October 11, 2006
Boeing Using Item-Level Tagging
What has 4,000,000 parts, has temperature conditions ranging from -40 F (Fahrenheit) to +1200 F, is subject to regular vibrations, and costs US$100M? The Boeing 787 Dreamliner airplane, which uses 2,000 special high-memory passive tags that run about $15-20 apiece, compared to the typical item-level tags of about forty cents. Boeing is using these tags to help in the documentation and maintanence cycle of each plane in this new line. Despite the four million parts, only 2,000 particularly critical parts are being tagged since they are known to be of "low reliability". This includes expensive items like landing gear and hydraulic pumps. [via Storefront Backtalk]
If you didn't notice the math, that's about $30-40,000 in tags alone. Interestingly, they have found that having that many tags on an airplane does not seem to cause any interference with flight equipment. Obviously a good thing to know. Boeing has previously jointly tested RFID with FedEx on MD-10 Freighter planes.
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