Back to the Future
If you’ve been following our 100 days of RFID
campaign from the beginning, you’ve known that one of the reasons we’re
doing this is to celebrate 10 years of RFID in conjunction with our
upcoming anniversary. But, today we’re getting in the time machine to
celebrate 15 years of RFID. Come along for the ride as we fire up the
flux capacitor!
The year is 1995 and here’s what the RFID technology scene looked
like: low frequency, which meant tags couldn’t be read from a great
distance; proprietary technology, which meant customers had few options
when upgrading; and higher costs, which meant trading off business
benefits.
Well before ThingMagic was founded, Würth Oy,
a Finland-based supplier of tools, fasteners and other industrial
products, pioneered RFID’s use in order fulfillment. This was a low
frequency (LF) system based upon proprietary hardware that automated the
picking process along a nearly one mile long conveyer line at its plant
in Riihimaki. The point came, however, when Würth no longer could
obtain parts for the proprietary hardware powering the system, so it
turned to ThingMagic partner Vilant to replace it with one based upon UHF without any downtime to the picking line.
The closed-loop application features 40 stationary ThingMagic Astra
readers that interrogate EPC Gen 2 passive ultrahigh-frequency (UHF)
tags on roughly 1,000 plastic containers. The information collected via
RFID is used to direct the conveyor belt system to send the containers
to the proper picking stations. The key for Würth and Vilant was to make
a slow and planned switchover so as not to incur any downtime, as over
70% of orders are fulfilled using this line, with over 40,000 RFID
tracking events per day.
While Vilant successfully met Würth’s goal of moving its order
fulfillment system to the next generation of RFID technology, it now can
focus on taking advantage of what this generation provides them. In
particular, the ease of maintenance and customizability of the system
allows Vilant and Würth to innovate faster and easier. In addition, the
greater performance of the system allows Würth to collect better data
for quantifying how each picking station is used, maximizing the use of
each station and eliminating bottlenecks. Würth also is in position to
eliminate paper from its picking process by presenting employees with
electronic lists with locations for each item for even greater
efficiencies.
Now that you know this company’s story, what RFID change do you think
it’ll effect in the next 15 years? Or will it be closer to five years?
We’re interested in your comments.
Although RFID is more costly than barcode, it proves to be indispensable for a variety of automated applications involving data acquisition and object identification.
ReplyDeleteOrder Fulfillment
One more gain in order to utilizing order fulfillment solutions would be the personal savings when it comes to shipping fees.
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