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The firm Cometal from Opglabbeek produces betonbekistingen: panels that in the building uses become concrete walls between to pour. Cometal sells and rents the panels at contractors and building companies. Marc Coucke, Delegated driver of Cometal, always more as a trend rent sees: “Instead of on to buy, rent our customers now more per project. As they have always the mostly suitable bekistingsystem and let they the competition play.”

Logistics is one whole enterprise the rented panels on to follow. Also customers that panels bought by Cometal, rent there. Some dare to exchange their old, bought panels once in a while with newer, rented panels. So that Cometal with a fast aging stock at panels saddled stretch. Moreover customers have mostly different yards and move they the panels from place. By large yards, one works in phases. The delivery of the betonbekistingen lifted phased thus, neat as the return of it to Cometal. And ultimately such panel consists of put together parts, that are to build separately on and finished.

Identification of the rented panels was thus necessarily. IRON plates or barcodes were not really an option, because of the rough treatment of the panels on the building yard. In the news letter of the KMO-IT Center read Marc Coucke the story of Dental Prothetiek, a dentaal labo that a solution sought for tandprotheses.,. False teeth must since a few year legally oblige to identify and after investigating are. The labo chose, to consultation of the KMO-IT Center, before a small, built in RFID-chip. “And I already had heard of containers for house refuse that with a chip equipped were”, tells Coucke. As the idea arose to work with RFID-tags.

After a missing journey of approximately 9 months, together with the KMO-IT Center, chose Cometal for the supplier CommIT from the Antwerpse Shot. Coucke chose for a simple tag: “We a read-only tag chose in which only a number raised is. That was the leastest breakable and sufficient for our needs.” About 2,500 betonbekistingspanelen were in the middle of 2002 equipped already with RFID-tags. Two tags per panel, at the furrow and back, to avoid that the information definitively discharge is as it a lost goes.

The hardwares is all installed by Cometal, and from 2003, the business works with new measure software. The project will have taken about one and a half year in possession. Coucke finds that the chips a sound costs are: “A panel equip with two chips costs us 7 Euros. The panel self costs on average 400 Euros. The leesapparatuur and the software form yet once an unique investment of 50,000 Euros. But that goes years with and fast will have been refunded. Less manueel work, less wrong, hard proofs opposite our customers with control. And our stock has been known: how many panels has been rented, returned how many, cleaned and repaired how many, to rent how much clearly again. Moreover we can build up a historiek of data about a panel, know so that we the real expense.”