| dc.description.abstract | Cash continues to be a vital payment method within the United States monetary system, and the use of money continues to grow despite common perception. This research explores the operational behaviors of an armored truck company (ATC) and its interactions with banks, retailers, automatic teller machines (ATMs), and their competitors and establishes a simulation that closely represents a typical branch. Provided data, observed data, and discussions with the management of an ATC validated the simulation model. Next, the research focused on technologies that could be applied to this branch to reduce costs, increase capacity, and improve visibility for all parties in the cash movement process. Through this exploration, passive RFID (radio frequency identification) was chosen as the most optimal solution with the most significant application at the lowest cost of ownership to the ATC branch.
After establishing the choice of technology, the simulation model was adapted to include RFID within the operational behaviors of the branch. RFID enables complete system visibility, improves operational behaviors, and significantly decreases operational costs. Adding in an RFID-based sorting robot reduces error and prevents bags from being sorted multiple times by different tellers within the branch. For the branch example used, adding an RFID system saved the ATC branch $2.1 million annually in operational costs and covered the cost of the system deployment. ATCs that deploy RFID within their branches save money, increase capacity, and improve cash visibility. | |
