The wireless application integration scheme makes cold storage “double preservation” a reality
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In the newly commissioned Qingdao Hongdao Aquatic Products Industrial Park by Pacific Enli Group, you can see a busy but orderly scene: After the ships loaded with various fishes that have been salvaged and frozen, the warehouse staff use the RF terminal Scan the pallet number to confirm receipt. Immediately, the forklift delivers the goods to the designated warehouse according to the warehouse allocation information sent by the information system, and uses the RF terminal to scan the inventory information, and the receiving information is transmitted back to SAP WM. At this point, the warehouse operation is completed.
The entire warehousing process is orderly, smooth and smooth. Thousands of tons of frozen fish raw materials unloaded from each ship can all enter the cold storage in a short time, thus ensuring the fresh and high quality of the fish. At the same time, the warehousing information is detailed and complete, and the barcode includes data such as species name, fishing vessel name, and fishing date. These real-time “fresh-keeping” data not only meet the various needs in the finished product sales link, but also make future shipments, inquiries, and inventory operations simple and efficient. It is DEMATIC’s advanced real-time logistics technology that makes the “double preservation” of fish and information a reality.
Transform business processes
As a world-renowned aquatic industry giant, the main business of Pacific Andes International Holdings Limited (Pacific Andes International Holdings) is global procurement, transportation, and supply of frozen seafood. Pacific Enli Food Co., Ltd. is a direct subsidiary of Pacific Enli Group in Qingdao, integrating aquatic product processing, transportation and trade. Its leading product, the frozen cod series, is a grade A product recognized by the international aquatic industry and enjoys a high reputation in the domestic and foreign aquatic industry.
In order to expand production capacity to meet the growing demand, Pacific Enli Group built a new processing plant in Hongdao, Qingdao in 2007. The total investment of the first phase of the Hongdao project is about 90 million US dollars. The processing capacity is expected to reach 60,000 tons per year. The business of refined processed products, such as ready-to-eat products, can reach full capacity approximately 2 to 3 years after production.
In order to reduce operational errors, improve efficiency, and strengthen management in the cold storage operation, Pacific Enli Group decided to transform the traditional business process, implement the SAP business system, and establish a brand-new IT system architecture. Moreover, in order to obtain the greatest advantage from the implementation of the new ERP system, Pacific Enli Group decided to adopt real-time logistics operations in the cold storage, and finally chose to provide a large-scale seamless wireless network coverage in a high-interference environment with expertise and richness As a supplier and integrator of wireless network systems, the experienced Dematic company is responsible for the design, planning and implementation of real-time logistics.
“Harsh” requirements
Due to the industry characteristics of Pacific Enli Group and the characteristics of this project, it has brought some difficulties to the scheme design and project implementation: First, the temperature of Pacific Enli’s cold storage in Hongdao is set to -35℃ (now- 28℃, it can be upgraded to -35℃ at any time). In such a low temperature environment, ensuring efficient and stable operation itself puts forward almost “stringent” requirements for the equipment; secondly, customer requirements in a very short time (about 1 To complete the design and implementation of a wireless solution for seamless connection with the SAP system within months). Without a powerful wireless application middleware system and an experienced work team, this would be difficult to achieve.
Based on the above requirements, Dematic’s overall solutions for Pacific Enli Group include: DEMATIC Pick-Director System (a middleware system for unified device driver interface integrated with SAP system), Siemens industrial-grade wireless AP and room temperature AP, and combined LXE’s low-temperature-resistant wireless mobile terminal, Bluetooth scanner and barcode printer, as well as waterproof and freeze-resistant electronic tags.
The framework of the design scheme can vividly compare the operating mechanism of the human body: SAP is equivalent to the human brain, wireless terminals, etc. can be compared to the hands and feet of adults, and the DEMATIC Pick-Director System (hereinafter referred to as “PDS”) is equivalent to nerves system. The SAP WM module uniformly drives the underlying wireless devices through DEMATIC PDS, and feeds back the execution of the device to the WM module through middleware. When performing operations such as warehouse entry/exit, the SAP WM module issues corresponding instructions. How to drive the equipment flexibly and efficiently to achieve the best utilization of the system is the main function of the middleware.
Take the warehousing process as an example: After the goods arrive at the warehouse, the SAP system issues the warehousing instruction. DEMATIC PDS downloads/receives the receiving operation instructions of the WM module, and automatically distributes the instructions to the underlying device driver hardware to complete the task. When dispatching, the PDS will be flexibly configured according to the busy situation of the system. Immediately, the warehousing staff used the RF terminal to scan and record the pallet serial number barcode to confirm the receipt. The forklift delivers the goods to the designated warehouse according to the warehouse allocation information sent by the information system, and uses the RF terminal to scan the inventory information. The receiving result is sorted and summarized by the middleware and then sent back to the SAP WM module (Figure 1).
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Figure 1 Operation steps of PDS system storage process
The best tool for integration
Pacific Enli Group’s cold storage in Hongdao mainly stores raw fish and finished fish and other goods. The temperature of the cold storage is set at -28~-35℃. The low-temperature environment makes the selection and operation of the equipment quite unique: for example, steel structure drive-in racks and fully enclosed forklifts are used in the warehouse, workers need to scan barcodes through the forklift glass, and the forklift is equipped with an on-board terminal. At the same time, in order to enhance flexibility, each vehicle-mounted terminal is equipped with a portable wireless Bluetooth scanner. When necessary, workers can walk out of the vehicle and carry the wireless scanner to scan barcodes; in a frozen environment, the housing, battery, As well as the internal circuit board structure, etc., special treatment is required, and the equipment is required to have an anti-condensation effect (Figure 2).
