Knowing what you've got and where it is within the supply chain at any given time should be straightforward. But multiply this simple task by the tens of thousands of items in an enormous business such as that of the Ford Motor Company. Suddenly, knowing what you have and where they are precisely become staggeringly complex.

Ford faced this kind of complexity at its Michigan Truck Plant, which assembles thousands of vehicles daily and then parks them in a vast lot. Imagine trying to find a specific vehicle within this lot!

But a manufacturer of wireless, real-time devices for providing location information and managing inventory came up with a means for Ford to track all of these vehicles and pinpoint their parking places with precision.

Near the end of the Ford assembly line, operators hang a wireless tag on the rearview mirror of each new vehicle. This tag remains there until the vehicle is loaded onto a train.

The extremely low-power radio frequency tags on the vehicles transmit to fixed-position antennas located around the parking lot. The antennas then deliver tracking information from the tags to a computer. This system can pinpoint the location of an individual tag to within 10 feet of its exact position.

With this system in place, Ford can instantly locate specific vehicles to fulfill dealers' custom orders or to find any vehicle on hold for quality control. Moreover, should anyone try to remove a vehicle from the lot without proper authorization, the system can trigger an alert.

Now vehicles can be located within a matter of seconds, says Frank Taylor, vice president of material planning and logistics for Ford. Previously, the location process "could take hours or longer."

Ford plans to use the technology worldwide. "It has the accuracy and potential we need," says Mark Wrubel, project manager.

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