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A car dealer in Toronto, Canada has adopted a car security system. The system is provided by AVS K ey and Inventory Solutions, which integrates Ship2Save’s RFID system and Impinj’s RFID readers, antennas and tags, and Microsoft provides the BizTalk platform. For safety reasons, the car dealer has requested anonymity.
AVS President Anoop Sharma said that as early as when he was working as a police officer to investigate car thefts, he had established contacts with many car dealers in Toronto and had frequent contacts with them as a customer at that time. Sharma claimed that one of the dealers’ vehicles had been stolen not only at night but also during the day. Three years ago, Sharma established an AVS inspection company to provide night security services to car dealers. However, he said that although AVS provides night service, car theft accidents occur from time to time during the day.
Sharma said that under normal circumstances, criminal gangs target specific types of vehicles, such as Lexus or BMW. The thief will change the car key after the test drive. Then they will steal the car with the real key, and this often happens at noon. Then, they will drive the car to the truck, and then quickly escape people’s sight. Sharma said, “This problem is very common in North America.”
In other cases, employees may put the keys in their pockets, forget to send them back before going home, and then take them home and lose them. As a result, the dealer must replace the key again. Amninder Singh, director of product development at Ship2Save, said that the annual loss of car dealership caused by theft is approximately US$420,000, and the cost of lost keys is US$2,000 per year.
But for all these problems, Sharma said, AVS can solve them. AVS’ Ship2Save system was installed one month ago, including a key-customized key control box and automatic lock. Each key is affixed with a tamper-proof passive UHF tag, embedded with Impinj EPC Gen 2 chip, which can store the encrypted ID number. If someone tries to tear off the antenna and remove the tag from the key, it will be inoperable. The key control box is equipped with Impinj Speedway RFID reader, which can continuously obtain the ID number on the label.
To get the key, the employee has to show a locked key control box, which contains an ID card with a short-range EPC Gen 2 tag, which can be read by an Impinj reader. After the reader recognizes the identity, it will open the key control box. The identification data is transmitted to the back-end system through the LAN cable connection to inform the system who has taken what key. Ship2Save’s Operation Management System (OMS) software uses the Microsoft BizTalk facility of the dealer’s back-end system. The number of keys each employee is authorized to hold is specific and can only be held for a period of time.
After the key is taken out of the control box, the Web server managed by the dealer will update and display the date and time when the key was taken away. If the key is not put back into the control box at the specified time, or if multiple keys are removed without permission, the Ship2Save software will instruct the system to send an alert to the party designated by the company.
Currently, the auto dealer has only deployed the system in one area of Toronto, but the company plans to expand the system to eight stores in other major cities. Singh said Ship2Save plans to add a biometric technology in the future. In this way, in addition to showing the ID card, the employee needs to provide fingerprints to open the control box, which also increases the safety factor.
Singh said, “This system has brought huge commercial value. Its advantage lies in the use of Microsoft’s BizTalk infrastructure, which is very flexible and we don’t need to redeploy a new system.” Therefore, there are many distributors in the distribution store. It can operate a back-end system to manage many key control boxes, and a back-end system can also be used by different dealers. Sharma said that he intends to market the system to North America and other regions. Many distributors and insurance companies have shown great interest in this system.
Another company that sells RFID car key tracking systems is Performance Analytics, headquartered in Palo Alto, California. The company recently launched a KeyWhere system, which is used by Bob Lewis Automotive Family, an auto retailer in the San Francisco Bay Area, to automatically track vehicle test drives, improve safety, and provide a better solution for Volkswagen’s showroom in San Jose. Sales staff simplify the key extraction process.
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