Singapore’s Nissan Distributor Expects 90 Percent Gain

Jul 16, 2009Tan Chong International, the exclusive distributor of Nissan vehicles in Singapore, has opened what it claims is the nation's first RFID-enabled automotive hub.

The TC Nissan Hub spans almost 400,000 square feet and houses Nissan's car storage and pre-delivery inspection center, as well as its service department, parts warehouse and new-car delivery operation. The four-story facility can store approximately 900 cars and features an automated car parking system—a cross-sliding, three-dimensional parking elevator.

New vehicles are delivered directly from the harbor to the hub, and Tan Chong believes radio frequency identification will speed up the allocation of parking spaces when cars are received at the site, as well as increase its accuracy in tracking the vehicles and improve their retrieval for delivery to car dealerships. By reducing the time spent delivering vehicles to the warehouse, service department and dealers, Tan Chong expects to cut mileage by 90 percent, thereby reducing fuel wastage and exhaust emissions. Previously, staff had to manually identify and record the location of each vehicle in the warehouse.

The TC Nissan Hub opened in March 2009, and the RFID system is being tested ahead of a planned full deployment on Sept. 1, with employees also being trained in the system's use. Samuel Lee, the director of Tan Chong Realty, says the consolidation of the company's car storage, service department, parts warehouse and pre-delivery inspection operation under a single roof resulted in improved efficiency, and RFID would improve it even further.

"With RFID, we are able to track cars within the facility more efficiently, and monitor the progress of pre-delivery installation work with real-time information to ensure a smoother workflow," Lee says. "There are many tracking systems available, such as bar-code and GPS, but RFID was most cost-effective for our needs, and provides real-time information with minimum human intervention."

The National RFID Center, a multi-government agency that promotes the use of RFID in Singapore, awarded Tan Chong a grant for pioneering the technology's use in the automotive industry. Wavex Technologies, one of the largest RFID companies in that country, was chosen as the RFID systems integrator for the project.

National RFID Center's steering committee chairman, Boon Swan Foo, says innovative use of technology can help businesses stay ahead of the competition in tough economic times, and that investments in innovation need not be slowed down by the current financial crisis.

Approximately 1,000 ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) 868 MHz active RFID tags and 30 interrogators are being deployed in the rollout. Each tag transmits a unique ID number encoded to it. Once a vehicle enters TC Nissan Hub, it is assigned a tag, which is then attached by a security cable to the car's towing hook, and the system automatically assigns the vehicle to the nearest parking module. Each parking lot also has an active RFID tag affixed permanently at the rear. The lot tag communicates with the car tag to create an association between the lot and the vehicle.

"This allows the car to be identified and tracked to its exact location," Boon explains. "The car tag then updates active RFID readers, which are mounted on pillars, which consolidate the data stream from lot tags and send them to the server via Ethernet cables to give real-time location tracking of cars."

The car tag is removed once the car leaves the premises. According to Boon, Tan Chong is currently testing and commissioning the system, and expects it to be fully operational by September.

"One of the challenges that had to be addressed was the presence of numerous metallic surfaces from the cars and structures in the building," Boon says. "Metal reflects RF and can cause multi-fading problems, resulting in inaccurate readings. A two-week trial was conducted with two parking modules to ensure the system was working, and to minimize the issues faced, such as multiple readings and cross-reading of the lot tags and car tags, compounded by the reflection caused by the metal structure. During the trial, a few positions for both the lot tag and car tag were tested. The team needed to find the optimal position where the tags and readers could best communicate."

In addition to ensuring the tag was securely fastened and its readability uncompromised, the team also needed to make certain the tags would not cause any damage to the new vehicle, and that they could be easily removed when the car was delivered to customers.

Tan Chong's Lee says RFID will provide significant benefits to the company. "The deployment of the RFID system has resulted in enhanced operational efficiency and more efficient workflow," he says. "We are able to locate and track cars more efficiently. Vehicle identification and retrieval has now been shortened from an average of 24 hours to two hours. We are also able to offer a higher level of service to our customers, as they can collect their cars faster, with a lower mileage clocked."

Lee expects Tan Chong to utilize RFID in other business areas as well. "We are in the midst of implementing RFID technology to track all our inventories for our group-serviced apartments in Singapore—Wilby Residences," he states. "This tracking method allows us to read the asset tag fast and accurately."