RFID Technology on the Plant Floor

RFID (radio-frequency identification) technology touches many aspects of our daily lives. From theft prevention devices at grocery and retail stores, TopGolf tracking golf balls at a driving range, to the badges many people swipe on a reader to access their workplaces, RFID has a wide array of uses.

In the manufacturing world, there are also a few common, but powerful use cases for RFID.

RFID Access Control

In a manufacturing plant, most people will swipe a badge to get into the building. This is helpful for access control and security at the facility, as well as tracking who is inside in the event of an emergency.

Beyond building access control, it’s also possible to integrate RFID readers into process control and SCADA systems to manage control system access. Here’s an example of a simple implementation: an RFID reader is plugged into the local PCs running the HMI clients, and a user will scan their badge on the reader, entering the badge ID into the system. The badge information can be integrated into the SCADA system’s security and user profiles so that it triggers a login when the badge is scanned.

If the user is locked out for some reason, they will see an alert. If they login successfully, the system will retrieve their security profile giving them the same system access as if they had logged in with a username and password.

In many cases, implementing RFID (radio-frequency identification) technology is simply a matter of installing low cost RFID readers and connecting badge IDs to particular users on the backend.

RFID Material Tracking

In many conveyance type manufacturing processes, materials move on pallets or in bins equipped with RFID tags. RFID readers are installed on the conveyance system prior to various intersections. Along the way, pallets or bins are scanned, and if they need to go along a different path, the control system will query the ERP (enterprise resource planning) system to determine where the materials need to go. Then, the control system will trigger the conveyance system to move it to the right location.

Compared to badge readers, successful RFID material tracking involves more integration and backend information. However, the value from such an integration far outweighs the work required.

RFID technology can be further applied to automated guided vehicles (AGVs) to track their location in the facility by placing RFID readers at entry points to rooms in a building, or along the vehicle paths around the plant. We can then display the location of individual AGVs in realtime as they move past the readers. These RFID readers can be further integrated into the control system and ERP to adjust the AGV routing on the fly.

Scanning the Future

As advanced smartphones and NFC (Near Field Communication) chips become the norm, it is even easier to get into RFID technology—potentially without the additional costs of RFID tags and badges—if your operators already have smartphones.

To go a step beyond logging into the SCADA system, RFID technology could build a more personalized approach. You could choose to pulling up the last viewed screen based on which user logs in, or pre-load their preferred trends in a reporting app. An RFID reader at a piece of equipment could even be used as an alarm acknowledgement tool, requiring the operator to scan to indicate they are at the machine in question.

Updated - 7/5/2022