Have you had a package delivered to your home recently? Were you asked to digitally sign for it on a handheld device once the mail service delivery representative scanned the barcode on a package? Was this process designed and implemented by the mail service company solely for the sake of convenience to the client? Surely the company had to weigh the potential investment gains against the cost of this technology. How many handheld devices had to be designed, manufactured and provided to all delivery representatives in each state? How many man-hours did it cost to train them to use those devices?
The answer lies in traceability and information analysis. The cost savings of being able to fine-tune the delivery management were greater than the investment costs. The same principle can be applied in industrial production facilities, such as refineries, petrochemical plants and other manufacturing factories where equipment maintenance is a critical factor in operation. What was the aggregate cost of annual downtime at your plant last year? This information can be obtained and analyzed through the use of radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology to bring you substantial cost savings.
It is essential that your supply chain management asset tracking begins at the source: your inventory. The equipment RFID tags can be programmed with part and serial numbers of your corporate enterprise resource planning (ERP). In addition, the individual RFID tags could also include specific barcode information from the equipment vendor to ease the process of ordering new parts. Once a part is received in your warehouse, it should be RFID-tagged. Now you can set up a minimum threshold in your ERP to generate an automatic notification and start a purchase order process if a new replacement part is needed. Alternatively, your ERP can initiate a request for quotation to obtain the latest quote from the vendor about the part. Additionally, this RFID information can be used to calculate inventory turnover, lifecycle of parts, percentage of noncompliant parts and even their specific physical locations in your warehouse.
Now let's take a look at what happens when a part or new piece of equipment is scheduled to be installed. The ERP can create an alert once the part is received and tagged in your warehouse. This can automatically trigger a correlated pending work order to be scheduled for field installation. Alternatively, it could initiate the process of creating the new work order per an existing notification request. The ERP can also alert operations to be ready to issue the work permit once the part is scanned out and handed to maintenance personnel. This way, both operations and maintenance can meet at the installation location to issue the work permit. However, radio communication in the field is still going to be vital in case of delays. Nevertheless, the benefits of these ERP alerts can result in decreased travel and standby time, and allow for detailed rootcause analysis of delays. Additionally, the ERP could also alert operations to be ready for field permit if the work order does not have any new or replacement parts and only needs preventive maintenance service. In this case, the work order could be marked as "en route" or "active" to alert operations once the maintenance is dispatched for service work.
The work permit process should begin by operations scanning equipment RFID tags. Alternatively, multiple tags for parts or pieces of machinery could be selected on a tablet if the work order process is digital. The work permit process authorization would be completed by a two-part authentication by both maintenance and operations to initiate active service work. This block-chain process allows for tracking the service time in individual segments. Once the service work is completed, the tags would be scanned again by maintenance and the ERP would record the actual work order service time and also alert operations to be dispatched to close the work permit.
These are only some of the described benefits of RFID traceability. The ERP systems allow many other possibilities to create customized process workflows to maximize cost savings for your company. The initial investment cost might be substantial, but the return is well worth it.
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