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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