GE-Aviation Moves Tote-Tracking Pilot to Production

After the totes are received in Durham, they are stored in an area known as the kitting room. As the totes are brought into the room, they move through a portal that captures each label's RFID tag ID number. This code is again captured as the totes are later removed from the kitting room, providing Durham with a real-time inventory list of tagged totes in the room. Once the totes are empty, they are returned to Erlanger, where the labels are removed before the totes are reused. This is the same process previously employed with the bar-code-only labels.

GE-Aviation began a pilot test of the system in late 2006, then decided to make it permanent in December. Keisler declines to name the RFID hardware and software vendors involved.

This is one of many RFID systems GE-Aviation has tested or deployed. The company began tagging spare parts shipped between its Flight Support Center in Lynn, Mass., and the Erlanger distribution center in 2005 (see GE Aviation Finds Value in RFID).

Keisler says the company has also begun testing an active RFID system for tracking high-value tools inside a Cincinnati research and development facility. The hardware, he adds—which consists of active RFID tags that communicate over the facility's existing wireless LAN and software that maps the location of tagged tools in real time—may be made permanent later this year. If so, the company will initially track hundreds of tools in the facility.