1

Presented by:Ankit Phartiyal 72

Dheeraj Kumar 118Santosh Ghildiyal 77 Ashwani Kumar 22

A Presentation on:

An RFID based digital warehouse management system in the tobacco industry

2 Introduction:

• Firstly, is the plane warehouse (Normal warehouse) that are without high racks or automatic equipment (e.g. . Robotic arms, automated guided vehicles).

• Traditionally, in such a plane warehouse, the products are randomly placed on the floor without pallets, and the operation performances mostly depend on the operator’s memory and experiences, which results in more operation time and mistakes.

• So, with the increasing types of products and more and more complex customer orders, the warehouse mangers have been facing a dramatic challenge on changing the traditional mode of manual operation.

• In a plane warehouse following are some significant problems faced by managers :-

1. How to identify a storage/retrieval assignment strategy for fast moving products?2. How to help the operators to pick the products more rapidly and accurately once the assignment decisions have been made?

33. How to improve the operational efficiency of the warehouse as customer orders become more complex? 4. How to improve inventory visibility in the supply chain, so as to better synchronise material and information flows and reduce inventory discrepancies?

• RFID ( Radio frequency identification) based digital warehouse management system (RFID- DWMS) to improve the warehouse operations have been introduced

• This system benefits from the advantages of RFID in data collection, such as wireless object identification, multi-object identification and more storage space

• RFID allows objects to communicate information about themselves automatically without human intervention

• RFID-DWMS design helps to improve the operations in a plane warehouse, by integrating RFID, computer and wireless Communication technology

• The proposed system enables a plane warehouse to achieve the functions of automatic storage retrieval management, real time inventory management, and accurate shelf management

4 Literature review:

Warehouse management –

• The main warehousing operations consist of inventory storage, order product mixing, cross docking and customer service. The most important of them is inventory management, including storage/retrieval management and inventory control

• Vast amount of literature focuses on the use of the warehouse management which can be organised into the following two categories- optimal order picking and modelling as a job shop scheduling problem

• In the past decade, RFID has become popular in the fields of business and industry, Particularly in the logistics and SCM domain

5

6 Modules:

1- DWMS

1.1 Digital Shelf Manager-Monitor the inventory events in warehouse and

provide a platform for operators to manage the inventory visually.

71.2 Reader Adapter-

• It enhance the flexibility of DWMS.• Performs as a bridge between DWMS and RFID readers.• It specifies a virtualised API (Application Programming

Interface)

1.3 Storage/ Retrieval Manager-

Digital Pallet Packing- Helps the operators to gather the barcodes of palletising products and write these barcodes into the corresponding pallet tag with an RFID reader.

S/R Assignment Engine- Designed to improve S/R assignment.

Its actions are based on a set of basic S/R rules, which are predefined and stored in ECA rule base.

If assignment decision is made the S/R assignment engine will lock the shelves and generate relevant commands for despatching to FGS.

81.4 Event Processor Manager-The input events are accepted in the event

buffer, and then move through the series of components with specific functions including decomposition, grouping, filtering and complex event processing.

92. Forklift Guided System (FGS)FGS is installed on Forklift. Cache the series of

commands.

Guide the forklift driver to the operation location

10

3. Back End Module

Recognise specific situation and react to them without user intervention.

It enable a system to have autonomous response to an event.

Contain all the basic rules in ECA forms.

ECA rules are well establishes in active database.

User can add, modify and delete rules in the rulebase.

11 Storage/Retrieval Rules:

For the benefits of,

reduced picking travel timeless congestionenhanced space utilization

For different requirements in practice, the storage rules must be accordingly various

Here is given 10 most common rules used in practice

12

1. Random

Any available digital shelf is equally likely to be an assignment

13

2. Closest

An available digital shelf, closer to I/O point, has the higher priority to be assigned, regardless of its velocity

3. Velocity

Similar to the “closest” rule, it considers the velocity of turnover

4. Weight

The heavier goods should be placed on the lower digital shelf on the racks

14

5. Comparability

Similar products should be placed separately to avoid mistakes

6. Identity

The same products should be placed together for convenient to manage inventory

7. Balance

Distribute velocity across zones as evenly as possible for reduction of congestion

15

8. Shape

An item with a special shape should be placed in a special space to enhance the space utilization

9. FIFO

The first unit into inventory will be delivered first

10. LIFO

Contrary to FIFO, the first unit into inventory will be delivered last

16 Warehouse process analysis

• In a typical flow of a warehouse operation, when new products are received, an operator makes a storage assignment decision depending on his memory and experience, and folk carriers carry them to the appointed place

• When a delivering task arrives, an operator makes a retrieval assignment decision depending on his memory and experience. Then, folk carriers carry these products to the delivering space

• At the exit, two operators take charge of scanning the corresponding barcode one by one when the products pass through the door

