One automotive components manufacturer has automated its work-in-process (WIP) tracking with an RFID system. The company manufactures aluminum power-train components, including cylinder heads, engine blocks and transmission parts. When the molds used to manufacture aluminum engine blocks are built, visibility into the entire assembly process can help ensure that any defects are caught before the finished block is shipped to a customer. The company required a complex network of sensors, as well as RFID readers, for an assembly line on which it manufactures the molds that it needs to create aluminum engine blocks. At each work station, the manufacturer writes sensor data to passive HF RFID tags, to record the results of each step of its automated assembly process. At the final station, the RFID data recorded on the carrier’s tag is stored in the firm’s back-end system, and is linked to the individual mold’s serial number. The tag is then erased, and the carrier is reused to manufacture another engine-block mold. Learn how the system provides an automated record regarding the assembly of each block’s mold, so that in the event of a recall, the company could ascertain what occurred during assembly, as well as which other items were assembled simultaneously.
