Volkswagen RFID-Enabled Smart Supply Chain

Volkswagen Group and IBM collaborate to create a smart logistics process using RFID technology to increase efficiency in supply chain operations. Business processes, such as the material receiving process, will achieve operational excellence through automated data collection. An initial pilot has positioned the company to broaden its deployment to increase adoption and benefits realization. ...
... "The new system will significantly enhance the carmaker's efficiencies in day-to-day operations, for instance at the goods-receiving stage. As a result, Volkswagen is preparing to introduce this technology at its central logistics hall, located at its major plant in Germany. Volkswagen is deploying the new system following a one-year pilot project in which the automaker and IBM tested RFID technology with suppliers. Using this system, shipping containers carrying auto parts destined for Volkswagen will be increasingly fitted with RFID tags.
The information on the tagged containers is automatically collected by readers at all key locations throughout the supply chain -- first at the supplier's shipping department, through the transportation process until they arrive at Volkswagen, then during storage, collection and installation on the automaker's assembly line. The same process is used when Volkswagen returns the empty shipping containers to its suppliers to ensure that all containers are returned after the auto parts are received. The technology is also reducing the need for paper documents and barcode labels.
For the pilot, Volkswagen fitted around 3,000 shipping containers with passive RFID tags, supplied by Intermec Technologies Corporation. The technology has been refined so that it can also automatically register metal containers, which normally interfere with RFID technology. The tags were used on containers carrying sunroofs for the new Volkswagen Golf. Readers at the entrances to the manufacturing line, along with mobile handheld scanners and forklifts were used to identify the containers and their contents. " ...
Via IBM: Volkswagen Creates Smart Supply Chain With RFID Technology
Labels: assembly, automated-data-collection, automotive, container, ibm, logis, metal-substrate, passive-tag, receiving-process, shipping, smart-label, smart-supply-chain, supply-chain, volkswagen