Problems -

17 Optimal solution –

• There may be some mistakes happening when scanning so, there is a need for one person to stay at the front of the computer, so as to monitor the results and make sure that the obtained barcode information is correct

• Every day after all operations are finished, the operators should make an inventory of the products in the warehouse by manual checking

• So, after the process analysis researcher identified some of the core business processes that could be improved –

1. Storage process 2. Delivering process 3. Scanning barcode process 4. And, inventory management process

18

Requirements analysis –

Requirements for RFID-DWMS. Stakeholders Requirements for RFID-DWMS

• Warehouse manager -Using racks to increase warehouse capacity -Using RFID tag to store the barcode information and improve operation procedure - To maintain operator records -Provide a visual view of the entire warehouse inventory information -Record the inventory in and out situations -Provide inventory reports

• Warehouse operators -Provide an automatic decision for storage/retrieval assignment - Provide a guide map for storage/retrieval operations - Provide a reminder and alert of the inaccurate operations

19

Warehouse layout design

20

Receiving Space

•Products to be stored are palletised onto digital pallets•Tag writing & data collection is done by Barcode Scanner & RFID reader simultaneously

Shipping Space ( Info of Delivered Products)

•Designed for delivery operations•UHF RFID Reader 2 scannes product in real time when Forklift passes at certain distance.•Forklift has touch screen computer installed FGS.

Temporary Storage Space

•Consists of Database server-Specific databases like inventory information, human resources, storage/retrieval rules and RFID information.

21

System design

RFID-DWMS architecture, divide system into six subsystems based on functionality:

• Human resources subsystem• Stock in subsystem• Stock out subsystem,• Digital shelf management subsystem• Forklift guided subsystem• Rules management subsystem

22Stock in subsystem

This subsystem has four main functions. 1. Provides an automatic storage assignment function for the incoming products. Storage assignment decisions depends on the storage rules specified in the rule base.

2. Operators can use this subsystem to generate the corresponding storage commands, And dispatch to the forklift guided subsystem for drivers to execute them.

3. Helps the operator to compress the corresponding barcodes into a new data format, and drives the reader to write it into the RFID tags

4. Finally, after it receives the confirmation from FGS, (e.g., inventory information, commands status or shelves status) is updated by this subsystem.

23

Human resources management subsystem

Maintain the operator record information, including personal information, training arrangement, checking attendance and appraisal evaluation.

Stock out subsystem

•Designed for stock out procedures. •Helps to generate the retrieval commands, dispatches them to FGS and updates then information. •When the RFID scanner detects the transported digital pallets, this subsystem also helps to decompress the barcodes from the RFID tags.

Digital shelf management subsystem

• Visual view of the entire warehouse inventory • Provide a precise inventory statistical report• The report contains the beginning inventory data, store in and out quantities, specifications of products• Provides a shelf adjustment function to assist monitoring the racks situation.

24

Forklift guided subsystem

•A touch screen computer is fixed with forklift for executing commands•Provides a guide map to assist in executing the operation commands•Communicate with other subsystems via a wireless network, including receivingcommands, returning command status, updating inventory information

Rules Management Subsystem

•Designed to provide a rules maintenance platform for users to add, modify and delete rules in the rulebase.

25

System Implementation :

Barcode 1Barcode 2Barcode 3....Barcode N

Common data +

Serial num 1Serial num 2Serial num 3....Serial num N

+Checksum

Barcode set

Compress

Exist 3 potential problems :

Compressing the barcode data ?Procedures of storage ?Procedures of retrievals ?

26

1. Compressing Barcodes :

Capacity of digital pallet = 30 boxesBarcode data of each box = 32 digit number

19 digits + 13 digits

A common number, which has :Company nameProduction area, date and specification

A serial number to identify each box uniquely

In order to save storage space of RFID tag and enhance communication efficiency, the barcodes are compressed in to “Barcode-set” as

“common data + SN 1+SN 2 + SN 3 +….+SN N+ checksum”

** cheksum is a certain no. of check bits, determines agreement with the barcode data

27

2. The innovative procedures of storage operations :

** Year in 2004

28

3. The innovative procedures of retrieval operations :

Separate, If it needs to deliver only part of it, not whole pallet

** Year in 2004

29

Performance with and without RFID-DWMS :

By implementing RFID-DWMS, operating performance of distribution centre has improved by following points-

• Inventory visualised management• Automatic storage/ retrieval assignment• Forklift automated guided• Loading time is reduced

Capacity of warehouse- Increased by 52.5 %Manpower- Reduced by halfLoading Time- Reduced by 64%Loading Ratio- Dropped to 60%Inventory Accuracy- increased to 99%

30

Comparison of Inventory Accuracy :

Reasons-• Storage/ Retrieval assignment was based on operators memory and experience

• Similar appearance of the products

Reason-• Transaction errors were mostly generated by misreading of RFID readers

31

Thanks…