RFID takes off in pilot scheme
October 1st 2006

For airline, Virgin Atlantic, efficiency and accountability in its logistics, maintenance and engineering departments are critical to its success.

Virgin's central logistics operation, based at Heathrow, set up a pilot scheme to identify potential ways to use RFID technology to improve the turn around of components through stores, increase visibility of parts and materials within the maintenance environment and trial the use of mobile technology using wireless networking.

Virgin Atlantic's RFID pilot included the tagging of all rotable parts received within the Heathrow Logistic Centre and ensuring the integration of the automated tag printing facility with the existing internal processing of goods and products.

The decision to implement RFID at the airline's Heathrow operation was based on the need to address several factors, including operational cost and the recognition of an opportunity to increase efficiency and risk reduction in the spare parts supply chain.

Virgin selected Printronix's EPCglobal Gen2 certified SL5000r printer with PXML (Printronix eXtensible Markup Language) connectivity, which features intelligent RFID tag management, allowing Virgin to ensure 100% readability of the RFID smart labels entering its supply chain.

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