Honkarakenne

Laying a strong foundation for success: Although you are the world leader of the traditional craft of log house manufacturing, you’re not married to the past. In fact, you are a major innovator when it comes to using technology to fine-tune critical business processes. Could RFID provide a window into a new way of optimizing production and controlling costs?

While many of its competitors still use barcodes to track their products, Honkarakenne was one of the first to employ RFID to transform its operations. The company piloted its RFID program in 2007 to improve its usage of raw materials and enhance efficiency. The company uses approximately 2,000 UHF Gen2 ShortDipole tags each day to finish logs, manufacture multiple ready-to-assemble houses simultaneously and correctly pack customer deliveries. Customers perceive RFID’s benefits when they receive fast, accurately compiled deliveries.

“Unlike the barcode technology we used before, the RFID tags do not require a direct line of sight with the reader and they function faultlessly even in demanding industrial environments. We have achieved excellent read rates, so it is no longer necessary to identify logs manually. This, in turn, has accelerated our processes,” says Olavi Piispanen, Maintenance Manager, Honkarakenne.

Since each house can be constructed of even up to thousand logs, it is critical that logs and millings are accurately identified during production to optimize finishing and delivery. Logs are tagged immediately after they have been cut to predetermined measurements. Tagged logs are then read three times: once, to execute critical actions identified during the design phase; a second time to ensure that logs have gone through all required operations; and a third time before packing to ensure that all shipments are accurately assembled and prepared for delivery.  

By providing real-time data insights and highly automated processes, RFID enables Honkarakenne to scale its operations, reduce waste and focus staff on higher-level processes. A faster, better, more cost-efficient way of working?These results are built to last.