Ed. Note: This article was previously posted at IoP Journal.
The use of radio frequency identification has been responsible for speeding up processes in many supply chains. Global mobility technology company ZF Aftermarket, which offers autonomous cars and electric mobility systems, is employing RFID technology from Avery Dennison Smartrac and reports that it has improved efficiency and productivity by 18 percent at its Brazilian distribution center in Itu, São Paulo. With RFID tags, ZF Aftermarket reports that it has eliminated the manual stages of its operations and has gained efficiency throughout its supply chain.
Everton Silva, ZF Group’s global head of operational excellence, recently discussed with IoP Journal the results the company has obtained with RFID. “ZF is a leader in mobility technology,” he said, “and, along those lines, we seek tools that bring efficiency to our customers in the aftermarket.” He added, “In 2019, we started the project to implement RFID technology in our products, at our distribution center in Itu, as a pilot of a global project for radio frequency identification.” One hundred percent of the vehicle clutches sold by ZF Aftermarket now leave the factory with RFID tags. “This represents about 20 percent of all products we currently sell.”
ZF is employing RFID technology that meet’s GS1‘s standard, Silva explained, with the intent of making the project a global initiative. “We are using this technology with the GS1 standard,” he said, “and have already seen an 18 percent increase in productivity in our receiving operations.” Parts are identified from the company’s factory in Araraquara, where the clutches are manufactured. “In the process of integrating these parts and receiving, we registered an increase in productivity compared with the conventional system.”
However, Silva said, the challenges and objectives that ZF has in mind with its RFID project go beyond those of the Itu DC. “We want to have 100 percent of our products identified with RFID technology by 2022,” he stated, “and our idea is to have the entire supply chain connected, from the factory to our customers.” ZF is already lining up customers to carry out pilots, who have begun to benefit from the technology since they receive products and do not need to manually count them, instead identifying the items automatically via RFID, with cost savings and full reliability.
Everton Silva
“However,” Silva said, “we want to go further and connect our entire chain together with our customers, supporting them in monitoring their inventories, in order to carry out the automatic replacement of products and guarantee maximum availability.” He added, “ZF has a very ambitious goal for this project, and Itu is our pilot. Brazil is the pilot of a project with a global reach. ZF’s idea is to put RFID into all of its global operations where it can add value to our customers.”
According to Silva, Avery Dennison has been part of the project since its inception in 2019, when ZF sought to find viable solutions for its product types. “ZF Aftermarket’s portfolio is very broad,” Silva explained, “as we have everything from clutches—which were the first product we implemented RFID for—to brake pads, small products with a lot of steel, rubber, brake fluid, and so on. All products need to be identified automatically. That’s why we were looking for an ally who could develop viable solutions with us for our different types of products.”
“A big differentiator for Avery Dennison is being part of a global company,” Silva said, “so the solution that is jointly developed in Brazil needs to be globally applicable. We cannot work with a supplier that only works in Brazil. It is necessary for a supplier that has the technical capacity to take part in the development and overcome the challenges that arise with the technology—which, despite not being new, is unprecedented for application on the scale at which ZF is working.”
ZF Aftermarket moves a large volume of parts every day. “One hundred fifty to 200 tons of materials circulate in the company daily,” Silva said. “We deliver to approximately 750 points throughout South America. From Itu, we ship to ZF’s distribution centers in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Cali, Colombia.” The company is among the major players in the replacement parts market, he noted, and it is positioned to offer mobility solutions for a much broader spectrum than just vehicle parts.
Fabiana Wu
Fabiana Wu, the RFID manager at Avery Dennison Smartrac Latin America, said her company faced a great challenge in entering the ZF project since it is not so common an application. “We know that the use of RFID in sectors such as apparel retailing has become routine,” she explained. “In the automotive parts industry, which has a very wide variety of materials, such as rubber and metal, and with great density inside a pallet, we had to find out which product would be the best for ZF’s needs.” For Avery Dennison, she said, it proved to be a learning experience for everyone, not only in finding the right inlay, but also in how to carry out the work.
“We have the support of ZF itself,” Wu stated, “the integrators who were and are with them in the project, and our international team.” Within the project, she explained, inlay-based solutions were sought that would perform well at the time of reading, regardless of the products to which they were attached. “For this, we worked with more up-to-date inlays, which had not yet been released to the market. ZF had access to special inlays, and we always tried to work with something that was legible and facilitated the process without losing authenticity, regardless of the material on which the label was placed.”
Avery Dennison Smartrac works with systems integrators, Wu said. “We are not integrators,” she explained. “What defines the partner company is the customer. In this case, ZF chose which integrator would support it in the process. Avery Dennison works closely with this integrator to find the best solution and the best design for ZF to get the most out of the adopted solution.” What makes ZF’s project with Avery Dennison a special achievement, she added, is this: “I believe that, for us, a big difference was having the support of the global team, with Avery Dennison laboratories outside Brazil, and also with our automotive industry experts who helped us with tips and recommendations.”
“I would say the project is at an early stage because we have a way to go together,” Wu stated. “However, I am optimistic because I feel the project will be even more successful, thinking about it holistically—starting here, implementing 100 percent in Brazil, and managing to implement it in the rest of the world.” She offered the following message to the market: “We must all adopt RFID, because the technology is gaining ground and will open many doors to improve what we are already doing today.”
Thiago Cergol
Thiago Cergol, Avery Dennison’s RFID strategic account manager for Brazil, described the genesis of the project once ZF’s interest arose in deploying RFID for tracking and receiving products from its aftermarket line. “Avery Dennison was quick to offer the complete portfolio of all commercially available products and labels for testing,” he recalled. “We at Avery Dennison Smartrac, in conjunction with the technical team, offer a wide range of inlays for different types of applications, with different densities and sizes, to meet the demands of that product line.”
“For Avery, the alliance with ZF allows us to carry out some tests to understand how the relationship between automotive products and the production environment is,” Cergol said, adding, “We are satisfied. Our goal is to achieve a higher score when it comes to performance with Avery Dennison Smartrac inlays on ZF products. It is also important to thank ZF and also our converter customer, Tecnoprint, for their partnership in this project.”
(The full interviews, recorded in Portuguese, are available for viewing at IoP Journal’s YouTube channel.)