RFID earns its stripes in factories

We hear increasingly about the need for greater visibility in the supply chain. Although the benefits of a clear perspective on assets, equipment, work in progress and scrap are numerous, bottlenecks and inefficiencies can only be removed and corrected if they can first be identified. To achieve this in a factory setting requires extensive business data and intelligence through the capture of extensive information on the whereabouts of all items and goods in the supply chain.

This is where Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technologies come in. According to a recent survey from VDC, the EMEA market for RFID printers and encoders is expected to have grown by nearly 20 per cent by the end of this year. The increase is attributed to spill over demand from manufacturing and other high volume industries wanting to better monitor inventory levels and track assets.

Though hyped in years gone by, RFID can now really deliver against this and offer strong benefits for manufacturing professionals looking to improve asset tracking to enhance supply chain visibility, efficiency and flexibility while reducing costs. The best solution for factory environments involves a combination of both ‘passive’ and ‘active’ RFID, where passive RFID refers to tagging that can only be activated by using an RFID reader. This process can encode smaller items and is good for component manufacturing where the continual real time tracking of items is not always necessary. Passive RFID lends itself to handover processes in goods in/out applications, or in the management of the many thousands of small piece parts or components that align at the point of manufacture or sale and that do not warrant constant visibility until assembled into a larger, higher value asset.

Alternatively, active RFID works best within the manufacturing hub. It is ideal for stock replenishment, mouldings, ‘Just In Time’ and real time location tracking. Through a tightly integrated platform comprising tags, sensors, access points and GPS transponders it allows users to associate a unique ID to a specific asset, part or workstation. A call for parts, indication of presence, or transmission for location is sent via a programmable signal, enabling stock and component replenishment processes to operate in a truly lean way. This offers real time data from factory floor to external supply that eliminates disjointed, labour intensive processes and enables stakeholders to respond quickly to changes in inventory and production status, as well as customer requests.

State-of-the-art software and hardware can now locate, track, manage, and maximise the utilisation of high-value assets, equipment, and people. Whether tracking containers through a supply chain, optimising manufacturing fulfilment or providing wide-area asset traceability, the best solutions now use real time locating systems (RTLS) to provide constant visibility of inventory ranging from small items in a tool bin to forklifts or pallets in a warehouse.

Knowing the location of every item in your operation provides scope to optimise your processes. By incorporating ultra-wideband (UWB) and global positioning systems (GPS), these latest application-matched location solutions can also enable your business to put the right asset in the right place at the right time.

Capitalising on long range, high precision, and long battery life, RTLS solutions let you rapidly and cost effectively deploy multiple tracking applications. Highly scalable, they enable you to track and manage thousands of assets and personnel in the most challenging environments, resulting in an efficient supply chain and savings in time, money and space.

The latest technologies are highly effective regardless of the size of your operation. From large-scale operations to batch jobs, real-time locating systems deliver around the clock visibility, allowing you to tag, track and manage items from the start of the production line through to completion and shipping.

Moving ahead we are likely to see both passive and active RFID use becoming increasingly pervasive as early adopters have witnessed significant improvements in day-to-day operations. Factory environments in particular are experiencing the visibility improvements that RFID offers through real time location monitoring of each asset as it goes through the manufacturing process. As those testing and piloting the technology see the potential for RFID across a range of new practical applications we’re also likely to see them in action among increasingly unusual environments.