DB Fahrzeuginstandhaltung is a division of Deutsche Bahn, the second-largest transport company in the world, and a leading service provider in Europe for the maintenance of railway vehicles. Their customer RAlpin AG operates Switzerland’s “Rolling Highway” – a service that transports complete trucks by rail, providing an economical way for truck drivers to cross Switzerland despite the country’s night and Sunday driving ban. Last year the service carried 109,000 trucks between Freiburg in Germany and Novara in Italy and between Basel and Lugano in Ticino.
DB Fahrzeuginstandhaltung is using ‘Tag 4 Trace’ (a complete asset-tracking solution provided by their own Full Service department) along with TSL®’s 1153 Bluetooth® Wearable UHF RFID Readers to identify and track vehicle components using RFID transponders. Beginning in March, DB Fahrzeuginstandhaltung will be supplying around 7,500 RFID transponders to be used on RAlpin’s brake components and bogies (the wheel and axle assembly) .
With ‘Tag 4 Trace’ the entire tracking history of a component can be recorded – for example, when and where a part was exchanged. The data can be read using the 1153 Bluetooth® Wearable UHF RFID Reader, and then ‘Tag 4 Trace’ transfers them to a database.
By using an RFID asset-management solution, the production of paper logs can also be eliminated and the collected data is instantly available to the customer via an interface and can be incorporated into their ERP system (Enterprise Resource Planning). It is then possible to analyze the swap history of components and use this information to draw important conclusions about their service life. Another advantage of “Tag 4 Trace” is that it supports the process of proving future ECM (Entity in Charge of Maintenance) guidelines about the maintenance information of components used in the vehicle.
For more information, you can read DB Fahrzeuginstandhaltung’s newsletter here, or visit their website.