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It was Benjamin Franklin who said: 'Love your neighbor; yet don't pull down your hedge.' Companies considering a major RFID implementation would do well to heed that advice.
RFID (radio frequency identification) – a wireless data collection technology that uses electronic tags for storing data – has been the focus of controversy for some time now. While some applaud it as the best thing since sliced bread, others advise caution – especially with large scale RFID projects.
Companies will [only] benefit from RFID technology if they can use it to improve business processes.
Technology-business alignment – the buzz phrase of these days – is especially vital in such projects, one expert says.
According to Jeff Woods, an analyst at Stamford, Conn.-based IT research company Gartner Inc. "companies will [only] benefit from RFID technology if they can use it to improve business processes."
Ford Automobile Co. of Canada Ltd. says it has done just that.
Use of RFID at Ford Canada's facility in Oakville, Ont. is leading to significant business benefits, the company says.
RFID technology, it says, is helping transform the Oakville Assembly Complex (OAC) into a Highway 407-like facility where incoming trailers with shipments will be managed through wireless transponders mounted on trucks.
Specific benefits include huge time and cost savings, more precise tracking, and flexible manufacturing processes that are aligned with ever changing supply and demand.
"Just in time" manufacture is one key capability the new technology has made possible, according to a company spokesperson.
This means parts are delivered to the assembly line at the time they are needed for manufacture of automobiles, explained Alex Kumfert, materials flow manager at OAC.
He said this process improvement has been made possible through an RFID-enabled automated tracking system that has been introduced after years of managing the process manually.
Earlier, workers would record the arrival and location of shipments on paper – a difficult task considering more than 500 trailers arrive at the Oakville complex every day. "At any given time, we were not sure about where items were located. Our earlier system did not tell us when the trailers arrived and left."
As part of the new wireless tracking system, he said, a transponder – the size of a pager – will be attached the top left corner of a trailer.
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