Automotive and rail suppliers

When your customer asks for RFID on the part

Your customer now expects an RFID transponder on the parts you ship, next to the GS1 label. Your systems were never set up to program one.

Discuss your use case
A cast aluminium housing stands on a scratched steel workbench. On its flank, side by side on one machined pad, sit a label with a two-dimensional code and an RFID transponder whose antenna coil is visible through it. Two gloved hands reach in from the left. Behind, a blue parts bin, an open carton and metal swarf on the bench.
  • Traceability
  • Efficiency
  • Error prevention

Starting point

You supply safety-relevant components to customers such as vehicle and rolling-stock builders: brackets, housings, actuator bodies, cable assemblies. Every part is serialised. At the last station before packing it gets a printed label with your part number, your lot and a running serial, to GS1 standard.

Now your customer expects those components to carry an RFID transponder as well.

What goes wrong today

  • Programming transponders means reaching into your existing systems

    The infrastructure is not there. Connecting RFID readers to systems you already run, such as the ERP, is a retrofit, and not a straightforward one.

  • Only some of your parts are to carry a transponder

    There is no case for rolling out RFID programming across every line. The effort would land on parts that do not need it.

What changes

  • The transponder is programmed from the barcode already on the label

    Everything the transponder needs is in the GS1 barcode the part already carries. That is the starting point, so there is no integration project to run first.

  • The operator adds one step, only where a transponder is fitted

    On a part that carries a transponder, the operator scans the GS1 barcode, then reads the transponder, and that read programs it. Nothing is typed in.

  • The transponder is locked once it matches the label

    Locking the transponder prevents changes to it, accidental or deliberate. The lock is also a check: it is applied only when the data on the transponder matches the data in the barcode.

What you gain

  • Parts can be read where the label cannot be seen

    A transponder makes a component easier to read, including once it is installed and the part itself is out of sight.

  • The part stays identifiable when the label is damaged

    A barcode label soon becomes unreadable once it is scratched, scuffed or torn. A transponder can be mounted where that kind of damage is considerably less likely, so the part carries a second marking.

Products used

  • A pencil sketch of a hand holding a small handheld device with four buttons against a cast housing on a workbench. Screwed to the housing is a block-shaped transponder, with a printed square code on the surface beside it. The gap between the device and the transponder glows blue.
    Software

    AIMSOC® Encode

    Firmware for the ECCO+ that writes GS1-standard identities to RFID transponders

    Learn more →

  • On a worn workshop bench lie a handheld reader, a flat desktop reader, a fixed reader with antenna connectors, a panel antenna on its bracket and a bare reader module.
    Hardware

    RFID readers and antennas

    Handheld, desktop and fixed RFID readers, reader modules and antennas

    Learn more →

  • In a row on a scratched metal worktop lie RFID labels, two round hard tags, an on-metal tag, a textile tag, a white card, a key fob on a key ring and a wristband.
    Hardware

    RFID transponders

    Passive RFID tags for goods, equipment, metal, textiles and people

    Learn more →

Tell us about your use case

Together, we work out whether and how your process can be digitized.

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