How Does RFID Help Automobile Lean Production? --Taking Mixed-Flow Production Assembly as an Example

The increasing demand from customers makes the popularization of the lean production system more and more urgent. For the lean production system, the focus is on customized production of multiple varieties and small batches. However, there are many uncertain factors in the actual production process, such as material shortage, equipment failure, quality abnormalities, personnel absence, and order changes. In order to achieve timely and dynamic production scheduling and adjustment, and to make production flexible, it is particularly important to track, plan and make decisions on the production status information of products on the entire production line. For the manufacturing industry, RFID technology can be used to track the process, quality, and material of each process in the production assembly process.

In the mixed production of automobile assembly, RFID is usually installed on the assembly line, and the RFID tag chip stores the relevant production information of the vehicle. During the vehicle production process, when the vehicle to be assembled runs to the designated production assembly point, the industrial RFID reader reads the process information in the RFID tag chip, and the bottom-level PLC equipment automatically triggers the production assembly robot to drive the assembly action.

In the mass-customization production process of automobiles, users can select the desired colors, engine models, and other options from tens of thousands of internal and external options. If an automobile production company organizes production based on orders, there may be hundreds of different styles of cars on the assembly line. For each production process, it is necessary to clearly identify the car to avoid problems such as incorrect installation of optional parts and mismatched paint colors.

To summarize, the application of RFID technology on assembly lines can enable the production of customized cars in large quantities. With RFID systems installed on assembly lines, electronic tags containing all the information required for car assembly are present, and RFID readers are available at each workstation to ensure error-free completion of assembly tasks at each stage of the production line.