Strategic Value of AITs (e.g, RFID) in Depot Environments – OSU06-FAA AIT

This project analyzes the statistical, performance and economic advantages of using automatic identification technology (AIT).

Sponsor:

Federal Aviation Administration Logistics Center

Research Team:

Satish Kukkapatnam, Vignesh Rajamani, Yatin Bhamare, Bradnon Lee Gardner, Jayjeet M. Govardhan, Andrew Contreras, Sharethram Hariharan, Prahalada K. Rao

Universities Involved:

Oklahoma State University

Start Date:

07/01/05

End Date:

04/30/06

Summary:

This project makes a complete analysis on AIT systems and its adoption at the Federal Aviation Administration to add efficiency to the internal Logistics Center.
The FAA Logistics Center is planning several initiatives designed to add efficiency and value to internal Logistics Center processes by using automatic identification technology. The University shall provide services by qualified personnel to accomplish engineering research and assessment identified herein. The Logistics Center requires specialized engineering expertise to (Report 1) define the strategic importance for deploying AIT at the Logistics Center, (Report 2) assist in defining how AIT will affect the Logistics Center’s competitive advantage, (Report 3) develop a high level cost-benefit analysis, (Report 4) analyze how AIT will affect the Logistic Centers resources (human and machine), (Report 5) analyze the existing processes and identify changes required to support AIT, (Report 6) develop and document different applicable scenarios for AIT deployment, (Requirement 7) assist in vendor assessment and selection, and (Requirement 8) provide technical support to follow-on pilot solutions.
The influence of distance, tag orientation, speed of the vehicle and reader make has been clearly delineated and rationalised based on electromagnetism principles. It has been shown that the readability undergoes a polynomial decrement with increase in distance (i.e. read range). In addition, the readability decreases linearly with increase in speed. Economic analysis shows that the use of RFID seems to lead to long-term benefits.Among the scenarios tested, the excellent signal quality cases consistently provide, under good initial beliefs, the shortest path to the forklift operator to reach the tag both in terms of expected rewards and policies.