Toro Defense
Foreign Object Detection
Foreign Object Detection
Each year, FOD causes billions of dollars in damage. Team Toro's custom tool kitting solutions include customer-specific etching and/or RFID tagging each item to decrease FOD, which is of particular importance to clients in Aerospace and Defense.
Team Toro provides custom tool kits and inlays for each tool, allowing a technician to quickly scan the kit to ensure that nothing is left at the job site. We also implement fully integrated, customized software through our “best-in-class” partners, as a result we deliver to our clients the most efficient tool inventory controls available.
The most preventable type of FOD is caused by tools left behind in the aircraft after servicing. Forgotten tools left in the engine, cockpit, and elsewhere can damage moving parts, cause electrical shorts, and jeopardize the safety of everyone on board.
FAA guidelines mandate all aerospace facilities must have a tool control program to combat Tool FOD. Asset tracking systems, employing Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), have been utilized to assist the industry with this onerous responsibility. RFID is the same technology found in employee badges that grant access to offices. By applying a RFID tag to a tool, companies greatly enhance overall visibility to the tool’s whereabouts. In addition to increased oversight, these systems also substantially improve efficiencies in procedures.
But there is no one-size-fits-all tool control system. Every company has its own custom, sometimes patchwork, system to address the operational and financial concerns of management as well as the practical needs of technicians. Aligning hundreds of employees to a new system is challenging and requires significant upfront investment.
Team Toro members from Gould Southern, a subsidiary of Stephen Gould, saw the need for a more dynamic tool control system that would be easier and more affordable to implement. They set out to build a software/hardware solution that can bring together multiple tracking technologies within a single software environment and integrate with existing applications if needed.
The solution that emerged is Positive Fusion.
What sets Positive Fusion apart from other asset tracking solutions is its adaptability. Positive Fusion can work with a company’s existing systems and be gradually rolled out over time. It allows the use of multiple tracking technologies such as Passive RFID, Ultra-Wideband Technology (Active RFID), and GPS. From the start, it was clear that this flexibility gave Positive Fusion the potential for numerous commercial and industrial applications beyond aviation maintenance.
Positive Fusion’s software dashboards provide up-to-the-minute status and location of all assets and make several reports available to view any historical records. By increasing automation, the system minimizes human error that leads to lost assets.
Positive Fusion also dramatically streamlines the end-user experience by giving technicians the ability to instantly assign and return assets. With Positive Fusion, the assignment process does not require a technician to touch a computer and to return items. They just have to bring the tool(s) back to their designated “home zone”.
