Over the years my efforts in Kanban, Six Sigma, value Stream mapping and Process control mixed with automated technology improvements where they fit and add value return Accuracy and Efficiency has giving me some insight as to what RFID can really do.
With defined processes and recording control of process flow will give you an accurate view of produced products and consumed material. And RFID / RTLS work wonders in these environments.
It also gives you a window as to what is being delivered to the customer with a verifiable production history for Customer follow up, satisfaction, and quality control.
Also you now have a window to your inbound supply chain that allows you to foresee delivery problems and adjust production and start on line to address issues before they become a problem, maximizing production uptime and production flow.
These attributes give in many cases almost instant ROI. But I am starting to see the real value of this wonderful tool. I will coin the phrase here and I am sure you will see it in the future RFED, the acronym for Radio Frequency Event Detection.
Laying out a production facility for manufacturing, parts storage and delivery, line side delivery, machine line control and much more require miles of Can Bus and serial wiring back to the control systems Logic unit, PLC’s and computers.
Take this Machining Center retro-fit and rebuild. An 11 station machining center all connected by delivery conveyers, tracked pallets, automated fixtures and clamping systems. This large system covered close to a football field size footprint (Roughly 150 meters by 75 meters). In this system was 35 Pallets/fixtures, and over 300 meters of conveyers and tracks. With hundreds of presence detection switches, door switches, access control switches, movement switching, and more. The close to one mile of wiring with multi channels required was a cost constraint to the project budget and the time to complete was a problem as well as the systems if a mission critical system to production.
Here Comes RFED! Working with a select RFID Vendor we made some minor changes to their product and monitor all the above mentioned devices and relay all that information back to the correct control unit without wires. Saving close to $250,000 US dollars in labor and wiring, and trimming six weeks out of the deployment time, makes this deploy and instant ROI and add millions of dollars to the bottom line in lost time along.
RFID / RTLS and now RFED,
Let me know when you need that Next Technology Solution. It just may be available today if you just think outside the box. Byron
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