Crystal Group uses a real-time shop floor application from Malaysia's GPRO Technologies Berhad: GPro for WIP tracking. "In a competitive market, we wanted to reduce lead time on customer orders, and also obtain more real-time information on defects to support our quality drive," said Ting. "We decided RFID was the answer."

The RFID chips are inserted into tags which are tied to a bundle of a certain garment type. As the workers complete each production task, such as sewing seams or adding buttons, they hang the bundles in a protective bag or a hanging bar and the conveyor moves it past the RFID terminal, where information on the bundle and the completed process is recorded in the GPro application.

The RFID system was tested in Crystal's Dongguan simulation laboratory, then installed at 200 workstations. In future, said Ting, the RFID tags will be utilized at more of the company's 10,000 workstations that use the GPro system.

Previously, Crystal used a "smart card" system which required a separate operation to read a batch of cards after each production stage, while now data from the RFID tags is uploaded automatically to local terminals. "The performance of each production line is monitored in real time," said Ting. "Workers can even check their own output volume and earnings from their local RFID terminal, which supports our incentive scheme."

Washing data