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Five Industries Benefiting Most from RFID and Barcode Solutions 

Five Industries Benefiting Most from RFID and Barcode Solutions

Radio Frequency Identification and Barcodes are valuable tools for tracking inventory and improving supply chain management. Many companies are using RFID tags to create inventory systems that are better and gain new details about how the products move through the supply chain. Consumers are also starting to see the benefits of RFID tags and barcode solutions   when they check out groceries or order items online and it is no surprise that RFID and barcode solutions have been labeled a game changer in many ways. 

Retail Industry 

Using RFID and barcode solutions in a retail industry, such as grocery stores, clothing stores, or convenience stores, can ensure the level of efficiency that is needed to provide the best customer service. Implementing RFID and barcode solutions in retail stores helps to: 

  • Reduce any friction at the checkout points 
  • Improve point-of-sale transactions to a large extent 
  • Enhance the inventory management 

Automotive Industry 

Starting from the individual parts to finished vehicles, RFID and barcodes are largely changing the automotive sector. RFID has now become the most trusted industry standard to track the tires’ lifecycle. Companies are now using RFID to track tires during manufacturing to speed up and improve the processes. As tires leave the manufacturing unit, they can be tracked throughout the supply chain even into warehouses today. 

 RFID and barcodes are digitizing the automotive field by: 

  • Keeping track of essential parts during the vehicle assembly 
  • Ensuring that the vehicle is shipped correctly and without any hassle 
  • Allowing full traceability throughout production stages 

Transportation and Logistics 

The logistics business moves a variety of goods in large amounts every single day. RFID tags facilitate tracing and managing these products in each phase. 

RFID technology can automate all the processes within the supply chain making it easier to track pallets, cartons, and even containers. It offers advanced technology for capturing, storing, and exchanging information about transport means, packaging, and transport units and goods on their way to destinations. RFID can also capture important transport and storage conditions such as humidity, shock, temperature etc. This can help to guarantee safety throughout the transportation to protect genuine parts from counterfeit and provide real-time data for the operators. 

RFID offers seamless logistics as well as supply chain management by: 

  • Reducing human errors and inventory mismatch 
  • Automating shipping-related tasks 
  • Providing real-time product updates 

Assuring Accuracy in the Aviation Industry 

RFID and barcodes are a key factor in improving efficiency in the aviation industry and offering a better travel experience. RFID encoding standards are crucial in ensuring optimal functionality. Tags might be put on returnable transport items, clothing, or even parts that are shipped to the customers. It would not be possible for multiple parties to read the same RFID tags if the data on these tags were not standardized. 

Even though RAIN RFID is reliable and supports real-time tracking, it still has challenges such as RAIN flooding and Acid RAIN which require proper encoding. The best way to get past those challenges is to use proper formatting to optimize RAIN RFID tags for the best functionality.

Healthcare Industry 

RFID and barcodes can be leveraged to improve the tracking of pharmaceutical products throughout the supply chain.  

RFID barcode asset tracking can be used in hospitals or patient care facilities to verify stock and determine whether the right dosage is being administered. When a certain medication has passed its expiration date and must be replaced, medical staff can be immediately informed. 

Printers can be used to print RFID wristbands to verify the patient’s identity and tag costly healthcare devices to monitor movement in real-time for better asset tracking. 

Harnessing the Power of RFID 

Industries from retail to healthcare to biotech, logistics, horticulture and field service are all adopting RFID and barcode technology for better tracking and inventory management. The benefits of choosing a good RFID solution provider and/or barcode solution provider are clear: companies can cut down on excess inventory, track shipments more accurately, improve efficiency, and save money. By using the right RFID and barcode solutions companies can be more cost-effective and maximize their profits. 

As outlined in this blog, adopting RFID technology can be a complex choice, requiring careful planning, implementation as well as ongoing support. As an industry professional looking to implement RFID technology in your processes, partnering with a reliable and experienced RFID solutions provider is extremely crucial for your business. By leveraging the expertise of an experienced provider and staying up to date with the latest advancements in RFID technology, you can position your business for success in today’s ever-changing industry. 

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Product Technology Uncategorized

The Importance of Cybersecurity in Asset Tracking Software

The Importance of Cybersecurity in Asset Tracking Software

What is Cybersecurity in Asset Management? 

Cybersecurity asset management is the process of identifying the IT assets that your organization owns and the potential security risks that affect each one on a real-time basis. 

Assets can take many forms. They could be traditional devices, such as PCs and servers or they could be specialized IoT, IoMT, IIoT, or OT devices or even software-defined resources, like a cloud-based database or company-owned domains. 

