Aug 01, 2013Beginning next year, all 35 million tires manufactured annually in Korea by Kumho Tires will come equipped with a passive EPC Gen 2 ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification tag to enable it to be tracked at Kumho's factory, through the supply chain, at stores and by owners, such as fleet managers.
Working with one of its sister companies, Asiana IDT, a developer and provider of IT products and services, Kumho developed a slim, rectangular patch-type UHF EPC RFID tag that is embedded inside a tire's inner liner during a high-temperature and -pressure manufacturing process. The company expects to have tagged approximately 14 million tires by the end of this year, and plans, starting in 2014, to place tags on all of the 35 million tires it produces in Korea annually. In so doing, the firm expects to reduce its annual costs by about US$9 million, by reducing errors, simplifying lot-identification methods and addressing customer claims. What's more, Kumho reports that the quantity of tags at its overseas factories is expected to increase according to each plant's construction progress.
In the meantime, the company has begun tagging all bus and truck tires manufactured at its sites in Gwangji and Gokseung, as well as some original equipment (OE) tires for certain carmakers. Later this year, it will start applying tags to all car tires for domestic sales, which will lead into the worldwide deployment that will include all of Kumho's manufacturing sites worldwide.
Dealers and consumers of Kumho tires can use the tags for inventory management and logistics at distribution centers, says Megan Wentz, Kumho Tire USA's marketing communications coordinator, as well as to track a particular tire's individual lifespan and wear. "For many years," she explains, "our company has been conducting research and development on efficient logistics management," including reducing the incidence of human errors and strengthening quality management by utilizing electronic systems for tracing product lots. Kumho did not respond to questions regarding whether it followed any of the tire industry's RFID-related standards (such as AIAG B11, JAIF B21, ISO 17367, TMC RP 247, GS1-EPC or TDS 1.5) while developing its tag and its embedding process, or the sort of data schema that it is using to encode those tags.
The company examined bar codes and a variety of RFID solutions, and found that radio frequency identification enabled a greater recognition rate of unique identifiers within dusty manufacturing environments than bar codes, and that the technology could also allow for the storing of sensor data, such as temperatures and pressure conditions. The firm then proceeded to develop a low-cost RFID tag.
Initially, Kumho Tires is embedding the tags on the surface of the inner liner of tires manufactured at its Gwangju and Gokseong sites in Korea. The firm's engineers are still developing the tags, however, in order to improve their functionality. For example, Wentz says, the read rate has tended to drop according to conditions related to how the tires were used after installation. The company is presently working to reduce this problem, and to ensure that the tags maintain their ability to be read throughout a tire's lifespan.
Kumho will track the tagged tires at its own plants, using its own Web-based RFID software. In the future, consumers will be able to connect to that software via a portal in order to review logistics data, along with quality information regarding a particular tire, based on its RFID tag number. Fleet managers and other users can also add their own driving information, thereby creating a record for tire management.
Kumho is not the only tire company employing RFID tags to track its products. Last year, for example, Michelin supplied an RFID-enabled version of its X InCity tires to some of London's buses, with the goal of making it simpler for bus-fleet managers to monitor tire pressure, and thereby improve safety and efficiency (see Michelin Uses RFID to Track Tire Pressure and Tread for London Bus Company). The company continues to introduce RFID tagging for some of its tires, according to Dominique Aimon, Michelin's head of technical communication. Earlier this month—a week after Kumho issued a press release revealing its tagging plans—Michelin announced that it will license, free of charge, any of its patents that would overlap with the adoption of what it calls the "globally recognized single core tire RFID standards," which "include AIAG B11, JAIF B21, ISO- 17367, TMC RP 247, GS1-EPC TDS 1.5."
AIAG B11, for example, specifies the use of a passive UHF tag complying with the ISO 18000-6C and EPC Gen 2 standard, and addresses what sort of data should be encoded on a tag, as well as how it should be encoded (see The Chasm Between RFID Standards and Implementation). The ISO 17367 standard, meanwhile, describes in detail the curing process for UHF RFID tire tags (see Can HF Tags Withstand Rubber Vulcanizing?).
Michelin's stated reason for its offer is to promote the adoption of a single worldwide standard, which it said was a key element to accelerating RFID's deployment. In line with fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) licensing policies, the tire maker reported that it would expect reciprocity—that is, it would license its patents royalty-free, on the condition "that any prospective licensee commits to license any of its current or future patents that would also overlap with the adoption and execution of the standards cited above, under similar conditions."
However, none of the tire manufacturers or RFID technology providers queried for this article indicated that they intend to utilize Michelin's patents.
Altogether, Michelin has been embedding RFID technology using methods for which it has more than 40 patents. The company has created solutions for tracking and tracing tires from the cradle, creating a record of a tire's manufacture location and date. Its patents relate to how a tire's birth certificate and permanent record are stored and shared, as well as the use of sensors.
The company is now identifying which of those patents could prove to be potential obstacles to the adoption of a single, worldwide RFID standard for tracking tires, and is opening those patents at no cost. The first to be targeted, Aimon says, is U.S. patent 20080289736, entitled "Tire Including An Electronic Member, and a Method of Fabricating Such a Tire." Patent 20080289736 relates to the placement position of the tag on a rubber tire, in order to optimize the transmission of data without requiring changes in the tire's fabrication. Moreover, she adds, Michelin has indicated that it is willing to discuss the opening of any of its patents with participants in the tire or RFID industry in the event that there is a patent preventing RFID adoption.
