Raytheon Co., a government defense, aviation and technology company, will save nearly half a million dollars from a radio frequency identification (RFID) project, based on the results of a pilot program. Three months into the pilot, using a joint RFID mobile resource management (MRM) solution from RedPrairie and RadiantWave, Raytheon has calculated two-year capital asset savings of $471,650.
Raytheon will leverage the solution to track and optimize utilization of lab equipment across many of its campuses. As a result, the company will be able to ensure loss prevention, adhere to calibration schedules and reduce time and labor associated with manual equipment tracking and searches. Based on the pilot, Raytheon estimates the benefits of the MRM solution equate to nearly a quarter million dollars in annual savings.
RedPrairie and RadiantWave’s combined MRM capabilities enable companies to use RFID technology to identify, manage and track physical assets, information and personnel. RadiantWave, a provider of solution integration services for mobile asset management, provided Raytheon integration expertise during the implementation and pilot phases. Raytheon is leveraging RedPrairie’s middleware to provide visibility to track assets and manage data.
RedPrairie’s MRM solution is comprised of RFID readers, tags and asset management and visibility applications. Static readers throughout Raytheon’s campuses will read RFID tag information and track the location of an asset each time an asset is moved. The data is then transmitted to an application server, providing Raytheon visibility to key corporate assets at any time. Raytheon engineers are able to locate assets by name, type, manufacturer, serial number or Raytheon tag type.
During a time study conducted during the pilot, Raytheon quantified a significant difference in the average time needed to locate lab equipment manually versus tracking with the new MRM system. It took an average of 60.8 minutes to manually track a sample group of lab equipment, compared to 8.4 minutes using MRM technology. By saving an average of 52.4 minutes several times over the course of each day, Raytheon will be able to significantly boost labor productivity.
To prevent asset losses, the system alerts Raytheon when equipment approaches an exit. The company was also able to automate its calibration process and maintain contract specific calibration schedules by alerting supervisors of required equipment calibration and corresponding zone locations.
Raytheon calculated two-year savings of $471,650 by reviewing the number of times the company searched for a particular asset per year, multiplying each figure by the time savings associated with RFID searches, and then adding up all savings figures to establish overall savings. These savings were determined at the end of Raytheon’s three-month pilot.
