Case Study: United States Marine Corps achieves greater asset visibility and equipment accountability with HID Global RFID

US Marines improving asset visibility & equipment accountability with RFID

The United States Marine Corps’ Blount Island Command needed better asset visibility and equipment accountability for cargo moving aboard maritime prepositioning ships, since bar-code scanning was slow and error-prone and active RFID tags often lacked reliability. Working with HID Global and its passive RAIN RFID solution, the command tested long-range RFID tags to improve tracking of containers and vehicles during loading and unloading.

HID Global’s EXO 3000 passive RFID tags were attached to cargo and integrated with handheld and fixed readers plus the IPRIME system to link item IDs and update status in real time. The pilot showed reduced labor hours and a higher percentage of readable tags than active RFID, with results including 241 of 254 containers read and 419 of 452 vehicles/equipment read; the success led the United States Marine Corps to continue rolling out HID Global tags across additional vessels.

United States Marine Corps

Lyle G. Layher

Head of Blount Island Command’s MPS Plans Management Branch