Managing Automation - June 2008 - (Page 39)

In that process, when a particular component alongside the assembly line is running low, a worker pushes a nearby button that is integrated with an active RFID tag made by WhereNet Corp., a Zebra Technologies company. The tag’s signal is picked up by antennae that relay the information to a server, which then translates the button ID into a part number. The integrated system then displays an order on a screen in that component’s stock location, where a forklift driver uses a touch screen to print a ticket indicating which part to collect and where on the track to take it. The e-kanban system nicely complements the company’s lean efforts, says Dave O’Reilly, manager of manufacturing and purchasing IT for Jaguar/Land Rover. Based on the data produced by the WhereNet system, plant managers were able to determine the most efficient quantity of components to hold line-side, reduce the overall number of forklift movements, and eventually reduce the number of drivers. The system made a believer out of O’Reilly, who said that, before its implementation, he thought of RFID as a technology best suited to applications outside the manufacturing arena. “That was our first real insight into, ‘Hey, this is clever, this RFID,’ ” he says. Approximately two years ago, that insight led to a new directive: Create an RFID-based system that could track finished vehicles once they leave the assembly line, but before they are dispatched for delivery. For years, Land Rover had played an unwitting game of hide-and-seek with its finished vehicles. On a 300-acre site, even an outsized SUV can go MIA. In 2006, the company set course on a new strategy at the Land Rover assembly facility in the British town of Solihull, one of three United Kingdom-based manufacturing sites for the two brands. When a vehicle at Solihull reaches the end of the assembly process, it exits the track, breaking out of its captive sequence. Under the previous system, that’s where visibility began to fade. It wasn’t uncommon for plant personnel to lose track of a vehicle as it moved to a temporary resting spot — which could be any number of areas on the 300-acre site — through stations such as wheel alignment, headlamp alignment, paint repair, and water testing. “We’d like to really know where [the vehicles] are if we have to prioritize them to recall them for any reason or go and fix them for whatever reason,” O’Reilly explains. For help, he paid another visit to WhereNet, the supplier of the materials replenishment system, and selected its Vehicle Tracking Management System for the job. Hamming It Up FID has showed up in some novel applications over the years, from pet implants to termite detectors. We decided to track down reports of some of the more unusual uses of the technology Early in the reporting of this story, it came to light that a certain food manufacturer in Spain is using RFID tags to identify its gourmet hams. The reason? A bustling market in counterfeit gourmet hams has been eating into the company’s profits and confusing its customers. The situation says a lot about the lengths crooks will go to leach profits from reputable businesses. It also reveals something interesting about RFID and the channels the technology has filled as it struggles toward broad acceptance. Absent strong customer demand for one particular kind of application, RFID providers have gotten creative and ventured beyond the ordinary. “There’s all sorts of crazy applications happening all over the place,” says Michael Laird of ABI Research, who has heard of a group in Taiwan that’s considering tagging fish. The RFID tag would act as a freshness pedigree for consumers who are willing to pay 20% more for still-wet fish. He also mentions a project in China to stamp out counterfeit wine with RFID tags. John Fontanella of AMR Research offers cattle tracking as an interesting application. He also points to quarry owners who tag rocks to identify the grade of the stone, something that’s not always obvious at a glance. Another contender was the winner of last year’s RFID Journal Live award for the most unique use of RFID: Dow AgroSciences markets a termite detection system complete with RFID-rigged traps. Once they start tagging the actual termites, they’ll get our award. For now, the hams have it. R Land Rover now associates an active RFID tag with the VIN number of a finished vehicle and then hangs the tag in the cabin of the vehicle. The tag blinks every four minutes, allowing the closest of the 130 antennae on-site to pick up the signal and triangulate its location to within 3 meters. The success of that system — O’Reilly says it has substantially reduced the amount of time between a vehicle’s reaching the end of the production line and its dispatch — has spawned even greater interest in RFID as a mechanism for change at Jaguar/Land Rover. “The original idea was just, ‘Can you help us locate the cars?’ ” he says. “I think when we talked a little more about this, we suddenly realized we can do more than just locate cars here. We can actually really improve this order-to-cash cycle because the quicker we get the car off plant, the quicker we’re going to get revenue back in.” That thinking led to the idea of integrating with other factory systems. “If the RFID system can pick up the vehicle,” O’Reilly says, “why can’t it also then do a quick check against the quality system to make sure that there are no quality concerns outstanding on this vehicle?” Those and other projects based on the existing RFID infrastructure should keep O’Reilly and his cohorts busy in the years to come. “Obviously the challenge for us with change of June 2008 39

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Managing Automation - June 2008

Managing Automation - June 2008 Contents Take 1 SAP Cites Functionality, Cost Structure in Modified On-Demand Product Rollout Dassault Exec Predicts More PLM Consolidation The Blackberry Goes Native with SAP CRM QAD Brings MDM In-House with FullTilt Buy Power Experts Look to End Voltage Sags The Progressive Manufacturers Notes Cover Story: Playing the Globalization Game to Win Special Report Integration Transformation Industries Product Scan Advertiser Index Next

Managing Automation - June 2008

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