'LoJack' file management.

State Attorney Barry Krischer (West Palm Beach, Florida) had a problem within his office. How do you handle 18,000 active felony case files that traverse three different floors, are processed by multiple divisions, and go in and out of the building? His answer is RFID (Radio Frequency Identification). The federal government and Walmart are already using RFID to track shipments and goods and a few law firms are using it to manage their file libraries. Hospitals use "active RFID" to track "Crash Carts" and other critical mobile equipment. This is the first time that "passive RFID" has been implemented to track case files as they move through and in and out of a building.

About the technology: "active RFID" tags are powered by a battery. An example of this type of tag is the transponder that is used to pay tolls or to go in and out of parking lots. Active RFID tags cost several dollars per unit. "Passive RFID" tags harness the power from a radio frequency to activate the tag and then send the information back to the receiving antenna. The cost for this type of technology starts at less than a quarter.

This simple technology is like "LoJack" for a file. It uses GPS coordinates on Google Earth to let staff see the location of the file on a floor plan. Making it work, however, was a complex system integration project. The office used the services of two different companies. The project involved integrating the RFID technology into the office case tracking system known as STAC...