Near Field Communication (NFC) tags are used extensively used by businesses across industries to track assets and inventory movement across the workplace or a supply chain. Using NFC tags and readers for track and trace functions is widespread on account of its economic value and ease of operation. Because using NFC for track and trace functions involves transmitting data, one can connect with a wide range of mobile devices, which is highly convenient to the whole process of inspection and consumer engagement.
Most of us use NFC technology daily via our smartphones. It is also deployed by large businesses and organizations to track assets.
Why use NFC technology?
NFC allows two-way communication between NFC tags and mobile devices. The fact that smartphones are NFC-enabled makes it practical for literally billions of people to use these devices to conveniently carry out functions like contactless payments, identity verifications and so on.
The fact that NFC tags are small in size and don’t need battery power of their own to function makes them very versatile in terms of how these can be attached to diverse types of assets. The sheer diversity of use that NFC tags see is indicative of how effective these are found by a very large number of businesses and organizations. Let’s take a look at some of the functions these help perform:
– Customer engagement
– Contactless payment
– Identity verification
– Entry to events
– Inventory management
When it comes to tracking and tracing assets, NFC tags provide a slew of advantages that make inventory management as well as the protection of one’s products against security breaches quite effective. Let us take a look at some possibilities:
1. Ease of use
All you need to operationalize NFC infrastructure are readers and tags which enable smartphones and tablets to be used as handheld readers. This ease of use is what makes NFC tags eminently suited for secure track and trace functions.
2. Speed of processing
A mere tap on the reader screen is all that is needed to make NFC technology work and there is no need to align the reader and the tag visually. This makes the processing quite speedy.
3. Security
The TrackMatriX NFC tag chips are equipped with specific cryptography algorithms and a choice of memory options, that work with all NFC-enabled devices (IOS and Android) and support real-time secure tag and message authentication.
4. Robust and proven technology
The tags can retain data for 50 years and are able to endure 200,000 write cycles. With the above features our tags can provide data assurances on authenticity, integrity and even confidentiality, while also securing physical tag presence.
