The 400,000 sq ft facility will house Nissan’s car storage and pre-delivery inspection centre. |
Nissan car distributor Tan Chong International has opened Singapore’s first automative hub to be enabled by Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology. The 400,000 sq ft facility, which was built at a cost of S$40 million, will house Nissan’s car storage and pre-delivery inspection centre, service centre as well as a parts warehouse and new vehicle delivery centre under one roof.
Located at Sixth Lok Yang Road, the centre features an RFID-enabled Car Inventory Management and Process Optimisation System for efficient tracking and management of new cars. An RFID tag with an associated reference number is attached to each car in the centre for tracking purposes.
The system facilitates more efficient workflow during the pre-delivery inspection process and monitors the progress of work to be completed. With new cars being delivered directly from the harbour to the hub and all key facilities available under one roof, customers receive new cars in almost ex-factory condition with mileage reduced by 90 per cent, from an average of 50 km to less than 5 km.
Tan Chong International was awarded a grant of S$120,000 from the National RFID Centre (NRC) earlier this year for pioneering the use of RFID technology in the automotive sector in Singapore. The company will also be investing in skills upgrading programmes, including ICT training, to ensure that existing staff can be redeployed.
The centre features an RFID-enabled Car Inventory Management and Process Optimisation System. |
“Innovative use of technology holds the key for many businesses in today’s economic climate, especially for those in mature industries, to consistently stay ahead of their competition,” said Mr Boon Swan Foo, the Chairman of the NRC Steering Committee and Executive Chairman of Exploit Technologies. “I am encouraged that Tan Chong International has blazed the trail by working with the NRC to pioneer the use of RFID in Singapore’s automotive sector. Investment in innovation and technology need not be slowed down by this economic down cycle.”
Noting that the project brought together a team comprising local players like Wavex Technologies as the system integrator and another homegrown firm as the original equipment manufacturer, Mr Boon said the move bears testimony to NRC’s efforts to build up a strong RFID community in Singapore.
Tan Chong’s new four-storey centre boasts a storage area with a capacity of about 900 cars. It also features a 3x3 modular state-of-the-art automated car parking system, the technology for which was developed in Japan. The system features cross-sliding trimensional parking equipment and is operated using Programmable Logic Control.
One of the key highlights of the system is its ability to maximise storage space as well as to deposit and retrieve cars quickly. It is estimated that the time taken to identify and retrieve new cars is being reduced from an average of 24 hours to two hours.
The new centre also houses a parts warehouse, which features an Automated Storage and Retrieval System to facilitate more efficient storage and retrieval of vehicle parts.