A leading auto manufacturer had been using manual methods to track its parts through a system of paper based spreadsheets. Human error happened from time to time and as a result there was a delay in production.
“We were able to reduce the duration of our project and save the costs were also more than 50% lower than planned.”
Influencing a strong existing business relationship, the company contracted Alpha Synopsys to design and implement the RFID solution, which would enable automatic identification of each vehicle and its component along the entire production chain. Alpha Synopsys’s dedicated team worked on it and designed RFID in a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). This SOA solution is the backbone of our development,”says the coordinator of informatics systems.” We send the data coming from the RFID devices into a Java™ program in web architecture. We have a message system which sends alertness management to issues with components.
The coordinator of Auto maker says that, “we make everything ourselves, right from the internal manufacture, welding and painting, to the final assembly to customer specifications.”
Since couple of years, the manufacturer had been estimating how to apply Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to improve the accurateness of component tracking along its manufacturing line and in its warehouse. The manufacturer engaged manual methods to track its parts, connecting them with a specific Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) and then monitoring the location of the parts during the production life cycle via a system of paper-based spreadsheets. Even though that solution had worked, but then human error occurred from time to time and delayed production. Moreover, paper and printing costs made the process costly. The manufacturer thought that it could improve production efficiency and reduce costs by implementing an infrastructure that would support an RFID tracking system.
The coordinators asked Alpha Synopsys to find a solution to alert management instantly if an incorrect part was being integrated into the manufacturing of a vehicle so that we could correct the situation before the vehicle got out onto the road.
What would happen, if a speedometer that displays miles instead of kilometers? A huge error. To get rid of that we have a system that alerts management in real time. That is how we reduce the errors directly in the assemblage line, “says the coordinator of informatics systems.“Another important modernization is replacement of the components from the line to the warehouse. We also have fewer employees, who are verifying parts manually, which saves costs. All in all, the cost of monitoring, maintenance, replacement is 50 percent less.
With the Alpha Synopsys RFID solution we have observed a 30 percent decrease in the time for scheduling and verification of production, so products reach the market 30 percent faster. Added to this, we have observed a 20 percent cut in the cost of missing parts and scrap. We have other improvements in indirect costs because of the efficiency of the production line. Overall we have seen improvements in quality and service as well.
A service oriented architecture-based Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) solution sends warning signal to management that, often an erroneous part is being integrated into the manufacturing of a auto and to get rid of it the company can correct the situation before the vehicle is manufactured, sold and driven.
The manufacturer deployed IBM® servers, IBM WebSphere® software and an IBM DB2® 9 data server which enabled the employees use wireless devices to scan RFID-tagged components and VINs into the system. Approximately 150 users leverage the DB2 9 data server, 70 of whom can access it at the same time. A process equipped with Java platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) application; power-driven by IBM WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment V6 software, will allow employees to track inventory throughout the production life cycle.
The manufacturer expects that by replacing its existing component tracking system with an RFID solution, it will reduce errors and improve production efficiency. Also they believe that fewer errors can be translated into a good-quality finished product, which will improvecustomers’ satisfaction and possibly will expand the company’s market chunk. The newly developed solution will also help improve the company’s capacity to provide suppliers with correct inventory data. Using WebSphere-based inventory tracking application, employees can now notify suppliers if a certain product is in stock or not and also can quickly order new materials when inventory levels are low. By using Alpha Synopsys’s RFID tracking solution, the company getting benefits from savings time and money.
We have paid for this entire RFID implementation and will continue investing on it. In the future, we would like to export SOA technology, this entire business project management, so that our suppliers can have the same information what we have. We would also like to know that, which suppliers doing what at a particular moment, so that we will be able to consider if something going correctly or not. For couple of years we are associated with Alpha Synopsys and will continue using their technology to estimate, manage and control our system.
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