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When the Nordam Group, an aircraft component manufacturer in Oklahoma, USA, officially used RFID in cutting technology on August 6, 2007, cutting molds no longer bother the company, even if it uses online manufacturing molds to produce aircraft Key components. The interior and structure department of Nordam Group produces complete components required for aircraft interiors, and supplies them to different customer groups including general aviation, commercial aviation, commercial and military markets; among them, some customers provide their own design specifications and drawings, Most customers need to rely on Nordam Group to provide design, engineering, technology and other professional skills. Nordam Group also provides OEM services, including panel assembly, plastic products, cabin manufacturing and interior integration.
In recent years, RFID has become the most useful technology. The company uses ISO18000-6B passive UHF tags for more than 400 types of molds. It hopes to use RFID to track the location of each mold and the number of times it is used to improve the recognition of manufacturing molds. And ability. The concept of using RFID tracking and monitoring module technology originated from the 6 standard deviation project jointly carried out by Nordam Group and 3M; they jointly analyzed the workflow of the module and reviewed the system that was originally a high-manpower requirement to improve efficiency and productivity . Bill Weber, manager of the 3M tracking department, said that the Nordam Group has indeed obtained improved methods with the technology provided by 3M.
Organized tracking method
First, for the most time-consuming system in existence, examine why it takes a lot of manpower. The 6 standard deviation research project confirmed their initial suspicion-whenever work changes, workers need 6-30 minutes to find the mold they need. In the absence of an organized tracking method, it completely relies on the memory and vision of the workers to locate and restore specific molds, so it takes a lot of time to start work every day. Workers must remember the shape of the mold, otherwise they must find the correct part based on the marked number among the many surrounding parts. This inefficient practice means a large loss of costs. In addition to improving efficiency, the Nordam Group also hopes to track and monitor individual molds in the production process. More importantly, it wants to ensure that the molds are not overused, which affects the accuracy of the aircraft components produced. In order to improve efficiency and quality at the same time, the Nordam and 3M team designed an RFID-based system that can quickly track the molds in the production process, and then the staff can easily access these inventory items.
Planning began in January 2005. The Nordam and 3M teams first jointly determined the scope and capabilities of the system. At first it was just a simple concept, and still staying at RFID may have a place in the aircraft manufacturing process? A few months later, 3M engineers developed a prototype system that used customized tags to meet Nordam’s unique manufacturing needs. The shock-proof label corrected by the 3M Aerospace Maintenance Department is set on the UFH525HT device of the EscortMemorySystem. The HighJumpSoftware company affiliated to 3M provides the mold tracking software required for this system. As for the interrogator, the MP93202.0 system of SAMSys, and The circular polarized antenna produced by CushCraft is used, and the peripheral system is in charge of Nordam. The whole set of equipment was completed in August 2006.
Figure 1. UFH525HT of EscortMemorySystem
Overcoming the manufacturing and baking stages
The manufacturing of this system first faced the problem of integrating power supplies in different environments, because these tags must be able to withstand a pressure of 45 pounds per square inch in a 400-degree Chinese oven. In other words, the third-party manufacturers quickly learned that passive equipment must be used-a system that does not require batteries but can withstand all the production processes that go through the oven. Passive equipment has its limits. In order to cope with the extreme environment in the oven, stainless steel must be installed on the facility, so the label is as thick as 1 inch. Like mobile phones in the 1990s, the cost of each piece is about US$100. At the same time, to ensure that these sturdy tags can operate in a belt-shaped oven, 3M has repeatedly tested in a simulated environment. Nordam has a total of 1,200 different molds, all of which vary greatly in size and are all equipped with barcodes. Based on cost and size considerations, only 400 of them are RFID types (the mold must be at least the size of a card to attach a label). The company’s largest mold (32 feet long, 6 feet wide, and 5 feet high) is almost the size of a city bus, and the larger the mold, the easier it is to find. In order to achieve seamless tracking, Nordam uses RFID readers to place them at important locations, including entrances and exits in the manufacturing process. Whenever the mold passes by, the interrogator immediately reads the specific ID number contained in the label, and transmits it to the tracking software in real time to update the location of the tool. Another RFID reader is embedded in the tollbooth. The tollbooth is the only way to be installed in the mold and sent to the factory’s 4 ovens, and the interrogator has also been installed in the oven. In actual operation, the system can not only track the precise position of the mold, but also decide how to proceed. When the mold leaves the oven to the entrance and exit, the system will self-inspect the accessories in the next 24 hours and inform the operator to put the mold on the shelf or continue to put it into the production line. About 56% of the molds do not need to be temporarily shelved, and the staff can use the symbol at the same time The hand-held interrogator assists in finding components that are not in stock, which saves a lot of work time.
The environment of the oven in the Nordam company’s process can be said to be one of the most extreme environments faced by the current RFID technology, so that the success rate of interpretation is still the goal of continuous challenge. The most difficult area is near the entrance to the oven. Because the oven is made of thin metal products, the antenna is embedded outside the metal door of the oven. Another difficulty is the tag itself. When they leave the oven, the surrounding temperature is about 150 degrees, which emits a lot of heat. Shooting and noise caused the object to leave the oven with a failure rate of approximately 20%. In order to deal with this problem, 3M company came up with the design of the back door, adding an extra step to the oven record database to record the time when the mold enters and exits the oven. If the mold comes out of the oven, the relevant information has not been read. When the time when the oven door is closed is interpreted, the mold will be automatically sent to the next step. In addition to assisting in locating the location of each mold, the RFID system also assists in reducing damage to high-value products during the production process. For example, preventive maintenance, in every production cycle, the mold is pulled out and inspected at the right time to ensure its normal operation. The system can also collect key information to provide control units. For example, through the Highjump software, the oven reader can enter the mold time data in real time when the mold enters the oven. This is the documentary data required by the United States Federal Aviation Association (FAA) during the production process of aircraft components.
Weber is very proud of the device he has set up. He has created a new realm of RFID application-this is the first application of RFID in the aerospace manufacturing industry, and the first application of RFID to high-temperature UHF asset tracking. At the same time, the system improves the efficiency and reduces the cost, because the average time to find the mold is reduced by 50% compared with the best time before using the system, and the overall productivity is increased by 27%. What’s even more proud is that 72% of the increase comes from weekend production, and the weekend production employees are mostly low-level and junior employees. After the introduction of this system, the original difficult tasks such as mold identification and preparation were completely solved by the system. As a result, the productivity of weekend employees is almost the same as that of normal employees.
Concluding remarks
Nordam recommends that any company that considers the use of this system must firmly believe in the “return on investment” requirement to a certain degree, because the changes in the production process by the RFID system can indeed improve financial benefits. The philosophy of Weber’s success lies in the continuous attention to all details during the system design. A lot of time was spent in the planning stage. Some ideas that were not originally available were constantly being put forward during the design process. More importantly, all possible details in the process are archived, and the perfect specification setting will eventually make the effort to be realized. Nordam spent six weeks working around the clock writing down the specifications of the company’s RFID system. Weber meticulously developed, imagined and invested to create a system that utilizes the potential of RFID, which fully meets the expectations of shareholders. Because he believes that people cannot expect the results of experiments, they expect things that can really create value.
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