You would think it would be difficult to misplace large pieces of glass used to make the huge sheets that adorn corporate headquarters and gleaming Las Vegas casinos.
Until recently, however, that’s just what was happening too often at Viracon Inc., an Owatonna, MN, maker of architectural glass products. In fact, the company estimated that workers looking for the carriers on which glass is stored and transported at Viracon’s three plants could find them in a timely manner only 60% of the time. That ended up delaying customer orders and driving up Viracon’s costs, since losing track of the highly customized glass sections meant Viracon often was forced to refabricate the materials, scrapping the original glass once it was finally found.
Early last year, officials at Viracon, a unit of $880 million Apogee Enterprises Inc., decided to do something about their missing glass carrier problem and implemented an RFID-based asset tracking system based on technology from AeroScout. The system, which tracks more than 5,000 carriers, tells Viracon production and warehouse workers where specific carriers are in less than a minute, with 99% accuracy. It has allowed Viracon to reduce scrap due to tracking problems by 65% while improving machine utilization and cutting labor costs that had previously gone into the search for glass carriers.
The project earned Viracon the 2009 Progressive Manufacturing High Achiever award for Operational Excellence.