This article was written by A2B Tracking’s President and CEO, Peter Collins. It was published as a featured article in the April 2025 issue of the NPMA Property Professional magazine. Read the full article here.
By Peter Collins
RFID Inventory Management for Secure Facilities
Controlled secure facilities (sometimes referred to as SCIFs) operate under strict security protocols to protect classified or restricted information. These environments almost always have strict access control measures that require individuals to have security clearances for entry. Along with personnel access, SCIFs often regulate the use of equipment for information processing or information capturing with tight security controls that restrict items like cameras, scanners and computers.
Inventories Inside of Controlled Secure Facilities
Depending upon the objective of the facility, there may be a significant amount of equipment inside of the secure area being used to support organizational objectives. These assets, in most cases, need to be inventoried on a periodic basis.
Furthermore, it’s common for these assets to be government property (or what is commonly referred to in the government contracting community as Government Furnished Property–GFP, or possibly Government Furnished Equipment–GFE). Managing government property comes with its own set of requirements that formally obligate the contractor to identify, track, perform periodic inventories and report this asset data to government systems.
Managing inventories in controlled secure facilities is no small task but when the inventory contains government property, the stakes are higher and the accuracy of the reporting more important due to frequent government audits and reviews.
As mentioned, these controlled secure environments have strict security protocols, especially concerning electronic devices like handheld computers, scanners and other technology. Historically, inventory teams have been required to use old-fashioned “manual” tools like clipboards and pens, unable to automate the inventory process due to these restrictions.
Performing a manual inventory on a small number of assets (i.e. a few dozen) can be done relatively quickly, accurately and reliably. The challenges arise when there is a requirement to inventory a large number of assets. Unfortunately, manual inventory systems that rely on a clipboard, pen and a spreadsheet are quite time consuming, vulnerable to human error and can become unmanageable for the organization as the number of assets grows.
Fortunately, there are some recent developments in offline, or disconnected RFID and barcode technology to provide automated inventory capabilities inside of high security areas.
Disconnected Inventory Management
Mobile RFID and Barcode technology has been able to work in offline, or a disconnected mode for years. This type of inventory scanning allows users to leverage handheld readers without a network connection to collect asset data, store it on the mobile device and then upload in a batch to the asset management platform.
A commonly successful use case here would be performing an inventory in a large yard, or outdoor facility without the use of cellular or WiFi. When scanning barcodes, the employee walks the yard and finds each item in its location, establishes a line of sight between the reader and the barcode, captures the data and moves on to the next item. If using RFID, the employee can capture RFID tags within range while walking the yard – no need to create a direct line of sight between the reader and the label. In this scenario, the RFID solution is much faster and more accurate than the barcode scanner. Once the inventory has been performed, the employee can return to the “office” and place the mobile device in a network cradle to upload the inventory data to the asset management platform.
Unfortunately, in the past these disconnected readers have had some limitations and vulnerabilities. Compliance officers determined that they were inadequate and deemed as security risks inside of high security environments. The mobile devices were unable to protect the security of the asset data and therefore not allowed to be used in a SCIF environment.
Recent developments to disconnected hardware has greatly improved the security by restricting the ability to exchange data and requiring the use of unique docking cradles. More importantly, these devices incorporate state of the art encryption at the moment of capture. Meaning that all asset data is immediately encrypted as it is being stored on the handheld device.
Permanently Disabled Components
Traditional Barcode and RFID readers that offered an offline mode typically also offered multiple capabilities to exchange data via WiFi or Cellular connection when desired. Some of these devices also contained microphones, cameras, Bluetooth, NFC and other technologies that could possibly capture or share information in other forms. As you might imagine, compliance officers looked upon these as vulnerabilities even when the capabilities were securely turned off. A more robust path has been taken with this new generation of readers that “permanently disable” and ensure permanent disability of the components on the device, even if a bad actor were to try and enable these components.
The exciting development is that this new disconnected and secure inventory management technology is being embraced by compliance officers as acceptable in SCIF environments.
Modern disconnected RFID and barcode readers are allowing teams to perform fast and incredibly accurate inventories inside of controlled secure facilities that can save organizations enormous amounts of time annually.
To continue reading this RFID Inventory Management for Secure Facilities article visit the NPMA Property Professional website
About the NPMA
About the NPMAThe National Property Management Association (NPMA) is a membership organization to support Property Professionals with the mission of advancing the profession of Asset Management through leadership in education, standards, compliance, and certifications. A2B Tracking is a proud NPMA member, sponsor, contributor and technology solution provider for both property management and RFID asset management.
