NEW: Suppliers Guide To Aviation RFID

A Suppliers Guide to Aviation RFID

This is an excerpt from a (10-page) summary guide to Aviation RFID and Barcode Part Marking, covering the ATA Spec2000 part marking standard, pertinent FAA documents supporting RFID on aircraft, examples and available vendors who can help you with a successful implementation.  It also includes key points from  the IATA document describing the Airline Business Requirements for RFID which is important to know what the airline customer wants.   This is an educational overview of what a supplier needs to do to meet technical and customer needs.

 Overview:  Cabin seating aviation

  • Purpose – The purpose of this document is to provide suppliers an overview of aviation part marking using barcodes and RFID and how to implement it correctly to meet their own needs and customer’s needs. These are the summary and views of what is important to know but is not exhaustive – reading the referenced material would be necessary for a full understanding.

  • Barcode Birth Record data on parts/labels/data plates is a minimum requirement for the airlines. If your part is the type that airlines want to read quickly from a distance (e.g., most emergency equipment) they also want it to have an RFID tag. The RFID tag typically carries the 2D barcode and the human readable data, if space is available on the face of the tag.

  • Key requirements discussed:rfid aviation
    o Spec2000 has defined data structure – follow it exactly!
    o Serialized parts – there are two ways to serialize your parts:

    •   Unique serial number within your CAGE Code (Construct 1), and

    •   Unique sequence number within part number within your CAGE Code

      (Construct 2).

    •   These are different and needed for cradle-to-grave traceabililty of the part. Spec2000 data requires that you specify which one you are using – understand how you uniquely ID your parts via Construct 1 or 2!

  • Brief History – the aviation industry has had a part marking specification since 1990. Usage of RFID part marking began in 2002 when Boeing had their first meeting with the FAA to discuss how they could go forward with using this technology safely and effectively. Within the ATA organization the standard started being developed in the 2003-2005 time frame with the first publication of ATA Spec2000 Chapter 9-5 RFID in 2006. In 2004, the ATA applied to the EPC Global organization to be assigned our own identifier number on RFID tags which would separate our needs, our data structure, and our process from other industries like retail, medical, logistics and agriculture. Because of the radical new approach we were taking with this standard UHF RFID technology it took 5 years to be approved by the international GS1 organization. (continued...)

  •  (click here to get to the full guide)

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