Every year more than 6000 thefts, to a value of 1.5 billion SEK, are reported

within the Swedish building trade. Plus all the indirect costs of having the

construction site standing still.

SafeTool is a newly started company that will try to prevent this problem with

a modern technology solution.

The key to SafeTool’s solution is RFID – Radio Frequency Identification – and

the solution looks like this;

All tools are stored in a container on the construction site. Every tool is

equipped with a RFID-tag that uniquely identifies the tool. With antennas in the

container it is possible to detect when a tool is leaving the container and when

it comes back. Every worker must wear a RFID-tag so it will be possible to see

who was taking the tool out of the container. The container has no external

locks on it, but the RFID-tag works as a key. An antenna on the roof of the

container identifies the worker and automatically unlocks the door.

All the tool and personnel traffic through the door of the container are reported

to a central server via GPRS. The server stores all info in a database. The

administration of the system will be done through a website.

This paper will show how we made this solution work in practice. How we

created and programmed the client and server and the protocol that makes them

understand each other.