In an optimised supply chain, two out of three tasks in every warehousing transaction are automated.
The principle, defined by RFID product manager for LXE, Dick Sorenson, works like this:
There are three actions to any transaction in logistics and warehousing: (1) an instruction is received; (2) material is moved; and (3) data is captured.
According to Sorenson, any time the operator spends on steps (1) or (3) is wasted time. These tasks should be automatic or intuitive, using available technology. The result is that an efficient company only pays the operator to move material.
In a recent interview with FEN, Sorenson drew an analogy between the evolution of automated navigation in vehicles, and what should happen in the factory.
“Imagine it’s ten years ago and I’ve got to get from Luxemburg to Dusseldorf,” he said.
“I don’t speak German and I know dangerously little about the road signs. I start by looking at a map and trying to figure out where I’m going. I start driving. I see some signage up ahead. Is that my turn? I think so. I make the turn. I keep glancing at the map. I’m at risk of having an accident as I’m paying no attention to the road. I’m having difficulty understanding what my next step ought to be and if I make a wrong turn it’s not necessarily going to be obvious to me. My one hour drive takes two hours — with time spent in confusion and corrective action.”
“Roll that forward to today. My car has GPS in it and I pop in a CD that speaks English to me instead of German. I can pay 100% of my attention to the road, which is my primary task, and the GPS system automatically detects and issues me corrective instructions if I’ve failed to execute properly.”
It makes sense to us today that automated systems should allow the driver to concentrate on his primary task, driving. Now LXE is calling for a similar evolution of thought in the warehouse.
A framework for new technology
With voice recognition, RFID, sensors and wearable computers all at a company’s disposal, the technology is ready to enable supply chain operators to concentrate on their primary task; material movement. What many companies lack, according to Sorenson, is the know-how to make such equipment useful.
This is where LXE’s new Adaptive Recognition and Information Assurance (ARIA) framework comes in. ARIA emphasises combining the strengths of multiple adaptive technologies to make processes fluid, flexible, intuitive and efficient.
It focuses on technologies with real-time automatic intelligent recognition capabilities; able to recognise process changes and inventory anomalies and make automatic adjustments.
With ARIA technologies, data collection is accurate and automatic providing real-time information assurance.
For a full breakdown of ARIA, download the ARIA whitepaper.
Sorenson used the principles of the ARIA framework to show how time spent in the first and thirds steps of a logistical transaction can be minimised.
Shrink instruction time Instructions need to be intuitive, and provided while the operator is moving. The obvious technology to meet these demands is a voiced based data collection system, of which Sorenson has observed many.
“Instead of looking at a screen, the operator is hearing a voice, optimally in their own native language, directing them where to move, what to pick and where to put it,” Sorenson said.
“Voice also allows instructions to be delivered in parallel with movement. In this way, voice potentially addresses the time and ease of comprehension issues in step one,” Sorenson said.
In keeping with ARIA’s flexible model, Sorenson noted that voice is not always the preferred solution.
“It really depends on the nature of the task. The idea here is to pick the technology that’s best suited for the particular problem. I can imagine applications where a visual cue might be better — maybe graphics on a screen.
Shrink data capture time
At the back end of the logistical transaction is the data capture event. The challenge here is to take out human input, which so often results in error, according to Sorenson.
“If I can automate the data capture I can increase accuracy and give time back to the shift for the operator to do more moves,” Sorenson said.
“I am able to move more inventory in less time, or work the same amount of inventory in less space, because I’m moving inventory more efficiently. Lots of opportunities open up if I can automated this last part. This is where something like RFID can really play its part.”
But what about the reliability of RFID technology today? Can it be trusted? It is a question Sorenson has been asked many times.
“The great thing about RFID is you can read multiple tags; that’s its benefit over barcode. The bad thing about RFID is also that you can read multiple tags; including ones you didn’t plan to capture,” Sorenson said.
What it really comes down to is good implementation; true with all technology and all of ARIA.
Sorenson continued: “RFID without the proper planning and without the proper equipment can capture stray reads. Frankly, bad data from RFID is just as bad as bad data from human entry or the wrong barcode scan. You have to understand your environment. Where are the tags that you intend to read? How do you intend to distinguish those tags and read only those?”
One of the things LXE brings to bear on this situation is its expertise in antenna design — in particular, its electronically steerable phased array.
This is a process LXE has developed to ensure that only items in a pallet are counted, and not those in the pick fronts nearby.
What’s left? With step one of the logistical transaction made intuitive and mobile, and step three automatic, the operator is able to spend all his time on step two — material movement, which is now significantly more accurate.
To see how ARIA changes a logistical transaction in practice, download the video. What are supply chain managers to take away from all this? Sorenson suggest three actions: “First, take a look at your current processes and break them down in terms of instruction, movement and data capture. See where throughout your facilities you have labour intensive instruction receipt and data capture. “Second, if you know where your labour time is currently tied up, use the ARIA framework to bring that time down significantly. “Third, turn to a hardware partner who — working in conjunction with software partners - can pull all those technologies together and re-engineer your processes to achieve the greatest efficiencies and accuracies.”
www.lxe.com
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