Any device, resource or service that exists within the IT estate could be prone to risks and vulnerabilities that lead to a breach of the individual resource or network or if the attackers use one such compromised resource to launch a broader attack. 

Importance of Cybersecurity in Asset Management: 

Cybersecurity in asset management empowers the security team, as well as the business, with the visibility it needs to build comprehensive security strategies that mitigate threats quickly and proactively. This kind of an approach delivers many key benefits: 

  • Cybersecurity is not a distraction: With strong cybersecurity in asset management in place, businesses can deploy new IT services without letting security become a distraction or even a hindrance. They can make decisions based on business priorities, with the confidence that whichever changes they make, will be caught by their cybersecurity in asset management process for potential vulnerabilities. 
  • Proactive response: Cybersecurity in asset management helps the security teams detect any potential threats even before they become a very serious problem. By continuously and effectively keeping track of new deployments as well as risks, teams don’t have to wait till they detect any active attack to respond to it. 
  • Security visibility: If an attack does occur, cybersecurity in asset management will provide the security team with an inventory of assets and risks that can be used to gain context on what went wrong and when it went wrong. Instead of having to redo the whole deployments and configurations to track the origins of a breach or vulnerability, the teams will have an up-to-date record that they can easily refer to almost immediately. 

In the above-mentioned ways, cybersecurity in asset management puts businesses in a much stronger position to identify and react to any possible security risks. Although cybersecurity in asset management is only a component of an effective cybersecurity strategy, it’s not possible to maintain a proactive security operation without cybersecurity in asset management in place in most cases. 

Risks Associated with Poor Cybersecurity in Asset Management 

Lack of cybersecurity in asset management software solution or asset tracking software, or poor implementation of the same, does not just make security operations more challenging but also creates many critical risks for the business. 

The major one among these is a higher risk of business disruptions. If any essential data or systems are made unavailable by any breach, the business may not be able to operate well. Such disruptions will harm the business’s reputation and have serious financial consequences. 

Poor asset management in cyber security also makes it extremely difficult to maintain a continuous and accurate inventory of the IT resources that are available. Without knowing what exists in the IT business, you will be left guessing about where the most serious risks lie. Lack of such things is what makes it difficult to deploy security resources efficiently and to respond to such issues when and if they arise. 

Also, ineffective cybersecurity in asset management undercuts the security team’s ability to operate efficiently. This makes it difficult to automate the security operations when there is a lack of an accurate listing of which resources or risks exist and instead, left to find and secure devices manually, which makes it a poor use of time and money. 

Why Prioritize Cybersecurity in Asset Management? 

Organizations have been placing little priority on asset management in cybersecurity simply because the tools necessary to automate cybersecurity in asset management processes didn’t exist till a few years back. It also wasn’t practical to maintain real-time and continuous inventories manually as well. 

With the rise of automated resource discovery and threat identification tools, cybersecurity in asset management plays a large role in security operations across a variety of verticals in today’s times. It’s critical not just for software and IT businesses, but for all organizations that rely on software and hardware to power its operations. 

In manufacturing, asset management helps ensure high-value equipment, such as diagnostics and monitoring systems, and machine sensors, remain secure and free of threats that could disrupt the operations. 

Cybersecurity asset management also protects healthcare organizations, which face high rates of ransomware attacks and vulnerabilities that may exist within specialized devices deployed as part of the Internet of Medical Things. 

Any enterprise that deploys connected devices to help manage and monitor physical infrastructure, collect business data and extend networks into spaces needs asset management to keep those devices and the business secure and free of threats. 

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Technology Uncategorized

Blockchain Technology: Benefits & Applications

Blockchain is something people have been hearing about a lot these days. It started out with the popularity of Bitcoin and soon seeped into mainstream business applications. Blockchain, overcoming the infancy is ready to be utilized by businesses today and it is in its full-fledged form.

While cryptocurrencies were the first favorite uses of the blockchain, the technology is revolutionizing all leading industries in the recent years.

In fact, blockchain can provide numerous advantages to businesses, whether they’re using a public blockchain network or a private/permissioned blockchain-based applications.

Here are the top blockchain benefits:

1. Trust

Enabling trust is one of blockchain’s most cited benefits. Blockchain creates trust between different entities where trust is nonexistent or unproven. It has resulted in a willingness to engage in business dealings that involve transactions or data sharing, which they may not have otherwise done or would have required an intermediary. Bitcoin and crypto currencies are best examples of how blockchain enables trust between participants who don’t even know each other.

