- By adopting RFID technology in its facility, Bishop Cabinets can help ensure custom-made, high-end woodworking takes place efficiently and error free.
- Since deploying the system, the company’s customer support team can respond to inquiries from customers with real time status of orders, based on RFID tags reads on the production floor.
When Bishop Cabinets fulfills an order from its developer or builder customers, each one may require customization. The mid-sized woodworking company has a complex production process to serve the unique needs of each customer.
To ensure efficiency, prevent errors in the process and manage the related data, Bishop Cabinet recently adopted new enterprise resource planning (ERP) software along with an RFID system that tracks its work in progress.
The system—consisting of RFID tags on each part, and readers at workstations throughout the plant—has begun tracking the flow of every individual part needed for each cabinet, to boost efficiency, prevent errors and provide better customer service.
Bishop Cabinets
Bishop makes semi-custom cabinetry for developers, dealers and builders. The Montgomery, AL, company began as a family operation in 1964, and today is a $30 million company with a dealer network covering the eastern half of the U.S. with plans to continue to expand.
The company’s approximately 85 operators work with multiple species of wood, 14 standard paints, 16 standard stains, and offers a color program that will match the paint with anything a customer requests, explained Justin Martin, Bishop Cabinets’ operations director
The site houses seven departments including numerous kinds of doors and frames, each with their own workstations.
Growing its Digital View
As part of its growth plan, Bishop Cabinets recently chose to upgrade its technology. It replaced its existing management software with ERP software to better manage inventory, track projects and production operations.
At the same time, they began deploying RFID to identify each part and finished product as they move through the assembly process, are sent to another station for repair, or are being prepared for shipping, said Brad Douglas, the company’s change manager.
The company builds 300 to 350 cabinets a day and could have several thousand parts in the assembly floor at a time, Douglas pointed out. “Getting them through production and shipped efficiently is made easier with the ERP,” he said.
So far the company has deployed RFID readers at six machining areas where work such as finishing spray application or sanding takes place.
From Barcodes to Automated Reading
Traditionally, the company tracked its parts and assembled cabinets with barcode labels that could be scanned at workstations. If workers were looking for a piece on the production floor, they often had to visually search for something.
Scanning the barcodes could be challenging as well, if the barcode was painted over during the manufacturing process.
If an operator needed it for production, or if a customer called to ask about their order’s status, “it was a very manual process of going and finding this piece,” said Martin.
As the new ERP system was launched, Bishop worked with Northern Apex which is providing the RFID readers and middleware that links the RFID data with the ERP system.
How it Works
As parts are created, a passive UHF RFID tag is attached to it and the part’s description is linked to the unique ID encoded on the tag in the ERP system. Bishop is using the same barcode labels they previously printed and attached to these parts, but with RFID inlays built into them.
The parts are then sent through a series of workstations as they are built into cabinets, manufactured according to the requirements of each customer order. An RFID reader installed at each station captures each tag ID as the part arrives, and the software can display relevant content for the operator about the order and what processes are needed.
The software updates the status of that part to indicate where it is, and therefore what part of the manufacturing process is now in.
Preventing Errors
When multiple parts are built into a cabinet such as several doors and the frame, the ID number of each tagged part is linked in the software for that product.
The technology is intended to prevent errors, which can occur in cases when parts visually look very similar, such as a door that is just a millimeter or two different in size from another. If the ID number read by an RFID reader is linked to the wrong part for that specific order, an alert is displayed for operators to enable the error to be corrected.
Finally, when the finished product is loaded on a truck operated by a third-party, destined for a customer site, the barcode in the tag is scanned again to update the status as it is being shipped. In the future, an RFID tag read could replace the barcode scanning process.
Finding Exceptions
The technology not only tracks parts moving through the assembly process, but those that are delayed as well. In some case, a part may need to be repaired or adjusted prior to assembly onto a product.
With that in mind, finding parts can be challenging on the production floor. “An advantage for us is it allows for part tracking; so we can look in our system without going to the floor and know where that part is located,” said Martin.
They can also go to the floor with a handheld RFID reader to seek out the missing part. If the label has been covered with paint or another component, that tag can still be read, he pointed out.
The facility has areas for non-conforming parts and the handheld reader can be used in the area to detect what is there.
Aiding Customer Service
One of the ways Bishop officials say they set themselves apart from its competitors is in its customer service. If customers want to ask about an order status, they can call the company and quickly speak with a customer service team member.
“When you call Bishop, a person answers the phone, not a machine,” Martin said.
In the past, that customer service agent often had to walk onto the production floor to view the status of the order in question. “With this RFID technology, our customer service reps are going to have a whole lot more information” by simply looking in the software for the order, while the customer is on the line, said Douglas.
Martin added this allows Bishop to easily serve the customer. “They can say ‘I know where your [cabinet] is, it should be shipping out to you tomorrow’,” he said.
Rollout Will Expand
While the initial RFID deployment includes just some parts, the next phase will be applying RFID tags to all parts and building out the reader network to cover all stations.
In the future the system may enable machines to automatically adjust their settings to the appropriate level, based on an RFID read, without requiring operator intervention.
“As we continue implementation it will just become more efficient for us,” said Martin. “I’m hoping that as this technology continues to grow,” in use at Bishop Cabinets and beyond. For example, transportation companies could have RFID readers in their trailer so that Bishop could inform a customer not only where a product is in assembly, but where it is enroute to a warehouse or store.
The RFID technology has not only reduced errors but helped ensure products don’t go missing from the assembly process. “It actually makes the plant more efficient because we’re not processing additional material and labor for replacement parts,” said Martin.
Future Uses
Martin can envision a time when customers who build the cabinets into their own homes could leverage the RFID tags (which are visually hidden) with their own RFID readers to better identify a cabinet that’s already been installed. If a developer or contractor wants to fix or remodel something, they may need to know the specifics about the cabinets in place.
“We could tell him ‘hey take this scanner [and read the tag] to tell you what that door is, when it was produced and what the job and item number is’,” said Martin.
In the future, Bishop may share RFID data with customers on the company website. They could view the RFID-based status of a unit under production according to an order number and watch its status update all the way to shipping, or delivery.