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Keep material flow transparent
Order is a flexible term in warehouses. Storage areas can be changed or relocated at any time. In a Brandenburg ironworks, forklifts will in future ensure traceable material flows and an overview in the warehouse. Automatically and by the way.
In which mesh box are the magnesium-treated materials located? And where were the finished cast pieces? Until now, without time-consuming documentation, it has hardly been possible to always know exactly where and how many parts of an order are located, from production to shipping. Forklift trucks will help with this in the future: in the Ortrander ironworks, they will soon deliver the necessary information without interrupting work processes.
"We use the forklifts as mobile gates," reveals Jens Trebus from the Fraunhofer Application Center for Logistics System Planning and Information Systems ALI in Cottbus. Ortrander Eisenhütte produces cast parts for ovens, household appliances and vehicles. Raw cast parts leave the works after ten to twelve work steps, with more complex parts it is considerably more. Forklifts transport the parts in lattice boxes between work stations, floor block storage and the dispatch hall. Up to 10 pallet cages are in circulation every month.
Ortrander Eisenhütte's turnover has tripled in the last three years, and the trend is rising. Keeping an eye on the material flow with the old methods is becoming increasingly difficult.
In the future, RFID transponders on the box pallets will provide information about which parts the box contains and which order they belong to. Antennas on the forklifts read the RFID tags every time they are transported. At the same time, a scale integrated in the forks determines the number of parts in the container based on the weight. An ultra-wideband radio location system determines the current position of the forklift and box - three-dimensionally and with an accuracy of 15 centimeters. If the RFID tag on the boxes is covered, for example because it is stuck to the back wall of the iron lattice box, the metal shields the radio waves. In this case, the forklift cannot read the RFIDs, software logic steps in and determines the location and contents of the container.
As soon as the truck sets down its load, all information is saved in a database. This creates a site plan for the forklift driver with the exact location of each individual box pallet, which they can call up via their radio terminal on board. The system shows the employees the entire flow of materials in real time: "Not only do I have an overview of all orders at all times, with the new data I can also optimize processes in a targeted manner and avoid bottlenecks," expects Managing Director Bernd Williams-Boock. Trebus and his team are currently testing the system with a forklift on site. If the pilot proves itself, all forklifts are to be converted at the beginning of 2009.
Source: Cottbus [ALI]
