Yamaha Improves Productivity in Shipbuilding with RFID

Yamaha's G3 Boats produces aluminium fishing boats as well as pontoon boats for recreational use. In 2023, the company begins planning to expand production. The seven-year plan anticipates a fourfold increase in pontoon boat production and a nearly 1.5-fold increase in the fishing boat line.

In order for production capacity to meet this growth, the company needed to improve the operational efficiency of its two manufacturing plants in Missouri, as well as the 35-acre site where it stores its trailers.

The G3 Boats project manager said the company has been rolling out a solution utilising RFID technology to increase visibility into its production process. The goal is to gain transparency from sheet metal fabrication to final assembly production.

 
The RFID deployment began in January 2023 with an initial validation, where the company installed an RFID starter programme consisting of an RFID printer, three fixed readers and a handheld reader.

RFID in the factory process

G3 Boats uses Zebra UHF RFID printers to print RFID tags that are used in each new vessel.

At the base production plant, fixed RFID readers track cargo in and out of the facility. The integrated handheld RFID readers enable users to access data at the production sites of both plants and pinpoint the location of any tagged items for auditing purposes. In total, more than 40 readers were used.

Automated location tracking and history for each work order is also available in the solution, as well as production queues that simplify prioritising tasks for shop floor work.

Tracking products at production nodes

At the vessel production plant, readers automatically track in and out of workstations for welding, painting, painting, start of assembly and end of assembly. Vessel completion documents are placed in boxes with RFID antennas and updated in the ERP system.

At the pontoon boat production facility, reader antennas are mounted underneath the workstations to read each boat's RFID tag as the file arrives and to track how long it stays at each workstation.

Redistributing vessel construction tasks

The G3 Boats team gained a view of the production operation through a real-time map dashboard that shows the real-time location of vessels in progress at both facilities and details how each vessel flows through the production process.
 
This data is used to identify ways to reallocate tasks to achieve a more balanced production process.

Based on the reduction in time previously spent by employees looking for vessels in product, the company reported an annual reduction of 1,900 hours