Jul 11, 2017Global aerospace company Boeing has deployed a radio frequency identification system for internal manufacturing purposes at four facilities since 2016, using recently released RFID labels from Fujitsu. Boeing's deployment of Fujitsu's RFID Integrated Label is consistent with the aircraft company's use of passive ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID technology for its own purposes, as well as those of airlines.
In 2012, Boeing first began working with Fujitsu to launch a system to tag components with RFID tags so that airlines, maintenance workers and inspectors could read and write data about each part's history as it is used, inspected or repaired. In the meantime, Boeing has been using the same technology this year to improve its aircraft manufacturing productivity by tracking flyable parts during the final stages, such as assembly and inspection of aircrafts, as well as for shipping to a customer. The in-house solution provides component lifecycle management during assembly, thereby helping the company to reduce the costs of tracking components. Boeing is also considering an expansion of the technology to include the tracking of parts when they are received and as they move around the facility prior to assembly.
At the same time, Fujitsu is sending starter kits to component suppliers so that it can encode tags and apply them to its components before they are shipped to Boeing, or to French-based aircraft manufacturer Airbus.
At the four Boeing assembly sites at which the technology is deployed internally, the company is tagging some parts as part of a phased initiative to manage the movement of aircraft parts internally, explains John Yu, Boeing's senior manager for automated identification. The firm acquired Fujitsu's solution for tagging, encoding and reading RFID tags on parts. Over time, additional components are expected to arrive at Boeing's assembly sites with RFID tags already applied.
Before the RFID system's deployment, Boeing explains, the management of parts during assembly was a matter of performing visual checks and manually entering data in order to confirm where specific parts were located and in which assembly they were used. With RFID, assembly-site workers can capture the tag ID numbers using handheld readers. Tags are applied and encoded using the Fujitsu printers and tags, and a unique ID number, along with related information pulled from Boeing's software, is written to each tag. The tags can then be read at various points during the assembly process.
Boeing staff members use Zebra Technologies MC9190 handheld readers to capture component data. Although Fujitsu provides handheld readers to its customers as part of its solution, Boeing already had the UHF RFID readers on hand.
Boeing or its suppliers attach the RFID labels to approximately 7,000 aircraft components that are built into a single plane. The company utilizes Aircraft Readiness Log (ARL) software that tracks the status of the components and their assembly into each aircraft. By incorporating RFID data from the Fujitsu software, Boeing can use the system to ensure the components' traceability.
With the technology in place, after an aircraft is completely assembled, Boeing automatically sends its ARL report to the corresponding customer, based on the RFID tag reads, indicating the assembly process for a specific aircraft is complete. This, the company reports, helps it to save labor time and prevent the incidence of errors.
For airlines, Yu says, the tags can be used as a source of information for such purposes as improving aircraft inspection operations. Each tag stores data regarding a component's manufacturing date and location, as well as any subsequent maintenance or inspection. Authorized parties conducting their own work on a component can write further data to the tag based on the actions being taken.
Fujitsu is sending its starter kits to both Boeing's and Airbus's suppliers so that they can begin tagging components before those parts are shipped to the aircraft manufacturers. According to Takehisa Matsuda, Fujitsu America's manager and director for AIT solutions development, the company has sent starter kits to 46 supplier sites since January 2016—13 in the United States and Canada, 21 in Europe and two in Asia. "We estimate that 10 to 15 sites are related to Boeing projects today," he says, "and it's continuing to grow in the coming year."
The RFID Integrated Label being used is Fujitsu's most recently released flexible label, which comes with up to 8 kilobytes of memory and is designed for managing data related to aircraft parts and emergency equipment stored on aircraft, says Kevin Wrenn, the senior VP of Fujitsu America's Platform Products Group. The label comes in three sizes: 70 millimeters by 32 millimeters (2 inches by 1.3 inches), 55 millimeters by 25 millimeters (2.2 inches by 1 inch), and 35 millimeters by 25 millimeters (1.4 inches by 1 inch). All three versions are less than 2 millimeters (0.08 inch) thick.
Fujitsu's label meets the requirements for aerospace use, including the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) AS5678 environmental standard and the Air Transport Association of American (ATA) Spec 2000 requirement for information exchange and sequencing. The tag's memory is divided into a section for lifecycle information and another for permanent data, such as the part's serial number.
Fujitsu is also developing a flexible long-read-range RFID label at a lower cost for monitoring additional aircraft parts, such as emergency equipment that must be tracked and maintained by airlines to ensure that they are present on each flight and in good working order, based on inspection records.
