PPG Industries is a global supplier of glass, paints, and coatings, operating in more than 70 countries. RES first worked with PPG at its Carlisle, Pennsylvania plant, where large sheets and packs of glass are produced, coated, and stored in bays before shipping. PPG needed a system to bring accuracy to a glass-tracking process that was running on verbal instructions and an honor code. The answer was automated RFID inventory tracking.
The challenge
- Tracking glass through transport and storage was nearly impossible under PPG’s manual system; when glass ended up in the wrong place, nothing could locate it.
- Reliance on verbal communication and an “honor code” was inefficient — reporting location and inventory changes was time-consuming, so employees often forgot, creating data errors.
- Some coatings carried expiration dates. PPG had a first-in, first-out policy, but it wasn’t always followed, leading to costly product waste.
How the RFID inventory tracking system works
RES delivered a fully automated, RFID-enabled glass-tracking solution powered by its AIMS software. RFID readers and antennas were installed on the pack trucks that move glass around the factory, and those trucks were equipped with tablets running AIMS. RFID location tags were permanently fixed to every pickup and drop-off point — production areas, storage bays, and coating stations — and each sheet or pack of glass received an adhesive RFID tag linking it to its product record.
From there, tracking is automatic. As a truck approaches for a pickup, its readers register both the location tag and the glass label, committing the item’s SKU, pickup location, and time to the database — and the tablet even recommends a drop-off area based on the SKU. As long as the truck’s readers can “see” the glass, no new location is assigned; once the truck enters a new area and the glass leaves the carrier’s read view, the system assigns it to that location. Every movement is captured — date, time, from-location, to-location, and truck number — and the system reports bay capacity and dwell time.
The results
- Inventory is now tracked with 100% accuracy, and the automated system eliminated missing items.
- Manual, verbally-directed processes were made obsolete.
- Product life cycles are monitored through AIMS, with configurable alerts ensuring coatings are used in time and without waste.
The takeaway
When inventory is large, heavy, and constantly moving, “where is it?” can’t depend on someone remembering to report it. RES made glass tracking automatic, accurate, and waste-aware. That’s the core of RES’s RFID asset tracking for manufacturing and inventory. To see what it could do in your facility, talk to an RES RFID engineer.
