Ovaltine Posted March 19, 2007 Share Posted March 19, 2007 (edited) Articles discussing of usage of RFID technology at Ford and Hyundai/Kia If anyone has any practical experience/knowledge on how well RFID has worked within Ford, please feel free to post it on this thread. (Note: I saw the H/K article first, but that made me curious as to what Ford was already doing with the technology. We are just beginning to use RFID to track things via our wireless network where I work, so I've watching some technology forums and blogs related to RFID. ) Btw... there's at least two types of RFID: passive and active. Passive is cheaper, smaller, and sits there until proximity to a reader device stimulates the chip to give up its info. Active tags are larger, contain a battery and chip and firmware, and "actively" beacons or pings to a blanketing wireless network/ -Ovaltine Ford Motor Enlists RFID Just-In-Time Delivery System http://www.informationweek.com/story/showA...cleID=173402517 By Laurie Sullivan TechWeb News November 2, 2005 07:30 PM TNT Logistics NA will deploy WhereNet Corp.'s active radio frequency identification real-time locating system (RTLS) at its facility in Dearborn, Mich., facility where parts are aggregated from multiple suppliers and delivered to Ford Motor Co.'s truck plant, the company said Wednesday. Improved visibility at this facility will give TNT Logistics better tools to coordinate between 40 and 50 deliveries daily to ensure auto parts arrive at Ford's manufacturing site just in time. "We download and process orders every hour, load the parts on racks, put them on trucks and drive them to the manufacturing line," said Terry McIntyre, manager of corporate services at TNT Logistics. "From the time we get the order until the parts are built into the trucks is about two and a half hours." WhereNet Active RFID System Automates Inbound Supply Chain and Improves Logistics... Auto News from May 31, 2006 http://www.automotive.com/features/90/auto...0882/index.html SANTA CLARA, Calif., May 31 /PRNewswire/ -- WhereNet Corp., the leader of wireless solutions for tracking and managing enterprise assets, announced today that Ford Motor Company of Canada is deploying the standards-based WhereNet® active radio frequency identification (RFID), real-time locating system (RTLS) technology at Ford's Oakville Assembly Complex (OAC) in Ontario, Canada. By expediting delivery of just-in-time parts 24x7, the WhereNet automated "Fast Gate" check in/out solution will dramatically improve the efficiency of OAC's freight and inventory management system. Since 2000, Ford has deployed WhereNet wireless location systems at more than 50 facilities around the world. Covering the entire 5.4 million square foot OAC facility, the WhereNet implementation will be the largest RTLS- powered yard management system for an automotive manufacturer in the world. Ford Be Nimble, Ford Be Quick The WhereNet deployment is part of a transformation of the Oakville complex to flexible manufacturing, allowing for quick responses to market demand without the lengthy and expensive retooling process required of traditional model changeovers. Currently, OAC builds the Ford Freestar and Mercury Monterey minivans; this fall, the plant will begin production of the 2007 Ford Edge and Lincoln MKX crossover utility vehicles. With flexible manufacturing, inbound parts shipments from suppliers are smaller and more frequent -- in OAC's case, involving hundreds of daily truckloads of thousands of components in sequence. By automating the check-in/out procedures, the WhereNet system saves Ford several hours a day processing deliveries and increases efficiency in the supply chain. ======================================================= RFID moves supply chain at Hyundai/Kia Motors 02/26/2007 http://www.mcsolutions.co.uk/article/index...h-6xn1lWO_3kyIA South Korean vehicle manufacturer Hyundai/Kia Motors Group says it will implement RFID technology to improve the visibility of its automotive parts supply chain. Glovis, an affiliated company, is in charge of Hyundai/Kia’s automotive parts supply chain management, and next month will start to receive RFID tagged boxes of automotive parts from more than 200 suppliers. Using RFID and EPC middleware, Glovis believes it will be able to track boxes of automotive parts through the major supply chain processes, including delivery to the distribution centre, repacking, leaving the distribution centre, delivery overseas and final delivery to Hyundai/Kia Motors’ factory in Alabama, USA. The first phase is being supported by the South Korean Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy, and involves 130,000 UPM Raflatac UHF RFID tags being applied to parts boxes and packaging cases from five major suppliers for export. In the second phase, 20 million UPM Raflatac RFID tags will be used annually to track all boxes and containers through the supply chain. The project’s scope will then be broadened to include Hyundai/Kia Motors’ Slovakia factory as well as another as yet unnamed “major manufacturing site”. Until now, Glovis has applied bar code labels with shipping marks to the parts boxes, which has made it difficult to automate distribution and acquire real-time distribution information. Additionally, the company says it led to occasional human error during repacking, resulting in cost to Glovis and the manufacturer due to lead times for re-despatch and conflicts in production scheduling at Hyundai/Kia Motors’ production line. In the RFID-enabled SCM, reports for each process are automatically collected by passing the parts boxes through an RFID gate. In repacking, workers can check for errors by comparing data from the RFID tags against order information. Even during delivery, the information system automatically provides delivery status reports for despatch from the distribution centre for export. “Through the RFID implementation, production and co-operation will be improved among all Hyundai/Kia Motors’ affiliated companies,” says Senior Managing Director at Glovis, Mr Jin-Gi Hong. “Hyundai/Kia Motors’ Alabama factory can expect optimal supply to maximize its efficiency.” Author Brian Tinham Edited March 19, 2007 by Ovaltine Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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