/returning operations. Greatly simplify the operations for tool inventory, improve the efficiency and reduce the missing by manual scanning.

◆ Multi Storage：

Customizable tool trolley, tool cabinet, tool box, etc. Flexibly adapt to different scenes.

◆ Lost Tool Searching Solution - RFID Handheld：

When there is a tool missing, the RFID handheld terminal can break through the blind area, and help locate the lost tool, which greatly shorten the time for tool searching.

Firstly, the handheld receives the the lost tool information, which includes its unique EPC code. Then we use handheld to scan the work area. When it successfully detects the tool tag with same ECP, the handheld will ”beep”. And we can get the approximate direction of the lost tool according to the signal strength.

· Industry Value

✔Realize the smart management of aviation maintenance tools , making the tools controllable and traceable.

✔Real time tracing avoids potential security risk caused by losing tools.

✔Automated tool borrowing and returning management, greatly improves the efficiency.

✔Security. Responsibility traceable. Avoid disputes. Reduce the loss of assets.

✔Generate tool inventory reports in real-time in the background system.