Improving efficiency and accuracy for fire services

For every incident the Fire Service attends, having life saving equipment at the right place, time and in serviceable condition is critical. Every fire engine is filled with hundreds of vital pieces of equipment, making it difficult to keep track of all of them.

What if there was a technology system that would enable you to instantly check the inventory and status of all your equipment? What if technology could help your team keep better track of their assets, while also freeing up time for other vital activities?

One solution to the challenge of tracking Fire Service equipment is RFID, a technology system that can identify an object using radio waves. An RFID reader transmits a signal to unique tags, which reply with the ID data which is encoded on them. This enables your team to quickly and accurately take an inventory of valuable assets and equipment.

RFID brings a huge advantage when compared to barcoding or manual inventory. With RFID, you can read hundreds of tags in seconds at near perfect accuracy. There is no need for line of sight with the tags because the signal is transmitted over radio waves. Additionally, the tags can be extremely durable and come in a variety of form factors. They hold more data than barcodes and have a read range of up to 150 meters. They can also be rewritten allowing compliancy test status etc to be encoded on to the RFID tag.

These unique capabilities mean RFID can make your Fire Service more efficient and accurate when saving lives are at stake. The benefits of implementing RFID in the fire service include:

1. Time savings

   Time is valuable in the Fire Service. You want to maximise manpower to best protect the community. Taking inventory, while vital, can consume large chunks of firefighters’ time. This is where RFID comes in. In testing, RFID has been shown to be 25 times faster than Barcoding for stocktaking, counting up to 12,000 items per hour. This saving in time can be used for other vital tasks.

2. Inventory accuracy

   The ultimate cost of missing a vital piece of equipment on the fire engine could be catastrophic. That is why it is crucial to have an accurate inventory for each fire engine. RFID eliminates human error and is unbeatable when it comes to inventory accuracy, with average inventory accuracy of 95-99 per cent. Since RFID scanning takes only a few minutes, firefighters can check that all equipment is in the vehicle before leaving the station or the incident site, so fewer pieces of equipment go missing.

3. Locating items

   With thousands of pieces of equipment to keep track of, it is all too easy to misplace items, costing valuable time and money. RFID also greatly reduces the risk of lost assets as by using directional indicators on the reader. It enables you to quickly locate any item within range and return it to its proper place. This saves time searching for items and reduces the risk of losing crucial assets.

Try RFID Today

RFID has the potential to reduce stocktaking time while improving accuracy. This gives you a real-time view of your equipment, to reduce losses and make sure you always have the right equipment at the right time. We believe RFID Asset Management can make a real difference for the Fire Service.

Fire services are sometimes hesitant to implement RFID because it can appear complicated and you often have to find hardware and software from different companies and piece together a solution.

We solve that by being the one place where you can get everything you need for RFID: readers, antennas, tags, software and more.

Visit our website to learn more and download your free copy of our RFID Fire Service Solutions E-Book. If you want to try RFID for yourself, contact our team of RFID experts to book a demo and enjoy improved efficiency and accuracy in your fire service.

https://tec-rfid.co.uk/fire/