Application of RFID Technology in Automobile Supply Chain Management

RFID Technology and Automotive Supply Chain

    The automotive supply chain is a network consisting of suppliers at all levels, logistics service providers, manufacturers, sellers and auto repair shops, with automobile manufacturing companies as the core, covering all processes related to the movement of goods from raw materials to consumers, such as raw material procurement, inventory management, assembly, order processing, sales, finished product transportation and warehousing, etc. In the automotive supply chain, suppliers provide raw materials, parts and components for automobile assembly, logistics service providers provide transportation and warehouse services throughout the entire supply chain, OEM manufacturers focus on manufacturing cars that consumers will buy, dealers sell cars, spare parts and additional products such as loans and insurance, and auto repair shops provide maintenance and repair services.

    Since a car is made up of thousands of parts, if the efficiency of the supply chain is to be improved, the collaborative forecasting, planning and replenishment (CFPR) method must be implemented. At this time, accurate information about every point of inventory in the supply chain is required. This requires the use of computers, communications and network technologies to manage the huge logistics, business flows, information flows and capital flows in the automobile supply chain, ensuring that supply chain members can obtain demand information in a timely and effective manner and respond in a timely manner, achieve coordination of production, supply and sales relationships, and meet customer needs.

    Although the automotive supply chain can be well organized in theory compared to other industries, the visibility and accuracy of the supply chain are still far from perfect. In recent years, automakers have spent a lot of their IT budget on supply chain management systems in order to achieve a transparent and flexible supply chain. The role of RFID technology in material and product tracking will have a positive impact on the automotive supply chain. Market research reports predict that the automotive industry will be one of the three major industries that will promote the development of RFID. RFID technology in the automotive supply chain will include body identification and tracking management, tracking management of parts and fixed assets, and logistics management of complete vehicles.

    Application of RFID in Automobile Supply Chain Management

1. Vehicle body tracking and identification in vehicle production

    The vehicle identification system (AVI) mainly refers to the real-time collection of production data, quality monitoring data and other information on various automobile production lines, and transmits them to material management, production scheduling, quality assurance and other related departments to better realize the functions of raw material supply, production scheduling, sales service, quality monitoring and lifelong quality tracking of the whole vehicle. Before the application of RFID technology, the main method for storing vehicle body information was barcodes. The advantages of using barcode recognition are flexible configuration and low system cost. However, since the vehicle body information is stored in the PLC or PMC database, the speed and reliability of network communication are very high, requiring a high-performance PLC, a large-capacity database and a high-speed PMC host.

    After adopting the RFID system, the electronic tag is generally placed on the sled carrying the car body, and runs with the workpiece from beginning to end, forming a data that moves with the car body, and becomes a "smart car body" that carries a database with it throughout the production process. According to the needs of process and production management, readers/writers can be set at the entrance and exit of the painting workshop, the bifurcation of workpiece logistics, and the entrance of important process processes (such as spray painting room, drying room, storage area, etc.). The read/write station is mainly composed of a workpiece position detection switch, a tag read/write device, a communication interface module and a human-machine interface. The basic process is: after the detection switch detects the signal that the car body is in place, the read/write device starts to automatically read the data stored in the tag installed on the sled, and sends the data to the PLC, and displays it on the human-machine interface; it is uploaded to the workshop production process monitoring system PMC through the PLC for further processing and calculation, thereby realizing the tracking of the entire workshop workpiece logistics and production process control.

    When RFID technology is used on the production line, it is not necessary for all read/write devices to communicate with the main database, so the failure of communication with the main database will not cause production to stop. After passing the workstation, data can also be written to the tag, so RFID is increasingly used in vehicle body identification systems.

    RFID technology is applied to the engine production lines of Ford North America and Beijing Hyundai, and the former has been since 1995. Ford purchased more than 10,000 tags, each of which costs about US$150. The tag is placed on the pallet carrying the engine. At the beginning of assembly, the engine is placed on the pallet and a serial number is written into its tag. As the engine moves along different assembly operations, its manufacturing information is written into it. RFID tags can help track the time and data of each operation, collect quality control data, and generate an assembly record for a specific engine. When all processes are completed, the pallet passes through the last reader and transmits all information about the assembly to the manufacturer's database. In this way, the tags are recycled on the engine production line.

    Toyota Motor Corporation began using RFID technology to track car bodies in many of its factory paint shops around the world in 2001. Toyota used EMS tags and readers, and the tags were equipped with 13.56MHz Philips chips. Toyota purchased a total of about 20,000 tags, each costing an average of $85. Since the painting is done by robots, the robots not only need to know the correct color, but also need to identify the car body to determine the spraying path, so Toyota puts RFID tags on the car body. The model, number, spray color and body style are written on the label. When the pallet passes the reader, the reader obtains all the necessary information about the car body by scanning the tag, reminding the robot of the body style and spray color. After the spraying station, the car body is placed in the oven. At this time, the tag has to face extremely high temperature conditions, so the tag has to have a special protective layer, which greatly increases the cost of the tag.

