Jul 23, 2013The factory that produces Trane heating and air-conditioning systems in Tyler, Texas, uses a kanban (just-in-time-ordering) system to ensure the efficient movement of components from a third-party warehouse to the plant. Since 2009, the company—a division of Ingersoll Rand—has been utilizing a portal-based software solution provided by Ultriva to help suppliers, as well as warehouse and factory personnel, ensure that materials flow to the assembly line as needed, without falling behind or backing up. By using this system, the company is able to stock just two hours' worth of supplies on the plant floor, thereby conserving space and ensuring that components are always available but never stockpiled longer than necessary.
This year, however, Trane has boosted that efficiency by adding RFID technology to automate the process of identifying when supplies are received at its Tyler plant. A process that used to last approximately 30 minutes—the receiving of goods at the factory's warehouse, and the scanning of those products' bar codes—now takes only about five minutes to complete, as workers pass the RFID-tagged goods through a fixed RFID reader.
Trane hopes that the RFID implementation will save it about $120,000 annually in reduced labor costs.
Prior to the RFID deployment, the Ultriva system created an automatic link between orders received and the picking and shipping process. When additional goods were needed from suppliers, Trane posted orders on the Ultriva Web-based portal, residing on a server hosted by a third-party behind Trane's firewall. Its suppliers would access that portal, and most responded by shipping goods directly to one of the company's two third-party logistics centers, while a few send them directly to a warehouse at the Tyler plant.
Once an item was received at the logistics center or warehouse, a worker scanned the packaging's bar-coded ID number. That ID, linked to that item's description in the software, was then stored, indicating what was received and was now available.
At the factory, if an assembly line ran short of components, the assembly staff would input an order into the Ultriva portal. One of the two logistics centers, or the plant's warehouse, would then receive that order and send the requested components to the plant, where workers at receiving dock would scan each item's bar code once more.
This process, says Reuben Thurman, an Ingersoll Rand IT operations analyst for Trane's Tyler facility, was faster than a system in use before 2009, by which much of the tracking was accomplished manually, on paper. But the bar-code-based method still required workers to scan each individual bar code, which was time-consuming. Adding RFID to the system, he says, makes that step much easier.
Prior to recommending an RFID solution last year, Ultriva analyzed the system's efficiency and found that the receiving dock's existing bar-code scanning procedure could lead to errors and time wastage, according to Nandu Gopalun, Ultriva's senior application consultant. "People were standing at the receiving dock scanning labels—60,000 per month, on average—and it was just too much scanning," he states.
With the RFID solution installed, when assembly workers require additional components, they place their order via the Ultriva system. However, personnel at the logistics centers no longer receive merely a printed listing of required goods—they now receive RFID tags specifically for those orders, generated by Zebra Technologies printer-encoders. The workers then pick the requested items, such as motors or fan blades, attach the adhesive RFID tags onto the components' cartons, and ship the goods to the plant.
At the Tyler facility, an arriving truck backs into the loading dock, where an Alien Technology fixed ALR-9010 RFID reader is installed. All goods removed from the truck are then transported past the reader antennas on a forklift. The interrogator captures each tag's ID number and forwards that data to the software, thereby updating the goods' status as received.
This information can then be viewed by the factory's workers and management, letting them know that goods are onsite and can thus be expected on the assembly line. The software can also issue alerts indicating that something has not been received when expected—such as components for which tags were printed at the warehouse, but that did not arrive at the plant within the expected span of time.
The system has been working well, Thurman reports, citing only a few challenges. Initially, he says, the company's database was not large enough to accommodate the volume of data collected from the RFID reads, but Trane has since resolved that issue. The read rate, he notes, increased once the firm discovered that a lengthy, audible tone during each read event temporarily halted the reading activity, allowing some tags to pass through the portal unread. That obstacle was resolved simply by shortening the audible tone.
"The system's been very reliable," Thurman states. Trane is now installing the solution at its other assembly plant in Georgia, he says.
In the future, the company may consider installing additional RFID readers to capture the movements of goods within the plant, but there are no immediate plans to do so. Although suppliers are not being asked to apply RFID tags to goods, the company might eventually make such a request, primarily to suppliers that send components directly to the factory rather than to one of the two third-party logistic centers.
