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IBM recently announced that it has joined hands with the Volkswagen Group (the largest car manufacturer in Europe) to realize the intelligent management of Volkswagen’s auto parts supply chain through sensor technology.
The brand-new RFID system can greatly improve the efficiency of daily car operations, for example, in the contact phase of auto parts. Volkswagen is planning to introduce this technology in a logistics center located in a major automobile plant in Germany.
Volkswagen plans to start a one-year RFID system trial plan. Volkswagen and IBM will jointly test RFID technology with suppliers. It is planned to gradually attach RFID tags to containers containing auto parts. These containers are transported to the Volkswagen plant.
Kurt Rindle, the head of IBM’s global sensor solutions, said, “The trial program has broken ground. Volkswagen is leading the promotion of technological innovation and strives to become the first automobile manufacturer to adopt RFID technology. Deploy RFID systems to suppliers for transportation vehicles. In the process of parts to the production line, the whole process is tracked.”
Containers with RFID tags will be automatically read by reading devices deployed at core sites in the supply chain. First from the supplier’s transportation department, to the Volkswagen Company during transportation, and then to inventory, collection and installation to the car assembly line. Throughout the process, auto parts and containers have all insights. When Volkswagen returns the empty container to the supplier, the above process is repeated to ensure that all the containers are returned correctly after receiving the auto parts. The technology also reduces the use of paper documents and barcode labels.
Klaus Hardy Mühleck, Chief Information Officer and IT Head of Volkswagen Group, said, “Volkswagen’s long-term goal is to establish a comprehensive, paperless production and logistics chain throughout the group. The trial of the RFID system shows that we can achieve a lower cost. , And integrate RFID technology into business processes with confidence.”
To test RFID technology, Volkswagen has attached passive RFID tags to more than 3,000 containers, provided by Intermec Technology. The technology has been improved so that it is also suitable for metal containers, and metal usually interferes with the normal operation of RFID technology. Passive RFID tags are used to track the container carrying the sunroof of Volkswagen Golf, from the reading device at the entrance to the mobile handheld scanner and forklift on the production line to determine the container and the contents of the load.
This RFID system uses IBM technology, including the RFID container management solution of IBM Global Technical Services and IBM’s WebSphere Premises server (RFID middleware that has nothing to do with the application).
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