What is the Thing in Internet of Things
The Thing in ‘Internet of Things’ could be an asset, a person or a key process parameter, that a Production Manager would want to measure and improve……..
Production Line Enabling
As a Production Manager, you may have one or more of these Problems
- Improving Process Efficiency by reducing TAKT (Process Turnaround Time)
- Pallet Tracking in-house and at vendor locations
- Asset Tracking in-house and at vendor locations
- Vehicle Tracking
- Forklift Tracking and Optimization
- Casual Labor Tracking
What do I do as a Production Manager?
- Identify Key Pain Areas and Process Improvisation Opportunities
- Workout Tangible outcomes e.g. TAKT to reduce by 20%, Yield per day to increase by 10% in one month and so on
- Select a small business case/process area
- Work out all the challenges, Inputs, and outputs to the system
- Seek and Solution Provider and work out candidates for digitalization
- Identify Automation Opportunities using IoT
- Defined Dashboards and key metrics for predictable gains and Hyper Decisions
- Roll out POC plan and execute
- Observe outcomes and then scale to bigger process applications
A solution to Business Problems
Improving Process Efficiency by reducing TAKT (Process Turnaround Time)
Pain Area
- Too much time gets wasted using manual processes for material requests from stores
- Time wasted in holding production line for want of material from vendor
- Production Delays due to a technical issue on assembly lines and delayed resolution
Solution Approach
A heterogeneous ISAE (Intelligent Systems Around Everything) Framework based on IoT that connects Pallets, Production Jobs, ANDON Calls, People and Materials to give:
- Real-time production status of a production line on a huge TV screen (As seen above)
- The TV screen depicts the following and can be used for hyper-decision making based on real-time data
- In Progress work stations with lapsed and planned process time (purple color blocks)
- Material or Assistance calls (color red), These are called warehouse kanban or ANDON calls
- Normal operations (color green)
- Inferences in numbers for Week, Month and Quarter as seen on the screen for predictive analysis and planning
Business Benefits
- Up to 30% Improved TAKT resulting in ROI and savings
- 10% to 30%Capacity enhancement resulting in better yield
- Customer Delight due to timely and quality deliverable
Pallet Tracking in-house and at vendor locations
Pain Area
- Pallets at various locations and vendors not available in time or have been inefficiently used
- This causes production delays or damage to products due to wrong pallets
- Revenue losses due to lost pallets, unaccounted for pallets, and subsequently new pallet manufacturing when already pallets are at the vendor location
Solution Approach
- Enabling smart pallets with the use of BLE Tags and BLE Gateways.
- Putting the information on the Web using Real-Time Location System and ISAE framework
- Putting the Gateways in Trucks to track Pallets in Transit and estimated time to arrive
- Realtime dashboard on Laptops and TV screens for hyper decision making
Business Benefits
- Save 100% of revenue lost in misuse of pallets by Vendors
- Accurate location of pallets helps plan delivery and saves TAKT by 20% or more
- The cost of pallet manufacturing can be reduced by up to 30%
- ROI can be realized within 2 months of implementation
Detailed Solution available on Warehouse Pallet Tracking
Asset Tracking in-house and at vendor locations
Pain Area
- Assets at various locations in-house and at vendor shops
- These include Dies, Jigs, and Fixtures
- Finding the location of assets during a health audit is a major pain area and impacts audit timelines and data relevance
- Finding the location and tracking of assets on demand becomes a bottleneck in a manual process system
Solution Approach
- Onboard all assets on the system using BLE Tags and Gateways devices
- Put the information on the Web using Real-Time Location System and ISAE framework
- On-demand audits and health checks using custom apps
- Real-time dashboard on Asset Age, Health, and Location details
- Analytics for decision making
- Digitalization of asset movement and tracking
Business Benefits
- Save 100% of revenue lost in misuse of assets by vendors
- Accurate location of assets helps ensures securing stakeholder’s interest
- 70% cost reduction in audits due to automation
- ROI can be realized within 6 months of implementation
Vehicle Tracking
Pain Areas
- Tracking of Vehicles in Yard and big areas is a manual process and takes hours to search
- Tracking and Scheduling Supplier vehicles is a great challenge
- Vehicles in indoor locations and time at each location are unaccounted for and manually reported introducing efficiency and delay in dispatch
Solution Approach
- Asset tags go on sun visors of vehicles
- BLE Relays are placed at locations that need to be tracked at the micro level
- BLE gateways cover a wider range and transmit signals received from Relays to IoT servers using WiFi
- Onboarding and Mapping against Vehicle Identification Number are done using a mobile app
- Once on the system Vehicles are seen on a virtual floor and can be tracked in real-time
- Real-time dashboard on dwell time and location inference available for management decisions in real-time synthesis
Business Benefits
- Reduction in GATE TAKT for supplier vehicles 20% or more
- Production of automobiles and their delivery are 100% Predictable for automobile industries resulting in customer delight
- Hyper Decision making using real-time dashboards
- Ready for Future Capacity Planning based on historical data
Forklift Tracking and Optimizing
Pain Area
- Not knowing how many forklifts are really needed in production increases the holding cost of forklifts
- Path optimizations where dozens of forklifts are used are very important to generate savings
Solution Approach
- BLE-based asset tags with accelerometers go on the forklifts
- BLE relays are placed in the pathway at a reasonable distance for a range
- BLE Gateways are placed at intermediate locations –
- A web app with a floor map for real-time location tracking is made available to users
- The web has a default dashboard with a basic analysis on forklift movement and inferences
- An application server has the data and application code
- IoT server is hosted on QuicSolv’s cloud or local data center for Forklift location data from gateways and sending back information to the application server
Business Benefits
Based on industry-standard practices and past experience of experts in the area of cost optimization we could think of the following value to the business.
- Reducing number of forklifts – based on Industry analysis we have seen at least 10% to 15% fleet can be reduced after data analysis of actual usage
- Substantial Savings – Based on real-life applications we have achieved as high as 15% Savings within two months of implementation.
Casual Labor Tracking (Dynamic Production Planning)
Pain Areas
- Contractors or in-time labor is a boon but it is very difficult to mange their productivity
- Tracking them on the job is very difficult as they are not on the main HR channel
- Billing/invoicing and security are big challenges when it comes to casual labor
Solution Approach
- BLE based ID cards assigned to Casual Labors
- Gateways go in Pick-up Bus and Real-time Locations on shop floors
- Before one is logging into the gate the real-time picture of the strength of the team is known well in advance
- This help replanning and dynamic changes to scheduled deliverable
Business Benefits
- 20% time saved in re-planning
- 30% cost saving in production losses
- 100% ROI in 6 months
Click here to know more on Dynamic Planning and Control
General IoT Architecture for Production Line
- BLE Tags are used on Pallets, Vehicles and Assets send singles of their location
- BLE ID cards are used to allocate human resources to operations and for visitors
- Zone Mapping is done using BLE Relays which also receive Signals from Tags and ID cards and transmit to Gateway Devices
- Gateways are devices which receive signals from Relays over BLE and Transmit to IoT server over WiFi
- IoT processes that data and gives it to the Application server where the business logic is applied and send to a web portal for display
- The display is done using Mobile Devices, laptops, tablets and TV screens
Business Value of Implementing IoT Based Processes
- Real-time Tracking of Process parameters and Critical Operations
- Asset, People and Vehicle Tracking
- Reduced TAKT for all operations thereby greater capacity and higher revenue growth
- Hyper Decision making looking and live dashboards
- Data Analytics
- Better Control over Production Processes
- Asset Mapping and location tracking at finger tips – smooth audits
- Predictable delivery of products
- Customer delight
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