WhereNet today disclosed that it has signed a "seven figure" contract with Nissan North America Inc. to deploy active RFID, real-time locating system (RTLS) technology to streamline the inbound supply chain and outbound delivery processes at the automaker's assembly plant in Canton, MS.
Nissan will use a single wireless architecture across the 4-million-square-foot facility to run multiple WhereNet applications, including its Yard Management System (YMS) and the Vehicle Tracking and Management System (VTMS). Work on the project is already underway, and is expected to be completed in the first quarter of next year, according to Gary Latham, the director of industry solutions for WhereNet's automotive division.
The active RFID project, which is part of a continuous improvement initiative at the facility, is aimed at improving production velocity and throughput, labor productivity, and vehicle quality, Latham said in an interview. Nissan did not return calls by press time to comment on the deal.
Latham said the "seven figure" deal, while not WhereNet's largest in the automotive space, was "above average" in terms of dollar value. Other WhereNet customers include BMW, Ford, GM, HUMMER, Jaguar, Land Rover, and Toyota. Latham declined to specify the project's value, and argued that the deal's significance extends beyond dollars and cents.
He said Nissan's "big bang" approach of equipping its entire plant with an active RFID infrastructure that connects to its enterprise information architecture -- and can be extended over time with new applications -- represented a bet that automaker can achieve greater overall ROI compared with the one-off deployments that have undermined the efficacy of many RFID projects.
Chantal Polsonetti, vice president of manufacturing advisory services at ARC Advisory Group, said many automakers have taken a piecemeal approach to RFID, only to find it difficult to achieve returns on their investments.
"One of the things we [have found] with RFID is that [some] solutions have a tangential relationship to the overall information architecture." This, Polsonetti said, is counter-intuitive, since tying supply or finished goods shipment data to the enterprise systems architecture is critical to establishing solid ROI metrics for auto-identification projects.
"What's critical is how Nissan is going forward with the integration of the RTLS system to actually make decisions," she continued. "The use of this data in terms of just-in-time [JIT], inbound supply management -- knowing when you need a part for car, and knowing where it is and then executing by bringing the part where it is needed," is a significant advance in the use of RFID in the car assembly process, Polsonetti said.
And that's precisely what Nissan is doing to automate manual procedures at its Canton plant, which has the capacity to produce 400,000 vehicles annually, including the Altima sedan, Armada sport utility vehicle, Infiniti QX56 sport utility vehicle, Quest minivan, and Titan pickup truck.
Here's how the supply chain portion of the project is expected to work:
- All car parts and equipment entering the facility will be tracked using active -- i.e., battery-powered -- RFID tags that are affixed to the trailer trucks transporting that material. The tags will contain data about the trucks' contents and arrival times.
- WhereNet's automated gate check-in/out package, Fast Gate, will then sense when a truck is approaching the gate; cross-reference contents data with a corporate database; and, if authorized, open the gate to grant entry.
- Once the truck enters the Nissan yard, its data will be transmitted to WhereNet's YMS application, which uses pre-set business rules to generate instructions that tell drivers and yard personnel on which docks to move certain materials to support JIT sequencing of parts, WhereNet's Latham explained.
The automated check-in/out procedures for the hundreds of daily truckloads and thousands of components that arrive at the assembly facility are expected to save Nissan several hours a day processing deliveries, Latham noted. It will also improve plant velocity and throughput in the yard, while increasing flexibility in manufacturing through better utilization of equipment, facilities, and labor, he claimed.
On the outbound side of the equation, the use of active RFID is expected to improve product quality and delivery accuracy, Latham noted. Here's how that part of the process will work:
- New vehicles rolling off the Nissan assembly line will be assigned an active RFID WhereTag transmitter that is "married" to the vehicle identification number (VIN), WhereNet said. The WhereTag remains on the vehicle until it has been processed and is ready to ship to its final destination.
- Along the way, data is collected via WhereNet's VTMS and used in off-line areas to manage post-assembly verification and test processes, as well as quality repair, containment, and shipping. VTMS is based on a hierarchy of rules that is said to manage the processing of every vehicle by its assigned status, enabling Nissan to deliver high-priority units before others, WhereNet said.
For instance, VTMS will make sure that a car with a quality problem is fixed before it moves into the distribution queue, Latham said. "This vehicle may look identical to those that are OK," he pointed out, but the VTMS puts a "logical lock" on the vehicle that is transmitted by its tag, which prevents it from being shipped until the defect is corrected, Latham explained.
"It's a win all around," he added. "The consumer wins by receiving a better vehicle; the auto dealer wins by selling more quality vehicles; and the manufacturer wins by being known for more quality products."
The project's hardware will consist of 1,500 active RFID WhereTag transmitters, which are temporarily attached to new vehicles as they roll off the assembly line as part of the WhereNet VTMS system; 700 WhereTag transmitters that are permanently fixed to trailers belonging to Nissan's dedicated suppliers or temporarily attached to others as part of the YMS application; 120 WherePort magnetic "exciters" positioned between gates and at key choke points across the complex; and a local infrastructure of 80 wireless WhereLAN locating access points, WhereNet said. All of the gear complies with ANSI standards, the company noted.
The vehicle tracking portion of the Nissan project, according to Mike Liard, RFID practice director at ABI Research, is fairly standard practice within the auto industry. "They've mainly done location [tracking] applications," he said, which ask, "'Where are the cars in the yard once they come off manufacturing?'" It's only recently that the industry has begun investigating tracking components and equipment moving through the factory, Liard noted.
What's not clear in the case of Nissan is how many cars produced at its Canton, MS, plant will make use of RFID technology. "It's not clear if it's 100%," Liard said. "Nissan is getting its feet wet in RFID technology -- and that is the important takeaway."
Latham said WhereNet has already conducted a study of the Canton facility's airwaves to determine the best way to install its gear. Unlike passive RFID, active RFID does not require unblocked sight lines. "The technology works in a heavy manufacturing industrial environment. The only thing it can't deal with is metal -- [the signal] can't go through a solid metal wall," he said. "There's nothing at Nissan that we've not seen before."
Similarly, WhereNet does not anticipate encountering RFID/enterprise systems integration issues. Nissan will create custom interfaces and also use WhereNet's standard software development kit to build the mechanisms necessary to feed WhereNet RFID data into its enterprise systems. Nissan's existing legacy applications will "be the system of record," Latham said. "Our software will help process things more automatically and offer more real-time visibility of data."
Nissan, Latham said, has already decided to move forward with WhereNet active RFID technology at another undisclosed plant, and is expected to deploy the technology at additional facilities across North America, he added. "That's the logical progression," Latham said. "That's how we started at Ford; once we deployed in one plant it [was deployed at] another."