Managing Auto Dealership Inventory with RFID and GPS
THE PROBLEM
Test drives. Huge Lots. Hundreds or thousands of cars.
When a car goes out for a test drive, it's typically dropped in the front of the lot. At some point, it's put back into the parking area at the most convenient location. Maybe it's organized with similar models and styles, but perhaps not.
It's challenging to sell a misplaced car.
Maintaining an accurate count with 1,000 cars can also be a challenge. How do you count 1,000 cars manually? A barcode? Model? Serial?
THE SOLUTION
A low-cost windshield or RFID hangtag solves several problems.
The RFID tag is easy to read from 10' or more from the car. RFID makes taking a daily open/close inventory a simple, fast, effective process. When did the car go missing? Without a daily count, you'll never know.
Audit time
1,000 Cars
Assuming you inventory 1,000 cars, twice per day.
| Audit | Time |
|---|---|
| Barcode @ 15 seconds per tag | 8 Hours |
| RFID @ 2 tags per second | 20 minutes |
100 Cars
Assuming you inventory 100 cars, twice per day.
| Audit | Time |
|---|---|
| Barcode @ 15 seconds per tag | 50 minutes |
| RFID @ 2 tags per second | 1 minute, 40 seconds |
The cost savings aside, you can't realistically keep an accurate count of your car inventory without RFID. Even at 100 cars, you need a daily inventory. Is someone going to do this manually? Sure. But, at one hour to complete, it will get skipped sometimes. At one minute? Who can argue?
While you could also have a GPS location stored when you scan a barcode, the RFID option makes inventory 10x faster and for a marginal cost of about $1 per car.
THE PROCESS
RFID Tags
Our TX tag attached to a mirror hanger is ideal for this. You can re-use this tag on future cars, and the TX tag performs exceptionally for a low-cost.
You could also place the TX on the headlight and have it stay with the car permanently. Permanently tagged vehicles allow you to auto-recognize the vehicle when it arrives for service.
Another excellent place for an RFID Tag: The wheel well. Most cars have a rubber or plastic wheel well insert. The wheel may not be as-easy as windshield tags when driving your lot for inventory, but when cars return for service, a wheel mounted RFID tag is out of sight for the consumer and still tells you how to greet them on arrival.
Tagging
- Place the TX tag on a mirror hanger.
- Associate the tag using the SimplyRFiD Wave handheld reader.
Pro Tip: The great thing about a mirror hanger is re-use. When that car sells, simply transfer the tag to the next car and assign that tag to the new car model. Your tag cost has dropped in half already!
Auditing and updating
- Drive your car lot.
- Squeeze the Wave Handheld trigger.
- Read tags from 10'-20' away. Typically, you can read tags at up to 75mph.
- Timestamp and GPS location is stored on the Pogi server. Note: the Pogi Server lives on Amazon Web Services (AWS) in a secure, backed up internet cloud accessible to you anywhere in the world.
Missing tags are shareable via CSV to investigate further. You can also use our Pogi API to build a webpage shared with your team. The web page can have the year, model, picture, and GPS marker to the car with a hotlink to Google Maps.
