Background and Requirements

Manufacturing is the foundation of the real economy and the key to future high-quality economic development. Utilizing digital technologies to develop smarter, more sustainable, and more resilient manufacturing has become a strategic consensus for countries worldwide to promote economic growth.

As a new management model in manufacturing, the line-side warehouse runs through the entire production process of an enterprise. In typical discrete industries such as daily chemical production, electronics manufacturing, and home appliance manufacturing, a wide variety of products are manufactured daily within the plant. To ensure uninterrupted production line operation, precise control over the types, attributes, and locations of all materials, semi-finished products awaiting processing/packaging, and finished products within the plant is essential. This enables accurate assessment of production line status, rational arrangement of production tasks, material allocation, procurement of new raw materials, and prevention of unused leftover materials from accumulating and wasting the limited space on the production line. Consequently, the digital management of line-side warehouses has emerged.

1. Solution

The line-side warehouse material precise positioning solution based on UWB IoT technology consists of e-ink screen positioning tags, positioning base stations, a computing engine, and an application platform. The positioning base stations are powered and transmit data back via POE switches. Data collected by the positioning system's collection end is aggregated onto a server through a convergence switch. The server runs the location calculation engine LS1000, which analyzes the collected data via algorithms to obtain tag locations and forwards the data to the WPAS location data application platform.

By integrating data with existing factory systems such as SAP and RTCIS, a business platform for centralized big data processing is established. This enables efficient and precise overall planning of materials and production scheduling, significantly reducing production stoppages and output impacts caused by material shortages and production schedule conflicts. The on-site configuration of large-screen displays and handheld tablets greatly optimizes the overall user experience of the system, no longer confined to offices and computers, thereby enhancing frontline employee productivity and effectively reducing communication costs.

2. Solution Introduction

2.1 Introduction to Material Handling Process Within the Factory

For internal material handling, the traditional model involves manual issuance of delivery order requests. The warehouse receives and performs ingredient picking, with materials flowing through multiple areas to the production supply line. This process lacks management of intermediate transfer stages and uses paper labels for printing material information and quantities, wasting consumables and manpower. To enable frontline staff to quickly obtain the latest status changes of materials and save paper resources, UWB positioning tags with e-ink screens are used to completely replace the original paper labels. This allows for obtaining spatial location and order information of all materials and products, making information clear at a glance, facilitating smoother coordination between departments, enabling early warning for material shortages and procurement preparation, and rationally arranging production sequences based on production line conditions, order urgency, and overall material planning. This enhances the efficiency of material flow in the factory's line-side warehouse. The following describes the main usage methods and reuse process of tags within the factory:

(1) Material Inbound Binding

As shown in the figure below, when new materials arrive at the factory, their information is first entered into the system at a designated location along with a production work order number. An unused positioning tag is then taken and bound to this work order number. The tag is placed on the material pallet. Subsequently, the tag's location information in the system serves as the location information for this batch of materials. Simultaneously, the system sends the basic information of this batch to the tag's e-ink screen for display, facilitating employee viewing.

(2) Semi-Finished Product Binding

Produced semi-finished products also require tag binding before being stored in the warehouse, awaiting processing into finished products. The main difference from material inbound binding is that the binding operation is performed by frontline production staff accessing the platform via handheld tablets, making it convenient, fast, and operable anytime, anywhere.

(3) Production Line Material Requirement Management

Before production begins, the positioning system can be used to obtain information and quantities of materials already near the production line. By comparing these with the quantities required in the order, it can be determined if production needs are met. When the remaining stock is insufficient, the system automatically notifies the responsible personnel via email to prepare materials, reducing waiting time during order switching and improving production efficiency by minimizing line stoppage time.

Warehouse material preparers can also quickly locate the storage positions of materials needing preparation via the positioning system, reducing material search time and simultaneously improving workshop and warehouse work efficiency.

The system can also intelligently adjust the number of days for material preparation based on the leave status of relevant staff, avoiding unexpected losses due to work oversights.

(4) Tag Recycling Process

Besides advantages in information display, another benefit of electronic tags over paper labels is reusability. When a batch of materials is consumed, the tag simply needs to be placed at a designated recycling point for reuse. Meanwhile, historical usage records remain traceable and queryable in the database.

2.2 Business Functions

By binding each batch of material/product information with UWB e-ink screen positioning tags, monitoring and tracking of material locations and flow information within warehouses and production workshops is achieved.

Through precise positioning, tracking of material flow on pallets across multiple areas such as factory warehouses, workshop holding areas, workshop line-side warehouses, and production supply lines is realized. At the end of material flow, positioning tags are recycled and reused.

By collecting useful data from various subsystems for global centralized processing via big data, algorithms calculate material consumption rates. Combined with existing inventory, this enables early judgment of material preparation timing and email notification to responsible personnel.

The construction of a factory big data platform is realized, integrating data silos from various subsystems for combined application, unleashing business value where 1+1>2, optimizing management and operational processes, and saving company resources.