Work In Progress

Work In Process tracking systems that take advantage of the serialization of RFID can provide complete life cycle history of everything that occurs to items as they advance from manufacturing to packaging through distribution.  You can track where things are, at what state they are in real time without manual intervention.  

With a network of readers setup at different work stations, RFID tracking systems tracks parts or assemblies as the pass through a series of steps from creation to completion of processes providing visibility into when an item or project was started, and when completed.  Work may be tracked in processes independent of each other or sequential steps that have sub steps that must be completed first.

As part of a track and trace solution that turns a product line into a sensor network it is possible to analyze real time data not just historical data from the last shift to optimize processes, monitor bottlenecks, and track process deviations.

In industries were traceability is critical such as food and beverage or pharmaceuticals RFID tracking systems can give you continuous complete product life cycle history.  At anytime during any process with one tag read it is possible to look pull up all the associated information in real time.  Which lines did it pass at which times, which components were added at which times from parts belonging to what batch that were received on what date from what supplier, who unloaded it?