Rolls-Royce Tests RFID's Potential To Drive Its Supply Chain
Featuring Andy Higginson, logistics service line manager, Rolls-Royce

Used with permission from RFID Journal, Inc.

Rolls-Royce, a manufacturer of gas turbines, engines and parts used in aircraft, ships and submarines worldwide, has been testing RFID for use in tracking its internal supply chain. Ultimately, the company hopes to determine whether the technology can be utilized across its entire operation, to cut costs and improve its logistics operations.

Headquartered in London, Rolls-Royce is exploring how RFID might help it refine the complicated processes it relies on to build and service engines and parts, says Andy Higginson, logistics service line manager at the company's defense aerospace division, and to make those processes easier to monitor. Specifically, the manufacturer is interested in documenting, in real time, aspects of its operations that could potentially hurt production. "RFID can show us where problems are in advance," Higginson explains, "to help us manage the problems."

To that end, the company has conducted a series of RFID trials, including an eight-week pilot that took place earlier in 2007, to track cases of parts moving between a warehouse in Bristol and a maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility in Ansty. The MRO facility ships out 2,500 to 3,000 deliveries to customers each month.