2. Decentralized structure

Blockchain proves its value when there’s no intermediary who enables trust. In addition to enabling trust among participants who are unknown to each other, blockchain also enables data sharing within an ecosystem of businesses where no single entity is exclusively in charge.

3. Improved security and privacy

The security of blockchain-enabled systems is a leading benefit of the technology. Blockchain creates an unalterable record of transactions with end-to-end encryption that shuts out unauthorized activities. Additionally, the data on the blockchain is stored across a network of computers, making it nearly impossible to hack, unlike other conventional systems that store one copy of the data on the servers. Which is why, blockchain can address privacy concerns better than any traditional systems by anonymizing data.

4. Reduced costs

Blockchain’s inherent design can cut costs for organizations by bringing certain efficiencies to transaction processing, reducing manual tasks such as aggregating and amending data, and easing the reporting and auditing processes. Blockchain also helps businesses cut costs by eliminating middlemen, vendors and third-party providers who have traditionally handled the processing that blockchain can do.

5. Speed

By eliminating intermediaries and replacing many of the manual processes, blockchain can handle transactions significantly faster than some of the conventional methods. However, how quickly a blockchain-based system can process transactions depends on multiple factors such as network traffic, size of each block of data and the speed of the process.

6. Visibility and traceability

Blockchains visibility and traceability applications can help retailers manage inventory, respond to problems/ questions and confirm the origin of the merchandise. Blockchain can help track the origins of a variety of items, such as medicines to confirm that they are legitimate and not counterfeit as well as organic items to confirm that they are organic.

7. Immutability

The transactions that are once recorded on a blockchain, can’t be changed or deleted. All transactions are time- and date-stamped making it a permanent record that can be used to track information over time, which enables secure and reliable auditing of information.

8. Individual control of data

Blockchain gives individuals unprecedented control over their digital data. In today’s world where data is a very valuable commodity, blockchain technology protects the data that belongs to you while allowing you to control it. Individuals and organizations can decide what pieces of their digital data they want to share, with whom they want to share it and for how long, with limits enforced by blockchain-based smart contracts.

Blockchain applications go far beyond cryptocurrency and bitcoin. With its ability to create more transparency, fairness and saving businesses time and money, this technology is impacting a variety of sectors in ways that range from how contracts are enforced to making the government work much more efficient.  Here are some examples of real-world blockchain  applications:

1. Blockchain in Money Transfer

Transfer apps have exploded in popularity in recent times. Blockchain is especially popular in finance for the money and time it can save financial companies of all sizes. It eliminates bureaucratic red tape to make ledger systems real-time and reduce third-party fees.

2. Blockchain Smart Contracts

The rules of the smart contract are enforced in real-time on a blockchain, which eliminates the middleman, adding levels of accountability for all parties involved in a way that would not be possible with traditional agreements. This saves businesses time and money and also ensures compliance from everyone involved. Smart contracts are becoming more and more popular among sectors like government, healthcare and the real estate industry as they are discovering its benefits.

3. Blockchain and IoT

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the next boom in blockchain applications. Blockchain-infused IoT adds a higher level of security that prevents data breaches by utilizing transparency and virtual incorruptibility of the technology to keep things smart.

4. Blockchain Security

Keeping sensitive information such as social security numbers, birth certificates, birth dates on a decentralized blockchain ledger, the government could see a drastic drop in identity theft claims. There are many up and coming blockchain-based enterprises at the forefront of identity security.

5. Blockchain in Healthcare

Blockchain in healthcare solutions has shown the potential to reduce healthcare costs, improve access to information across stakeholders and also streamline business processes. An advanced system for collecting and sharing private information used to make sure that an already bloated sector can trim down their costs.

6. Blockchain Logistics

Blockchain can solve many of the problems plaguing logistics and supply chain management. Blockchain enables data transparency by revealing a single source of truth. By acknowledging data sources, blockchain can build greater trust within the industry and make the logistics process leaner and more automated, potentially saving the logistics industry billions of dollars a year.

It has become apparent that blockchain has broken shackles and entered the mainstream business operations across various industries to prove its usability. Blockchain’s true value comes when it is used in areas where conventional databases won’t work and central control and trust aren’t present. It is believed by experts that blockchain will bring disruption and business transformation, even if the revolution won’t happen soon.

As a blockchain services company with extensive experience, Techcedence offers end-to-end blockchain application development services to introduce reliable blockchain solutions your business. Get in touch with us now!