Gabriel Nasser, TJS

“Beyond simple inventory tracking, we believe RFID will enable many more innovative business models like ours.”

Gabriel Nasser, Chief Executive Officer, TJS

How does your company use RFID technology?
TJS has developed RFID-based software to track and monitor high-value inventory at remote locations worldwide. Our most successful market has been the jewellery industry.

Traditionally, jewellers who borrow gold to run their business are exposed to adverse events, both local and international, that are beyond their control. The reason is because they borrow gold from banks on an “unfixed” basis – meaning they do not pay for it at the time of borrowing. Instead, they pay the bank at the time they sell an item. The problem is that as the price of gold rises on the international market – which it tends to do historically – so does the cost of holding that same inventory!

TJS has overcome this problem by enabling a more secure, collateral-based financing product based on our RFID tracking software.

With this new approach, the jeweller selects her gold product as usual and tags each article with a secure and tamper-evident RFID tag. Then, each tagged article is pledged to the bank from which she wishes to borrow gold. The jeweller is able to easily monitor and report on the tagged jewellery to the bank on a daily basis, using TJS software. As the price of gold rises, the jeweller needn’t worry about compensating for the rise since she hasn’t borrowed the jewellery; instead she is merely holding it at her store, on behalf of the bank. Also, the bank has direct visibility of the collateral against which they are lending.

Under this new model, the jeweller is protected from the fluctuations of the price of gold and the bank is able to lend on a more secure basis.

How have your customers benefitted?
Beyond the traditional benefits gained through inventory tracking in general, our customers have changed their processes significantly and are improving the way they manage inventory including, for example, shifting from weight-based stock-keeping to item-level tracking.

More importantly, however, we believe that the new RFID-secured collateral-based financing model has added much-needed stability to an industry whose cost of inventory varies dramatically and unpredictably with the price of gold on international markets. As a result, our jewellery customers can focus on running their business and improving their sales, instead of worrying needlessly about their inventory costs.

What is your vision for RFID in the future – both at TJS and in general?
RFID is simply another automatic-identification technology just like airplanes are another mode of transportation. Beyond transporting more people and things, farther and faster and to previously unreachable places, airplanes also were a major catalyst for globalisation during the Industrial Age – for better or worse. Similarly, RFID is helping us track more people and things, much faster and in previously unimaginable ways and thus enabling the true rise of the Information Age – for better or worse.

At TJS, we used RFID to build software that is transforming an entire industry – for better. We believe RFID will enable many more such innovative business models, beyond simple inventory tracking, for years to come.


TJS specializes in item tracking software using RFID tags and readers. The company has implementations across Asia, Europe and North America. Tracking more than 2 million items, worth over $600 million, the TJS software is the most widely deployed RFID jewellery application in the jewellery industry.

See more at http://www.tjs.com