A Canadian utility company is employing an RFID system to track the movements of its 3,000 to 4,000 cable reels as they pass through its distribution center and nine of its storage yards before being trucked to construction sites. The RFID system, known as MOBILEFusion, is provided by AppLocation Systems, based in Victoria, B.C., Canada.
A pilot of the system was launched in January of this year, says Gary Hartwig, AppLocation’s president and co-founder. The utility company, which asked not to be named, then moved forward in March with a permanent deployment at its DC and nine yards in central Canada.
The utility company first came to AppLocation in December 2007, seeking a solution to track its reels of electrical cable from the distribution center to delivery to the contract job site. The reels, varying in size from 36 inches to more than 5 feet in height, hold cable that is sold to contractors for use in construction projects. When the reels are emptied, they are returned and reused by the utility company.
Electric cables are typically stored on reels, first in a third-party distribution center, until they are shipped to a storage yard in the vicinity of the construction site where the cable will be used. Tracking inventory by paper and over the phone is challenging for such companies, because there are many players involved in purchasing and moving the cables. Sales companies representing contractors, for instance, often phone in an order and send trucks to pick up cables, while others order directly from the firm and send their own trucks or hire a freight company to retrieve the reels.
Out-of-stocks could occur when one party picked up a reel or reels that another party was expecting to retrieve. This could affect not only the utility, which loses business to competitors, but also the freight companies, salespeople and contractors, all of whom could be delayed as a result. Therefore, the utility was more likely to over-stock at the distribution center and yards to ensure out-of-stocks did not occur.
The utility company wanted the ability to track the reels, both in its distribution center and in open storage yards where reels are stacked—typically three high, in 300 by 400 meter (980 by 1,300 foot) outdoor spaces, before they are taken to the construction site. In the long term, the company intends to track the reels all the way to the construction site, using GPS technology on trucks (a feature already built into the MOBILEFusion platform). The current deployment, however, is focused simply on warehouse and yard management using RFID.With the RFID system, Hartwig says—which employs a proprietary air interface protocol—the utility company is affixing ruggedized, active 915 MHz 3-inch by 1-inch tags, with bar codes printed on the front, to wooden and metal reels destined for the RFID-enabled distribution center, or for one of the nine storage yards.
Once the tag is attached, the utility company employees scan a bar code on the tag with a Motorola bar-code scanner, then manually enter the size and type of cable on the reel, along with the unique RFID number, into the back-end system. If a reel is being re-used, the tag is simply scanned and new location data is input, which is then linked in the utility’s SAP system. Information is also loaded onto a Web-based server hosted by the utility company but maintained by AppLocation. That Web server is accessible to other parties with a password. The Web-based site includes a map with tabs that can be selected by authorized users to track the locations of particular products.
After a reel is tagged, it is shipped to the distribution center, where an RFind fixed RFID interrogator captures the tag ID number as the reel enters the site, then again as it departs. The reel tag is read again at any of the nine storage yards, Hartwig explains, where up to five RFind readers are installed at each location on poles. Each reader has a 700-meter (2,300-foot) read range, thereby allowing real-time transmission at any point in the yard. In this way, the utility and permitted parties can track whether a reel has left the distribution center, or find the reel in real time at the storage yard.
Additionally, the tags are equipped with motion sensors that transmit an alert to readers in the yard if the reels are moved without authorization. This protects the cable, which is made of copper—a high-value material—from theft, since yard managers would receive an e-mailed alert as soon as a reel is moved.
In the future, the company plans to expand to a GPS system, also provided by AppLocation, as edgeware on the existing platform. Contractor and freight trucks that pick up and deliver the reels would be equipped with GPS devices. Each truck’s device would send a cellular transmission of its location at regular intervals as the truck travels between the distribution center and yard, and between the yard and construction site.
Deployment began in March, and the nine yards are scheduled to all be fully operational by mid-October. In 2009, Hartwig says, the company intends to begin installing the system in all of its approximately 50 yards. In the meantime, he adds, when it comes to a return on investment, “They’re expecting more than a 10 to 15 percent increase in operational efficiency. We expect that is achievable.”