Honda Italia and IBM Revolutionize Motorbike Production With RFID

Honda Italia and IBM Revolutionize Motorbike Production With RFID

Honda Italia Industriale, the Italian subsidiary of the Honda Motor Co. and leader in the 2 wheels worldwide market with more than 12.7 million PTW (powered two wheels) models sold in 2006(*), announced today that it has signed a contract with IBM (NYSE: IBM) to implement RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology and infrastructure to transform and innovate the production processes at its plant located in Atessa, Italy. The agreement will allow Honda Italy to achieve higher levels of efficiency and accuracy in managing its large motorcycle and scooter production in Italy.

IBM Global Business Services will support Honda Italia in the design and development of the RFID implementation, which will enable the real time, automatic identification of each vehicle along the entire production chain. The RFID tags will also be used on micro-lots of critical components, such as engines.

IBM business and technology consultants have been collaborating for a long time with Honda Italia engineers in the design of the new processes and in the identification of the best solution. The RFID technology will be then completely integrated with Honda’s existing IT systems through an open standards-based, Linux and Java (J2EE) application built on the IBM WebSphere Application Server to track inventory and to monitor ways to improve efficiency.

The first phase of the project, completed earlier this year, simultaneously with the celebration of the 35th anniversary of Honda Italia, calls for the transformation of Honda’s large-displacement bikes (Hornet 600, CBF1000/600/500) assembly line. The RFID tags were used to monitor the traceability of critical components, WIP (Work In Progress) management and inventory replenishment. In the future, RFID tags will also be applied to Honda’s scooter production line, starting with the European best seller SH150i/125i and the bigger SH300i.

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