On October 3, The Boeing Company announced plans to introduce radio frequency identification (RFID) smart labels on maintenance-significant parts of the 787 Dreamliner, its newest passenger aircraft.  According to the news release, "RFID technology will improve configuration control and help airlines reduce costs by managing part maintenance and repair histories."

Boeing startled some in the RFID industry by stating flatly that the smart labels they require will not be the "ordinary" ISO 18000-6C (Gen2 UHF) tags.  They'll have to be metal-mountable and tested against extreme fluctuations in temperature and pressure.  And they'll need 128 kilobits of user memory.

Boeing also made another startling announcement.  All Boeing divisions have joined EPCglobal.  For those conversant with current aerospace coding conventions, this revelation raises a lot of questions.

[read the Boeing news release]

The tag issue is fairly straightforward but also fairly daunting.  Boeing not only wants 128 kbit UHF chips (compared with the 96 bit minimum for EPC Gen2 UHF and 128 bit for 18000-6C Gen2 UHF), it wants labels that meet the environmental requirements imposed by being placed on metal in, and on, an aircraft -- and it wants them to be available in production quantities by 2008.  Boeing plans to meet with chip, inlay and label manufacturers, as well as representatives of EPCglobal, on October 25, 2005 to lay out its plans and projected timeline.

Boeing recently completed two in-service evaluations of passive RFID smart labels on a FedEx MD-10 Freighter and determined that there were no adverse effects on aircraft electronic and avionic systems.  In June, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) authorized the use of passive RFID tags, clearing the way for Boeing's plans to use RFID.

The expanded memory of the chips required by Boeing, and by implication, Airbus which jointly developed the newest coding and marking standards, will allow maintenance, repair and upgrade data to be written directly to the tag which would be applied to critical components that affect the aircraft's safety and operations. 

The larger memory chips would also be useful to the U.S. Department of Defense which has coding structures that do not fit within the current EPCglobal memory constraints.

Boeing's requirements are a major hurdle for RFID manufactures but opens up the potential for far greater use of RFID.  The read/write capabilities of RFID, which are a key requirement for Boeing's application, are also  key benefits of RFID over other AIDC technologies.

Now, however, to the big question: why did Boeing join EPCglobal?

Aircraft manufacturers, spearheaded by Boeing, have adopted the Air Transport Association (ATA) Spec 2000-e coding convention.  This uses three-character Text Element Identifiers (TEIs) for each data type.  TEIs are designed to be mnemonics.  For example, the TEI for serial number is SER, part number is PNR, and manufacturer is MFR.  This structure is not compatible with the two most widely used types of identifiers, GS1 Application Identifiers (AIs), which are all-numeric, and ANSI MH10.8 Data Identifiers (DIs) which are zero-to-three numbers preceding an alpha character.

Originally developed as a combined EDI and bar code identifier system for airlines in the early 80s, TEIs today are still used primarily by aircraft manufacturers and airlines.  The U.S. DoD has accepted TEIs for permanent bar code marking on aircraft parts in order to simplify compliance by manufacturers.  TEIs are covered for permanent bar code identification under ISO TS21849.

But, this all begs the question -- why join EPCglobal?

TEIs (SPEC 2000) are not currently acceptable under EPCglobal rules.  Boeing needs to use TEIs.

TEIs could be used in the "non-EPC" version of ISO 18000-6C with an appropriate Application Family Identifier (AFI).  An AFI could be requested and assigned specifically for aerospace.  The AFI would then identify the RFID tag as conforming to SPEC 2000 data constructs.

So why join EPCglobal?  Boeing itself really has no need for an EPC number.  Few of Boeing's suppliers have any real potential need for an EPC number.

Is Boeing counting on data synchronization and other benefits of the Object Naming Service and associated databases?  Or is Boeing going to try to get EPCglobal to accept the use of SPEC 2000 TEIs?  And, if so, why?

One possibility is that by getting EPCglobal to accept TEIs, it helps legitimize them.  TEIs are considered by most people outside the aircraft and airline industry as anachronisms that once served a very useful purpose but which has been replaced by more flexible and more universally applicable systems -- whether XML for data exchange or DIs and AIs for bar code and other AIDC technologies.

Having EPCglobal adopt TEIs would give them the level of international, multi-industry use TEI advocates have been seeking.

While expecting EPCglobal to adopt an entirely foreign, alphabetic identifier structure seems quite unlikely, having all of Boeing's divisions sign on and pay dues is a fairly significant milestone in EPCglobal's quest to include more "industrial" applications in addition to the more traditional "commercial" and "retail" ones.  And, if the price of attracting this kind of clout means incorporating other identification systems into the EPCglobal sphere, EPC might well have to consider it.  Watch for more coverage on this topic in coming issues of RFID Connections.