Locking in Savings with RFID. David Lewis SAP Business Analyst Sentry Safe

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3 Locking in Savings with RFID David Lewis SAP Business Analyst Sentry Safe

4 David Lewis - Bio 13 years of SAP development experience 8 years of Materials Management and Production Planning 3 years RFID related experiences Low man on the totem pole for Wal-mart compliance during the third wave

5 Who is Sentry Safe Consumer Products Company Employees in Rochester, NY 2 Manufacturing Plants and our Main Distribution Center in Rochester Privately held company Same family owners for 80 years

6 What is a Sentry Safe?

7 Who s here today? SAP system users? IT or business process? Operations or production support? Prior RFID exposure or new to RFID?

8 Our Wal-Mart Compliance Currently we have 5 SKU s being tagged at the Case/Item level Installed conveyor application with encoding and verification Used existing peel off barcode for our metal safes (probably a unique approach) We currently do not track any outbound Wal- Mart serial information

9 Peel Off Tag Example

10 Material Transfers Our Challenge We do internal transfers of 125,000 pallets per year between our production facilities and the distribution center We were using a flawed process that put the inventory into stock at the receiving warehouse at the time of the production receipt

11 Material Transfers Our Challenge We never knew if the inventory was in transfer or if transactions were correct User error caused us component issues and finished goods issues The put-away drivers at our warehouse had to: Print out lists of pending put-aways in our WM system Put the product physically away Confirm their transactions at a work station

12 Our RFID Solution With the help of Acsis Inc, we developed an RFID based solution that is tied directly to our SAP system We utilize.net applications hooked to a series of SAP BAPI s to post our transactions in real time We set up a separate SQL Database to store the individual line item transaction detail

13 Our System Architecture Our SAP ECC 6 System Print Pallet Tags Production Backflush Goods Issue Against STO Goods Receipt Against STO Custom RFID Applications in SQL Database

14 Printing Pallet Tags We print an RFID encoded tag at common print stations on our production floors The user scans an order sheet that populates the print label application and encodes and prints our tags

15 Printing Pallet Tags The print pallet application makes an RFC call to SAP to obtain the related material data The user can validate qty per pallet and pallet type as key fields We assign a unique pallet number that s encoded using RFID into the tag

16 Pallet Tags and Goods Issue The tag serial number is stored in the SQL database and processes through each step of the process We use Stock Transport orders in SAP as our production schedule and as the facilitator for the subsequent steps Two pallets tags are applied to each pallet

17 Material Backflush We use handheld RFID scanners to scan each pallet tag and using the.net application and a series of BAPI s posts the backflush into SAP Note that the scanners can process all transactions, which gives us our redundant backup for all transfer processes

18 Goods Issue using Portals After the backflush, the pallet then passes through a portal, which is our RFID reader While passing through the portal, the Goods Issue is posted in SAP against the Stock Transport Order

19 Goods Issues in SAP The SQL database that s tracking each individual tag has been updated with the backflush so it gives the driver an almost immediate feedback that the goods issue has occurred The actual posting in SAP is delayed by a few seconds but the driver doesn t need to wait because of the SQL table validation If there is an error, then a red or blue lightstack is lit and a horn is sounded. The driver corrects any error using the handheld scanner

20 Goods Receipts After the goods issue, all stock is now In- Transit in SAP. This allows us to know exactly what is on a truck A portal is located at the Warehouse and when the pallets are driven through this portal, it posts a goods receipt in SAP A stand-alone portal at the WH allows us to receive product through multiple doors

21 Automated Put-Aways Forklift Computers were added for the put-away staff at the WH. The receipt in SAP generates a put-away instruction to the driver The driver posts the confirmation in our WM system, real time and the stock is immediately available for customer shipments

22 Transaction Reversals If an error occurs the tags are turned in to a supervisor and they have access to a.net reversal program that will undo any of the SAP postings

23 Solution Advantages Higher inventory accuracy (2008 was the first year with no full physical) Visibility to stock that s still on a truck waiting to be unloaded (in-transit) Fewer user errors 98% plus read accuracy Real time posting to SAP RFID was the perfect tool, because of no line of sight requirements

24 Implementation Issues Safes made of metal and filled with a special cement mixture (water based) Dock door plates at the WH caused issues with our original dock door portals Original wireless solution was very inadequate at our production plants Some initial program issues (like daylight savings time update in 2007)

25 Questions

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