Honda Picks IBM RFID Solution

January 12th, 2007: Honda’s Italian subsidiary, Honda Italia Industriale has just signed a landmark deal with IBM to implement RFID technology into production processes in Atessa plant.

With more than 12.7 million bikes sold in 2006, Honda expects the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) infrastructure to help improve the plant’s efficiency and accuracy during motorcycle and scooter manufacture.

IBM says that the implementation will enable the real time, automatic identification of each vehicle along the entire production chain along with micro-lots of critical components, such as engines. The company says that the solution will be 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.

"This is an extremely important project and it's a fundamental step in our 'Outstanding Quality' innovation production strategy that will allow Honda Italia to gain relevant benefits primarily in the areas of components supply and quality control with an overall improvement of the control and efficiency of all assembly processes and operations related to motorbike configuration management," said Nicola Marrone, Project Executive, Honda Italia. "Our future plans are to extend the RFID-based innovation to other areas, such as the supply chain and after sales services."

While we are still a while away from having an RFID chip in every supermarket item to make shopping a breeze and eliminate queues, the deal illustrates that the technology is slowing weaving its way into business processes and down the food chain.

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