The system was installed in the company's Sarreguemines plant with the goal of reducing bottlenecks and production delays caused by missing materials, as well as increasing productivity. Continental Tire has also installed the vendor's system at its plant in Mount Vernon, Ill. Both sites are using Wi-Fi tags and software in conjunction with material inventory tracking system software for inventory data management.

Continental Tire produces 1,000 different kinds of tires at its Sarreguemines location, which encompasses 138,000 square meters. In the past the plant's staff relied on grid lines painted on the floor and handwritten details about the location of carriers-the various large wheeled carts that are loaded with sheets of rubber or other components and are transported from storage to workstations as tires are built. If a carrier was not where it was expected to be, a worker had to start looking for it manually.

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Keywords: RFID, Wireless, Bar Code & Voice, Technology, Industrial Manufacturing, Inventory Planning & Optimization, Logistics, Material Inventory Tracking, Automated Inventory Monitoring