PipeLife; RFID enabled configuration registration

Mieloo & Alexander assisted Pipelife in the development of tagged products and built the RFID infrastructure in the assembly lines at Sociocom. But more important, M&A developed the RFID enabled configuration management system and integrated it into their existing assembly process.

Pipelife delivers piping systems including innovative gas-piping and couplings, and is one of the premium suppliers of a large number of network operators in the Dutch market. At a very early stage Pipelife has seen that the UHF EPC/Gen2 RFID technology can be beneficial for tracking their more complex products (assemblies) throughout the supply chain. By applying RFID tags, the different components and assemblies get a unique ID and are registered automatically during assembly (configuration management). The initiative comes mainly from a perspective of safety: In case of failures or breakdown from single components the original batch can be tracked back easily and preventive actions can be taken at other sites as well. With this initiative Pipelife can provide safe and sustainable piping systems to their customers.

Although the more operational levels of the gas and water network administrators do not yet have the full infrastructure in place for tracking and tracing the products, the senior management of these organizations warmly welcomed the initiatives from Pipelife to enable the products with RFID-tags and indicated to encourage and stimulate those applications in a broader sense.