For businesses that manufacture aerospace, pharmaceutical or other high-value items, even a single component built into a product can be worth tens of thousands of dollars. Losing track of a basket filled with parts can thus be extremely costly, due not only to each component’s cost, but also the potential loss of production time if assembly is delayed. The solution may be RFID technology, according to Marlin Steel Wire Products, a producer of custom wire baskets and other metal products.
The company developed the system using RFID technology provided by Barcoding Inc. Each RFID-enabled basket comes with an ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) EPC Gen 2 passive tag attached to it, encoded with a unique ID number. Users then have the choice of using their existing RFID reader infrastructure, which they may already have in place, or purchasing readers and software to manage read data from Barcoding Inc.
Marlin Steel has provided the baskets to containerize and protect components within industrial or manufacturing sites for many years, says Drew Greenblatt, the company’s president. However, he adds, customers reported that it was often challenging to locate a specific basket of components, or to track that basket’s arrival at an assembly workstation.
“We have clients looking to ship product faster than ever before,” Greenblatt explains. Consequently, he says, those clients need to manage their inventory in such a way that the components are on-hand when needed.
To accomplish this goal, in many cases, companies stock a large number of components at assembly stations, in order to ensure that the parts do not run out. This reduces the risk of assembly delays, Greenblatt says, but can lead to excess inventory on site, and waste space on the assembly floor.
Improved visibility would not only ensure that the proper components were available in real time, but would also enable users to track their work-in-progress, by analyzing the movements of component baskets throughout the facility. By knowing where parts are located and determining when they are delayed or creating a bottleneck, management can identify and address problems. “They want to see if components are below their minimum,” Greenblatt states, “so chokepoints are limited.”Marlin Steel Wire Products began developing the solution after meeting with Barcoding Inc. earlier this year. The two companies spent approximately six months developing the system that is commercially available today, says Jay Steinmetz, Barcoding Inc.’s CEO. An EPC Gen 2 UHF tag is affixed near the top of the basket, though tag placement location varies according to each particular basket. The unique ID number is not only encoded to the tag’s memory, but also printed as a bar code on its front surface. Steinmetz declines to name the tag vendor providing the UHF tags.
The solution could be used in this way: A tag’s bar code can be scanned to be initiated by a user, and be stored in the company’s own software system, or in software provided by Barcoding Inc. Data regarding the goods stored in that basket could then be input, to be stored along with that basket’s ID number, either by manually keying in the information, or by scanning the components’ bar codes. With a reader infrastructure installed throughout the facility, users could then view where the baskets (and, therefore, the items within them) are located as they pass through reader portals or near RFID interrogators.
By knowing where baskets are located, the software could then provide data to the users, such as when a basket has left storage and been received at a workstation, thereby triggering the ordering of additional inventory. In the event that a basket spends too much time in storage or at an assembly station, management could receive an alert.
Greenblatt predicts that customers will gain a payback on their investment within four to six months, if their deployment includes tags, readers and software. Barcoding Inc. provides Intermec and Motorola RFID readers, as well as its own asset-tracking and warehouse-management software.
Although no one is using the system to date, Greenblatt says, the company is currently in discussions with several customers that hope to utilize the RFID-enabled baskets.