    The information collected by RFID can support a series of management activities of enterprises by connecting with the manufacturing information management system. For example, GM Wuling Automobile Co., Ltd. adopts Rockwell Automation's ControlLogix control system and IBM's ABI automotive manufacturing information system application software platform.

    The ControlLogix control system collects the movement information of the vehicle body in real time by controlling the scanning and identification equipment in the workshop. This information will be transmitted to the relational database of the ABI application software in real time. The combination of RFID information collection and upper-level management system has greatly improved the efficiency and level of production management and logistics management.

2. Tracking and management of parts and assets

    Automobiles are made up of a large number of parts. Good parts tracking management can improve logistics management and quality management. Currently, parts tracking is mainly done through two methods. One is to attach labels to the parts themselves, which is called hard link. A typical example is the use of RFID for tire tracking management. Such parts generally have high value, safety requirements, and easy confusion between parts. RFID can effectively identify and track parts. The second is to attach labels to the packaging or transport racks of parts. The latter can reduce the cost of using RFID. However, it is necessary to maintain a link in the database between the tagged RFID container and the parts in the container. This method is called soft link or soft tracking.

    The ideas and methods of parts management can be applied to fixed asset management, such as containers or various materials, to reduce the misplacement or loss of containers. It is estimated that in Germany, the number of reusable plastic containers used in logistics applications in the automotive industry is estimated to reach 60 million units.

3. Vehicle logistics management

    The RFID tag contains the vehicle's intelligent electronic tag, which can realize the information management of vehicle logistics and help solve the problems of vehicle production, inventory management and sales management. The vehicle identification number (VIN) is the ID card of the vehicle circulation. This identification number can be written into the RFID tag embedded in the car to realize the management of the electronic digital license plate of the car. By reading the information stored in the vehicle's intelligent electronic tag, the accuracy of vehicle information and work efficiency are greatly improved, and the problems in automobile after-sales service, product tracking, quality traceability, etc. are solved.

    It is understood that the vehicle intelligent electronic tag developed by the Truck Technology Department of China National Heavy Duty Truck Corporation contains the vehicle's order number, frame number, internal vehicle model, certificate number, certificate vehicle model, VIN number, engine number, factory date, warranty card number and other 9 most important information. It is not only fully compatible with the material barcode management system developed by the technical department in the early stage, but also supports and shares data information with the production management system, vehicle quality archive management system, vehicle inventory management system, after-sales service "one-line" and GPS global positioning system, realizing the information management of a series of links such as vehicle production, quality inspection, warehousing, after-sales service and maintenance. The vehicle intelligent electronic tag system used by China National Heavy Duty Truck Corporation is relatively simple to operate. It only requires a dedicated person to use a handheld device with a wireless communication device to scan the vehicle and send the scanned information to the database server of the vehicle logistics management system.

    Volkswagen of Germany uses RFID active tag technology system to help manage cars parked in the car factory. The electronic tag is embedded in a plastic body, usually hung on the rearview mirror of the car, and can store 32 kilobytes of data. By applying this system, Volkswagen has greatly changed the delivery speed, increased efficiency by about 4 times, simplified Volkswagen's delivery process, and increased the available space of the parking lot by 20%. In less than a year, the investment in RFID was basically recovered due to labor cost savings and improved productivity.

    RFID technology can improve the level of customer service. In China, Guangzhou Honda, Shenyang BMW and other automobile companies are also trying to identify vehicles through the application of RFID technology. When users enter the car repair shop or go to the 4S store, they can get the owner information, maintenance records and other contents stored in the car through the reader. This system application can also enable automobile manufacturers to quickly understand the use of cars in the market, which is of great significance in product development and service management.

4. Application in the entire automotive supply chain

    RFID technology is breaking through the limitations of factories and being applied to the entire automotive supply chain. Toyota is planning to build such a system to track the entire vehicle supply chain. In the first phase, vehicles were monitored in the assembly workshop through reusable tags. In the second phase, they used disposable paper RFID tags to track parts and vehicles, and achieved vehicle tracking management in their distribution centers. In the third phase, Toyota is planning to use RFID in the retail sector. RFID will be permanently retained on the vehicle and used throughout its life cycle. The information on the RFID will include customer information and original production data.

    In addition, RFID can also be used as an anti-counterfeiting mark for parts, such as implanting electronic tags on tires, engines, airbags, drive shafts and other parts, using its encryption and automatic identification functions to distinguish counterfeit parts and protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers. We are also trying to use RFID to manage vehicle compressed natural gas vehicle cylinders. RFID tags are attached to the cylinders. The tags store information about the cylinder manufacturer, cylinder time, and number of inflations. The use of cylinders is monitored, and expired cylinders are promptly collected to reduce potential dangers in the use process.