Dec 30, 2020Tubonal is a Brazilian provider of steel pipes to the civil construction, automotive and distribution industries. In its more than 50 years of operation, the Belo Horizonte-based company has been recognized in the market for its expertise in the production of materials with various formats and special applications. Recently, the firm deployed radio frequency identification technology from iTAG Etiquetas Inteligentes to obtain total traceability of the materials in its stock, as well as precision in the management of its stored products and agility in its inventory.
According to Victor Abreu, Tubonal's planning and control manager, the company's inventory has always presented great challenges, due to the fact that its products do not allow for standardized allocation within warehouses. "The materials produced and the quantities are variable," Abreu explains, "not allowing a specific place to be allocated for the storage of each material. As a result, the formation of loads and the shipping of materials was hampered [before the RFID deployment], in addition to our having several holes in our stock."
A montage of images from Tubonal's plant
Once the iTAG system was implemented, operators could then interrogate tags during load assembly using a pair of Bluebird RFID readers, as each item left the stock area. "We didn't have many difficulties in implementing the project," Abreu reports. "The only problem we are having at the moment is that we are expanding our RFID-based management to other materials, and the level of operator instruction in those areas is slightly lower." This, he says, has required additional training.
The deployment has been a success, Abreu reports, and he now plans to extend the company's investment in technology. "We are expanding RFID control for raw materials," he states. "At the moment, we only manage finished products." Despite the strategic vision offered by the solution, Abreu notes, the RFID technology was not integrated into Tubonal's enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Instead, the database is hosted locally on the company's website.
"Each bundle of material produced is identified via an RFID tag, and it automatically enters our stock system," Abreu states. "Material only comes out of stock when the person responsible for assembling cargo and shipping issues the items. To search for lost materials in our inventory, we read the tags. The inventory counts use the readers instead of our old manual method."
Abreu says the RFID implementation met the company's expectations. "The measurable gain, to date, is in the agility of our general stock inventory counts," he says. "What used to take about a full day's work and a nine-hour shift today can be done in approximately 40 minutes." He praises iTAG's efforts, noting, "We are satisfied with the support that the company provides us. They are always available when we need them. So far, we have had no problems."
Deploying RFID was a positive experience for Tubonal, Abreu says. "The biggest challenge was adopting a technology different from those used in our traditional processes, but our employees have welcomed the novelty."
