Rolls-Royce, the manufacturer of gas turbines and engines, has been testing RFID for use in tracking its internal supply chain. Ultimately, the company hopes to determine whether the technology can be utilized across its entire operation, to cut costs and improve its logistics operations.

According to RFID Journal, Rolls-Royce is exploring how RFID might help it refine the complicated processes it relies on to build and service engines and parts, and to make those processes easier to monitor. Specifically, the manufacturer is interested in documenting, in real time, aspects of its operations that could potentially hurt production.

Rolls-Royce RFID project team is using the help of IBM for a technical assessment and so far has tested RFID hardware from six vendors-including nine passive and four active RFID tags and interrogators-at its facilities in Derby and Bristol, the headquarters of its defense aerospace division. Rolls-Royce preferred not to purchase equipment off the shelf without first testing it, or to hire a systems integrator.

The current activities are part of the plan to implement an RFID pilot to track parts in an extended supply chain between its warehouses in Bristol, Derby and Indianapolis, and its MRO facility at East Kilbride, Scotland. This initiative will start in early 2008.