Calcutta, India, May 6, 2009 - PervCom, an industry leader in providing active RFID based real time locating system (RTLS) in India, has announced the launch of its new industrial Asset Utilization Management System (AUMS) solution, focusing on increasing the production capacity and cutting down the operational cost of the heavy manufacturing plants.

The Asset Utilization Management System solution from PervCom is perceived through monitoring the industrial assets in real time through PervCom’s proprietary 2.4 GHz wireless mesh network, also known as the PervTrack system, and imparting a close loop control mechanism over the tagged assets. Through the close loop control mechanism all individual assets can be communicated directly through a central control station to perform specific commands, such as to move to a different working area. In this way, not only the utilization status of each asset can be monitored but also under-performing assets can be handled more efficiently.

The benefit of this AUMS is multi-dimensional. By studying the current utilization pattern of the mobile vehicle units the management can reduce the number of operating vehicle for a particular shift, directly cutting operating and maintenance cost on the current vehicles. This will in turn improve the individual mobile asset utilization to a great extent. Furthermore, the closed loop control over the mobile asset will also improve the operational efficiency by allocating ‘idle’ vehicles to the more work heavy zones.

PervCom has done its initial field trial of this exciting technology at the Belur plant of Hindalco Industries Ltd, world's largest aluminum rolling company and one of the biggest producers of primary aluminum in Asia. The study has shown the overall mobile asset utilization rate for the Fork-Lift-Trucks (FLTs) to be only 38%. However, the individual asset performance has varied from 14% to about 59%. Observing the results, Mr. R. K. Sur Chaudhary, Head of Belur Works, Hindalco, has expressed satisfaction on the field trial and sees a lot of possibilities of this new upcoming technology in improving operational efficiency.

Commenting on the usefulness of this technology, Dr. Somprakash Bandyopadhyay, Founder-Director of the company, has said, “This Asset Utilization Management System would enable the manufacturing plants to monitor how their assets perform on a real time basis and subsequently improve their performance using the closed loop control system of the AUMS”.

In this period of economic down turn, when cost cutting is the only way of survival, this active RFID based RTLS technology for mobile asset utilization improvement can prove to be very useful. And it will surely keep big manufacturing enterprises a notch ahead of competition in this increasingly tough economic condition.



For more information please visit www.pervcomconsulting.com

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