Apr 09, 2014International aircraft components manufacturer B/E Aerospace has expanded its use of Tego high-memory radio frequency identification tags, software and installation services. This expansion includes an agreement to employ Tego's RFID technology worldwide on many of the flyable parts it supplies to Airbus (see Airbus Signs Contract for High-Memory RFID Tags).
B/E Aerospace is using Tego's high-memory ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID tags—which incorporate the TegoChip—on everything from life-support systems to ovens destined for Airbus planes. B/E Aerospace will apply the tags to tens of thousands of aircraft parts it manufactures, including seats, galley packages and other systems it ships to Airbus. In addition, the firm plans to increase its use of RFID to its sites throughout the United States, Europe and Asia.
B/E Aerospace is the world's largest manufacturer of passenger aircraft interior cabin products for such companies as Airbus and Boeing. To comply with the ATA Spec 2000 standard for visibility into parts used in aircraft, the company has been expanding its use of RFID technology during the past several years, beginning with tagging a few product lines at a couple facilities, and culminating in its current global approach. Each TegoTag is encoded with such data as its part number, serial number and manufacturing date, as well as several other details about the equipment, before it is sent to a customer. The company's TegoView software enables the encoding and permanent storing of tag data, to be accessed by Airbus and airline maintenance functions.
The aerospace company is familiar with the RFID-tagging of parts for the Airbus A350, such as at B/E's facility in Lenexa, Kansas, which manufactures beverage equipment, life-support systems and other parts for use in aircrafts. It also utilizes the technology at its plants in the Netherlands and Anaheim, Calif., which produce ovens and chillers that are installed in aircrafts.
Recently, the company further expanded its use of the technology to its Seating Products Group, which operates major locations in Winston-Salem, N.C., and in Kilkeel, Northern Ireland. This installation—at what is one of B/E's largest manufacturing sites, according to Su Ahmad, a Tego cofounder—was part of a corporate agreement for which Tego was selected as the global partner to provide RFID tags for flyable parts destined for Airbus and possibly other customers in the future. B/E also performs seat manufacturing in its Business Jet Group (located in Miami, Fla.) and its Super First Class Group (in Tucson, Ariz.), Ahmad reports.
B/E Aerospace is utilizing Tego's high-memory RFID tags to identify products installed on new Airbus aircraft, while allowing the installer to write additional data to the tags. Tego's software is being deployed to manage data related to the reading and writing of the tags according to the latest ATA Spec2000 version, 2013.1.
Ahmad declines to comment regarding how B/E Aerospace may use the technology within its own facilities to benefit its operations. However, he says, "We see companies taking advantage of the TegoChip's ability to authenticate parts and detect counterfeit parts. Companies use TegoChips and the TegoView software to re-engineer their operational processes. This greatly reduces time and increases the quality of the information throughout the company's internal and external supply chain." That can include tracking materials received for manufacturing parts, the assembly of those parts through work-in-progress and the shipping of finished components.
According to Ahmad, Tego addresses the unique needs of each B/E Aerospace site to provide the appropriate system, including the proper tag, applied at the right location on a part. It also supplies readers to encode and interrogate each tag.
"Tego's expertise is in understanding that a tagging program is more than just an RFID tag, or software or rugged high-memory chip," Ahmad states. "Our experience and expertise greatly increases the speed, reliability and quality of any tagging program. We give our customers a comprehensive and reliable long-term solution."
