- End-to-end transparency: Enables full visibility, from the earliest manufacturing stages to final vehicle delivery and beyond.
- Better process control: Ensures that the right parts, components, and tools are in the right location when they’re needed, so production lines can stay up and running.
- Increased efficiency: This allows for more automation and, as a result, makes manufacturing processes more efficient.
Blog Articles
Manufacturing RAIN RFID Tags for Smart Vehicles
RAIN RFID is the commercial name for the ultra-high frequency (UHF) technology behind the EPC Global Gen2 V2/ ISO18000-6 standards. It’s a passive wireless technology, meaning it doesn’t need a battery. It can be embedded in rigid tags, paper stickers, and as part of circuit boards. It can then be read very accurately at a distance of several meters, without a line of sight, and in bulk. RAIN RFID makes it possible to identify, locate, and engage items and has been used in supply chains for many years for tracking and authentication.
Today, it connects billions of everyday items to the internet. In automotive manufacturing, automakers have been some of the first to deploy Industry 4.0 techniques. RAIN RFID is a prominent part of this transition to Industry 4.0 because it lets everything – parts, components, containers, tools, and finished products become integrated into the automated processes within the manufacturing plant and at every point in the supply chain.
RAIN RFID for Automotive
Vehicle manufacturing has its particular requirements for ruggedness and reliability. There are RAIN RFID tags made with special adhesives and materials that are purpose-engineered and pre-qualified to withstand automotive-grade production and operation to support this challenging operating environment. RAIN RFID tags can go where barcodes and other optical codes can’t, including high-temperature paint environments, where the peak temperature can range between 190 and 230°C. As a result, RAIN RFID can be used almost anywhere in the vehicle (inside, outside, under the hood) and with difficult-to-label automotive components, including batteries, engine blocks, fuel caps, bumpers, cables, and tires.
Benefits of RAIN RFID:
There are dozens of use cases, up and down the supply chain, where RAIN RFID can enhance operations. Whether it’s upstream from manufacturing, with suppliers of raw materials, components, and sub-assemblies, or downstream with third-party logistics companies and dealerships, RAIN RFID can enhance transparency, streamline processes, and help increase efficiency.