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Figure 2 Schematic diagram of real-time logistics operation of Enli Group’s cold storage
The biggest highlight of the solution lies in the adoption of the DEMATIC PDS system. In many integrated projects in the industry, multiple picking technologies and tools coexist and management difficulties are often encountered; ERP/WMS requires a separate device driver interface for each device; multiple optimization algorithms are complicated and long run-in time; the system can A series of challenges such as poor scalability and inconvenient upgrades. In order to solve these problems, Dematic’s own intellectual property PDS/WCS is the best weapon to solve these problems. As a middleware for the unified drive interface of the equipment, PDS can not only manage all the RF, picking carts, voice picking terminals, and electronic tags in the warehouse in a unified manner to execute the order execution instructions. Moreover, when PDS decomposes and distributes WMS orders, it will automatically optimize path optimization, load balancing and other intelligent optimizations, which not only maximizes the system efficiency, but also integrates all automation equipment in Dematic’s fully automated DC in the entire system, such as Automatic stackers, intelligent conveyor belts, efficient sorting lines, etc., so that the system has a high degree of scalability and upgrade potential (Figure 3).
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Figure 3 Technical highlights of Dematic’s wireless application integration solution
Improve efficiency and reduce energy consumption
The system designed and implemented by Dematic satisfies the needs of Pacific Enli Group. It is improving business processes, improving customer service levels, improving operational efficiency, reducing energy consumption and other daily operation and maintenance costs, as well as satisfying the rapid launch of the system. Obvious results will be achieved in terms of demand and other aspects.
In terms of business process operation: The system enables Pacific Enli Group to manage orders and related inventory data in a more effective and cheaper way. Through this system, Pacific Enli Group reduced the error rate and the cost caused by processing errors, improved data integrity, inventory visibility and order supply rate, increased sales and improved customer service levels, enabling customers to lower costs Enjoy more adequate and timely delivery.
In terms of efficiency improvement, the most obvious benefit is to reduce the demand for forklifts in the cold storage. Because the RF terminal system in the wireless environment can present the instructions to the operator in real time, so that the search and waiting time of the forklifts in the past is greatly reduced. At present, one forklift for each warehouse (with an area of 1km2) is sufficient.
In addition, the hardware equipment and construction technology used in this solution can effectively reduce the daily operation and maintenance costs such as system maintenance and energy consumption: the traditional cold storage wireless network construction method is to install the wireless AP outside the cold storage and then penetrate the wall of the cold storage , Only put the antenna inside the cold storage. The disadvantage of this is that the cold storage wall will be perforated, causing the air-conditioning to leak. The DEMATIC professional solution adopted a non-wall-through design, that is, all APs are installed inside the cold storage at -28~-35℃, which avoids the leakage of air-conditioning and saves energy consumption. In order to achieve this goal, the solution not only uses the industry’s most stable and reliable Siemens low temperature resistant AP, high industrial grade LXE refrigeration configuration handheld and vehicle-mounted wireless terminals, but also uses professional high-gain antennas, low-temperature feeders and AP power supply Modules; and special treatments are made in the protection of cabinets, optical fiber and other cable interfaces, which greatly improves the overall stability of the system and saves energy consumption while ensuring high-quality wireless signal coverage. The purpose of daily system operation and maintenance costs (Figure 4).
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Figure 4 Language picking technology is integrated into the entire system process
It is worth mentioning that it is precisely because of Dematic’s mature middleware system products and the hard work of an experienced team that in a very short period of more than a month, the system has completed the software customization development and the SAP interface Debugging work. It is also because of the use of the core middleware of DEMATIC PDS that the system has a high degree of application scalability and the ability to integrate multiple picking technologies. In the future, in addition to the integration of automatic sorting lines and other automation equipment in the system, another Dematic picking technology suitable for use in the cold storage environment-voice picking technology can also be integrated into the entire system process at any time. Voice picking technology can liberate the operator’s hands and eyes, get rid of the inconvenience of operating the wireless handheld terminal with gloves in the cold storage, and make the operator focus on the two-handed handling and picking points, which improves the efficiency and efficiency of the operation. The further increase in accuracy is of great help.
The original intention of Dematic PDS system design
The analysis of order fulfillment operations shows that, in addition to picking, operators actually spend most of their time on things that do not create value, such as moving from one location to another. The original intention of PDS development, in addition to enabling the system to be integrated through a unified interface layer, is to help eliminate the part of the tasks that do not create value in the operation (for example: accepting instructions, taking equipment, positioning and identifying goods, and replenishing goods. , Packaging, inspection, writing and error correction, etc.).
Dematic is the first to have the project implementation ability to support Chinese voice picking technology
Dematic China has been committed to creating logistics performance for customers. It is currently the leading voice picking solution integrator in China. The company has mature Chinese voice recognition technology and rich industry application experience. By choosing Dematic’s voice picking solution, the order picking efficiency of users’ existing logistics systems and equipment can be greatly improved, the order accuracy rate can be significantly improved, the inventory volume is sharply reduced, and the staff efficiency assessment is also scientific and fair.
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