July 2, 2019
Ranked No. 1 in Europe and No. 5 worldwide, LOXAM is the market leader in equipment rental for construction, industry, landscaping, and the service sector. With more than 750 branches in 22 countries, LOXAM operates Europe’s largest fleet, comprising more than 300,000 pieces of equipment—a real challenge when it comes to tracking its fleet! In 2018, the company implemented an innovative equipment identification system to track its equipment during preparation, contract pickup, and contract return.
Ensuring the identification of nearly 300,000 machines: a challenge for the equipment rental leader
Making it easier to identify each piece of equipment allows LOXAM to optimize its equipment management by providing easy access to customer reservations, as well as to preparation sheets and photos of the equipment.
At the branches, equipment is stored in warehouses and outdoor storage areas, and the goal is to be able to quickly select the equipment to prepare it or initiate a rental following a reservation, or to process the return of that equipment.
For this project, the company opted for NFC technology so it could use ruggedized smartphones. Since most of the equipment is stored outdoors, LOXAM chose an NFC RFID tag capable of withstanding the harsh conditions to which the equipment is subjected.
Equipment exposed to harsh environmental conditions
The items to be identified come in a variety of sizes and shapes, making it difficult to choose a single tag that fits all formats.
On a daily basis, the equipment is subjected to harsh conditions: outdoor use, often on construction sites, high-pressure cleaning, etc. Hence the need for a tag that can withstand these demanding environmental conditions. Furthermore, the metal in the equipment creates interference with the RFID tags, causing a loss of reading performance. The technology used for the tags had to account for these constraints as well. Finally, the tag’s lifespan must match that of the equipment.
Thus, by taking these various constraints into account, AXEM Technology developed a tag fully tailored to LOXAM’s needs: the Outdoor NFC metal tags.
Outdoor NFC Metal Tags as an RFID Hardware Identification Solution
The label format is easy to attach and works with all materials and products. The label is attached using a reinforced adhesive which ensures that it adheres firmly to any metal surface.
Designed to perform well on metal and withstand continuous exposure to outdoor environments, Outdoor metal labels are ideal for use on construction sites, outdoors, during high-pressure cleaning, and more.
Each Outdoor metal tag is equipped with an NFC-type RFID chip with memory, allowing information to be stored on the tag.
LOXAM has equipped its entire fleet of equipment with labels tailored to each machine model.
At the same time, the operators’ smartphone fleet has been equipped with an RFID app that, once the device has been identified, allows it to be prepared, assigned to a contract following a reservation, or checked in upon contract closure.
Results
A large portion of the equipment at LOXAM branches is now tagged with NFC tags, which enables the use of the app for preparing, picking up, and returning equipment at most branches in the network, both in France and internationally.