Honda Manufacturing, an Indiana plant, is trying to get an active solution through radio frequency identification technology that helps people locate vehicles and track their progress by assembling them in factories. As the program has been refined, the company has been able to eliminate the costs associated with the car's location and also reduce the waiting time for the vehicles being transported. The program uses RFID readers as well as hand-held readers and fixed reader gates around the factory.
Honda Manufacturing's Indiana plant is the final assembly plant for Civic and CR-V vehicles. In October 2008, the factory started volume production. The company has assembled Acuras, as well as Honda's natural gas and hybrid vehicles.
The plant was built for mass production, with 1.3 million square feet of interior space for vehicle assembly, covering 1,600 acres. The company employs more than 2,400 people and produces about 250,000 cars a year, which equates to about 500 vehicles in eight-hour shifts. The facility is scheduled for two shifts daily, so the daily output is 1,000. This large volume of assembly poses a significant challenge in managing and managing the inventory of vehicles that are waiting to be sorted out and then shipped to the dealership. Philpot said RFID solutions allow companies to target products more effectively.
When it began researching RFID in 2015, Honda's goal was to automate and automate individual vehicles. So, if a company wants to find a special vehicle for inspection, testing, sorting or shipping, or it can find all vehicles of a certain type or assembly date.
Philpot said: "We wanted to be able to associate them with the VIN number, model, engine type and manufacturing date." He explained that the company considered GPS as well as active and passive RFID and found passive RFID to be the most cost-effective. The resulting solution will come into effect by the end of 2016.
Each new car is marked with an RFID tag. The data of the tags throughout the manufacturing process is referenced at various points in order to maintain the visibility of the location. Since the system was implemented, the company reported that it has been able to reduce costs while also improving the overall efficiency of the inventory management process.
The company is now planning to use the second phase of RFID in reworking Honda's manufacturing operations to optimize the workflow of the site. If the vehicle is in a position for a long time, an RFID or email can be sent via RFID.