HP Brazil uses RFID platform to track product production and distribution processes
chrispeng [ad_1]
Since attaching electronic tags to printers and accessories more than 10 years ago, HP Brazil has been using RFID technology in the assembly line. These pioneering technologies and the software and hardware technologies brought by São Paulo’s partner FIT have helped improve the company’s manufacturing chain. HP Brazil has developed an Industry 4.0 platform, designed by business professionals, scientists and thinkers from all over the world.
The industrial platform, called Exceler8, can simplify business operations in the field of supply chain management (SCM) in accordance with GS1’s EPC RFID standard. The solution also follows the practice of the Internet of Things, storing data in the cloud.
The way the platform works is this: the factory receives product orders, places the order for production, and tracks the entire process through RFID. The production monitoring provided by the platform and the reduction of production delivery delays have brought many benefits to HP.
With this platform, HP can fully control the production and delivery time of products. This brings many benefits to the integration of other links in the supply chain (such as suppliers and customers).
For the past 10 years, HP’s Sorocaba printer assembly line in Brazil has been using RFID technology. The company also uses RFID technology SmartWaste to manage waste electronic products, and also won the 2012 RFID Environmental Protection Award.
Recently, as SmartWaste has matured, a Brazilian organization called Sintronics opened an RFID recycling facility a few hundred meters away from the HP printer factory. The agency also conducts research on renewable materials to help companies meet Brazilian environmental regulations.
According to Kami Saidi, head of manufacturing and supply chain operations at HP LATAM, technology investment is an integral part of the company’s strategy. He said: “Some of the projects developed in Brazil have been promoted globally. The RFID technology currently used in Brazil will be applied in the global HP production and logistics process management in the future.”
The need to control end-to-end processes, simplify, automate and manage business, and optimize operating costs is what prompted HP to use the GS1 standard. Therefore, HP began to seek to improve the quality of information; support rapid access to data; provide integration between sales, production and logistics; strengthen the control between all processes.
The Exceler8 project was launched in November 2014, and the first results were announced in September last year. At the end of this year, HP expects to use the platform to integrate manufacturing sites and distribution centers. HP Brazil explained that ensuring that data is always up-to-date will enable the company to achieve qualitative breakthroughs in customer management processes and sales management, which can help companies save hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs each year and improve customer satisfaction.
HP stated that the GS1 standard will promote collaboration, information sharing, and item identification among trading partners. Both HP and FIT are members of GS1 Brazil and have often adopted GS1 standards. Other reasons for using this standard include reducing enterprise complexity, reducing deployment costs, improving integration and maintenance, and facilitating hardware, software, and equipment purchase decisions. FIT President Luiz Fernando Guerra pointed out that GS1 RFID technology has been put into use in 150 countries around the world.
Guerra said: “RFID tags play a very important role in Industry 4.0 manufacturing. The technology is highly reliable, mature, and has anti-counterfeiting features. They can also achieve fast and accurate reading, thereby helping the deployment of advanced automated production line systems. .”
Exceler8 is the result of HP Brazil’s RFID technology research and development in the past ten years. It uses EPCIS standards to provide traceability and visibility of production and logistics processes.
In order to generate the EPCIS repository event, HP deployed a product flow control system on the Brazilian production line, and attached RFID tags to desktops, laptops and tablets. RFID readers can read these products in the assembly, packaging and logistics areas and transfer them to the EPCIS database. Then, these data will be displayed on the screen in each area in real time.
Another advantage of the GS1 standard is that it can be used in multiple countries. In addition, in order to make RFID systems compatible with each other, HP uses GS1’s Low Level Reader Protocol (LLRP) so that readers from other manufacturers can also be used in the system, thereby saving costs.
HP Brazil is also actively cooperating with FIT to study the application of RFID technology in material planning, production and storage. HP said the platform has brought many benefits, including improved product delivery time.
HP Brazil said that in the future they will expand the use of the Exceler8 platform and use it in areas such as report generation, planning, and sales. In the future, employees will not only be able to access this data through the existing web interface, but also through smart phone applications.
[ad_2]
