Using Passive RFID in a Heavy Manufacturing Environment

Using Passive RFID in a Heavy

Manufacturing Environment

Jeff KnutsenTechnology Architect

John Deere

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About This Session: A Brief Outline

• About John Deere

• Three Projects:

– WIP Visibility

– MES Integration

– Outbound Logistics Mistake-Proofing

• Lessons Learned

• Questions

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Integrity … Quality … Commitment … Innovation

About John Deere

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2009 Net Sales and Revenues

$23.1 Billion

Agriculture & Turf 78.4%

Construction & Forestry 11.4%

Credit 8.4%

Other 1.8%

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John Deere Manufacturing Locations

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John Deere’s Approach to RFID

• We engage in RFID because we see value

for our shareholders.

• Very different from a CPG:– CPG: High-volume, palletized cases.

Deere: Low volume, big each’s.

– CPG: “90% read rate is better than nothing.”

Deere: 6-sigma organization. Need better than 99%.

– CPG: Mandate-driven.

Deere: SVA-driven.

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John Deere’s Approach to RFID

• Knowing our places:

– The Business Unit vs Corporate.

• The Role of the Business Unit:

– Articulate pain points.

– Manage the tactical execution of the projects.

– Fund the project if the ROI is there (it almost

always is).

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John Deere’s Approach to RFID

• The Role of the Enterprise:

– Earn the right to be invited to the business unit’s

project team.

– Manage the program. Drive the strategy.

– Be involved as possible in project planning.

– “Right-size” the solution: re-use, scale, standards.

– Be uncompromising on data standards.

– Own the key external relationships.

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Three Projects

• WIP Visibility

• MES Integration

• Outbound Logistics Mistake-Proofing

• Each UHF Passive.

• Each at a different factory.

• Deere has many other recent passive RFID

projects as well.

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WIP Visibility

• Opportunity:

– Closed loop container system.

– Painted parts travel across town from Manufacture

to Paint to Assembly via 3PL.

– Kanban line replenishment: barcode scan calls

ERP transaction.

– Bar code scans: ~93% accurate.

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WIP Visibility

• Opportunity:

– Several times a year, a missed barcode scan

causes a part shortage that stops the line.

– Even when the line isn’t stopped, lots of resources

wasted tracking down hot parts.

– These products sell for $100K and up.

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WIP Visibility

• Solution

– Pilot: Pick a subset of parts (78 parts, 300

containers) to “upgrade” from barcode to RFID-

based process.

– Place portal readers where existing barcode scans

occur today.

– Place four tags on each tote/returnable container.

– Improve the ERP transaction to be smarter about

Kanban state.

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WIP Visibility

• Challenges

– Pallets of parts to be painted may contain up to

fifteen totes of varying sizes filled with metal parts

of varying geometries. RF-harsh environment.

– Management wants the roll-out expanded to all

painted parts (700 parts/3,000 containers) faster

than we can deliver it well. They are sold on the

value proposition.

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WIP Visibility

• Results

– Consistently reading 60 out of 60 tags on our

densest pallets – not using mount-on-metal tags…

just protected squiggle’s.

– Read rates:

• Barcode: ~93%.

• RFID: Very near 100%.

– No line down situations directly attributable to

parts in system. Expect none in the future.

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WIP Visibility

• Take-Away’s

– Metal is a design consideration, not a show-

stopper.

– We didn’t just upgrade the Auto-ID technology…

we used the momentum to fix some process

problems too.

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MES Integration

• Opportunity

– New product line.

– A division exec declared it would be tagged – we

needed to find the value to justify the cost.

– We had a technology looking for a business case.

– Started looking at making sure the right product

got onto the right returnable containers and the

right truck.

– Business case was still shaky, tried again...

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MES Integration

• Opportunity

– Building this product would involve 50 bar code

scans - one at each station in the assembly

process - to bring up work instructions on the

MES.

– Each barcode scan takes 10-ish seconds.

– RFID reads are automatic and immediate.

– Business case: take minutes from assembly time

per unit.

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MES Integration

• Solution

– Encode mount-on-metal tag with a GID-96 based

on the product serial number and mount it on

product.

– Place antennae at each station along the line.

– Write middleware to interface to existing MES.

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MES Integration

• Challenges

– Find the optimal tag placement on a product when

it was too late to change design.

– Dial in tight enough interrogation zones to make

sure we are reading only the right product at the

right station.

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MES Integration

• Results

– Line is running in production.

– 50 bar code scans are being eliminated.

• Real labor savings that easily justified the project’s cost.

– Operators want system expanded to other lines.

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MES Integration

• Take-Away’s

– Senior Leadership that believes in the technology

makes things possible.

– These mount-on-metal tags added real cost to our

product, but it was worth it.

– Now that the product and returnable containers

are tagged, what else is possible?

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Outbound Logistics

• Opportunity

– High Volume/Low-cost (300K units, $2K/each) had

a problem where products would make it to the

retailer with repair tag.

– Don’t know how often. Business units are very

tight with error numbers. They won’t tell corporate.

– How often is too often to explain to a reseller that

everything is fine with the product despite the tag

marked “repair”? Often enough to spend about

$85K to fix the problem.

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Outbound Logistics

• Goal:

– Ensure units with repair tags don’t get onto trucks.

• Solution:

– After examining options, chose Passive UHF.

• No middleware or additional servers.

• Portal readers could read other tags in the future.

– Set mask on readers to ignore wrong tags.

– Trigger horn and light when repair tag is detected.

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Outbound Logistics

• Challenges:

– Cost of examining options when we were not sure

any solution would work was tough to swallow for

business unit with a low (for Deere) margin.

– Corporate picked up the tab for that since the

learning would be shared across the enterprise.

• Results:

– Zero repair tags have left factory since going live.

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Outbound Logistics

• Take-Away’s

– For re-usable tags, options like Active RFID and

RTLS solutions can appear to be cheaper.

– Direct cost does not tell the whole story.

– Expected ubiquity of Passive RFID is attractive.

– No back-end data integration. Very simple

application can meet needs.

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John Deere RFID Top Ten List

• Closed loops don’t stay closed.– Leverage EPC Tag Data Standards ferociously

even on what appear to be internal projects.

– Plan that your closed loops will open.

• Build your community. Don’t go it alone.– Establish an internal community of practice.

– Extend your reach through strong partnerships with integrators, consultants, vendors.

– Get involved in EPC and other industry groups.

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John Deere RFID Top Ten List

• Lean Forward.

– The laws of physics will hold true. Get beyond

physics experiments with your proofs of concept.

Be ambitious with your pilots.

• See RFID in context.

– It’s a part of the Auto-ID spectrum… between

barcode and GPS.

– In many cases, it is an incremental improvement,

not a revolution.

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John Deere RFID Top Ten List

• Find a business champion for RFID and other tracking technologies.– Technology evangelists can only take the

message so far.

• Use as many standards as possible. Create as few standards as possible.

• Assume you can solve your problem with passive tags until proven otherwise.– Active RFID is not needed to solve as many

problems as one might initially think.

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John Deere RFID Top Ten List

• Understand your business case and the pain

point you are trying to resolve.

• Learn to tell the story.

– Work hard to find metrics – both before and after.

It helps you tell the story to people with much

larger lunchboxes.

• Bad Process + RFID

= More Expensive Bad Process.

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Questions?