Case Study: Freightliner Controls Inventory 'Choke Points' With Motorola RFID

Freightliner-Western Star Trucks is the leading heavy-duty truck manufacturer in North America. Headquartered in Portland, Oregon, with truck manufacturing facilities located in Portland and throughout the United States, Freightliner designs, builds and markets the best-selling brand of medium, heavy-duty diesel and specialized chassis trucks on the continent, including long-haul highway tractors, heavy-duty construction and utility trucks, mid-range trucks for distribution and service, emergency service apparatus and recreational haulers. The company's eight North American parts distribution centers manage an inventory of more than 150,000 unique part numbers.

Like many modern manufacturers, Freightliner faces constant pressure to improve the efficiency and accuracy of its resource handling in order to better control manufacturing costs. The Freightliner management team, headed by Plant Automation Project Manager Louis Fleischer, was looking for a way to streamline the tracking of parts movement from inventory to the factory floor in the Portland plant.

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