Storage Warehouse service – Document Tracking System is a total solution that covers logistics, management, search and destruction. Today, document warehousing providers are starting to look for ways to leverage information technology to monitor the volume of documents that they are hosting, speed up storage and extraction processing, monitor delivery and achieve transparent document management, so that they can improve the quality of service they provide to customers, and enable customers to use their services with greater peace of mind.
By utilizing information technology effectively, document warehousing providers can enhance the service that they provide, making it more efficient and cheaper for business enterprises or government agencies to use their services rather then handling document storage internally. RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) serves as a bridge linking the physical environment and vertical components. Using RFID, document warehousing providers can improve their operational processes, make stock-checking more efficient, minimize the risk of documents being lost while being accessed, and overcome the problem that document warehousing services have suffered from in the past of requiring large amounts of manpower to operate effectively. RFID can thus help document warehousing providers to cut costs and add value, thereby creating a win-win situation for the service providers and their customers.
Crown Van Lines Co., Ltd. was the first document warehousing sharing provider to be established in Taiwan, and is still the largest, with extensive warehousing facilities in Taipei, Keelung, Taichung, and Kaohsiung. In line with its corporate philosophy of striving for innovation and constantly seeking to improve the service that it provides to customers, Crown Van Lines developed an innovative "Hi-tech Storage Warehouse Service – Document Tracking System ". The service makes use of REAP (RFID Enabling Application Platform), which was developed by Tranz Technologies with support from the Institute for Information Industry, together with RFID reader equipment developed by Unitech. Using this system, several tasks that in the past had to be performed manually have been successfully automated. Users of the service can now determine with more precision exactly when documents entered the warehouse, when documents are read or filed, and when stock-checking is performed. The system compiles statistical data to facilitate accurate monitoring of the status of both individual documents and batches. While helping to meet customers' document sharing needs, the new service has also transformed document sharing business and management models in Taiwan.
What makes Hi-tech Storage Warehouse Service – Document Tracking System so special is the integration of RFID technology. This is the first time that memory equipped with RFID tags has been used for document hosting in Taiwan, making it possible to exploit RFID's ability to provide rapid identification. Due to the relatively high cost of RFID tags, the system has been integrated with existing bar code labels. While leveraging the power of new-generation automated identification technology, Hi-tech Storage Warehouse service – Document Tracking System also takes compatibility and cost issues into consideration to create an efficient business model for Storage Warehouse services. The introduction of this service will help to open up new opportunities for Taiwan's RFID industry. Having already achieved considerable success in supplying RFID solutions to information service providers in Taiwan, Taiwan's RFID firms are now starting to develop core technology for RFID middleware platforms that will stimulate the emergence of new applications, improve working efficiency, and help to strengthen the competitiveness of Taiwanese industry.
(Lee Hsiu-Fen, Sun Kang-Yuan, Tsai Kun-Yi, and Lee, Chun-Sho are Researcher with IDEAS, E-mail: tf@iii.org.tw)
