Rolls-Royce's defence aerospace business is beginning a
radio frequency identification (RFID) trial to help it comply with
the decision by the US Department of Defense to use the radio
tagging technology throughout its supply chain.
The company started planning for RFID in 2004 when the
Department of Defense told its suppliers they would have to tag
cases, pallets and all other packaging by 2007.
Shipping containers sent to any Department of Defense location
worldwide have been tagged since 2005.
Rolls-Royce will begin by tagging some types of goods moving
through its Bristol warehouse this month, after completing a static
trial in Derby, which evaluated different combinations of tags and
readers.
Once RFID has been made to work at Bristol, Rolls-Royce will
replicate the trial at its Ansty facility near Coventry and then
the RAF's Marham airbase in Norfolk. The company anticipates a
wider RFID deployment in 2007.
The Bristol project will start by using RFID solely to automate
the business processes within Rolls-Royce's own warehouses.
Products are subjected to different checks as they move through the
warehouse, making the task of introducing RFID more complex.
Rolls-Royce's head of supply chain services, Lee Doherty, said,
"Barcoding is a fantastic technology, but only for a business model
that has now changed."
The company has identified a number of benefits from RFID.
Doherty said, "We can drive down payment times by linking RFID
to invoicing. Our operational command centres will get visibility
of things that are not moving on time or in the way that they
should.
"I also want the items to tell me when they are in the wrong
place because manual intervention absolutely kills us."