A Zebra Technologies White Paper. RTLS Driving Asset Management Efficiency for Better Business Results

Transcription

1 A Zebra Technologies White Paper RTLS Driving Asset Efficiency for Better Business Results

2 Executive Summary To remain competitive, today s enterprises are looking for ways to drive efficiencies throughout their manufacturing, production, and logistics processes. Doing so takes more than just the deep analytics that business intelligence (BI) systems provide. True process improvement demands real time asset visibility and granular reporting functions from the edge. While passive RFID and barcode systems have brought enormous improvements to operational efficiencies, large-scale operations require traceability technologies with longer range, higher throughput, and pinpoint accuracy. AutoID RTLS (real time location systems) tightly integrated with BI software applications provide the ultimate platform for enabling enterprise operations to improve business processes, resulting in cost savings, and accelerated agility. In this paper, Zebra shows how RTLS leverages existing IT investments in BI systems to achieve deep enterprise-wide asset visibility, drives efficiencies, and improves business processes. This approach integrates deep, asset-level visibility with software applications to create a foundation for continuous process improvement. With RTLS, manufacturers can build processes that drive efficiencies within both open-loop and closed-loop manufacture-logistics cycles. With RTLS infrastructure, organizations can support multiple applications and use cases that help drive efficiencies in their business, further boosting return on investment (ROI). Enabling Visibility Across The Value Chain Procurement and Logistics Execution Procurement Supplier Collaboration Inventory and Warehouse Inbound and Outbound Logistics Transportation Product Development and Manufacturing Procurement Production Planning Manufacturing Execution Enterprise Asset Product Development Life-Cycle Data Sales and Services Sales Order Aftermarket Sales and Service Professional Service Delivery Global Trade Services Incentive and Commission Enterprise Application Integration Inbound Receiving Warehouse Production Outbound Logistics Service Real Time Locating System (RTLS) Edge Level Visibility 2 A Zebra Technologies White Paper

3 The Critical Need for RTLS Technology Today s global manufacturers and transportation enterprises face more competitive threats, tighter production standards, more regulations, and more cost pressures than ever before. Decision makers must know where, when, and how mobile assets discrete parts, tools, equipment, and employees impact key business objectives and the bottom line. The term business intelligence means having actionable information, visibility, and accuracy to measure and predict operational performance across the value chain. Furthermore, manufacturers must seek ways to reduce costs associated with producing and distributing products. Until recently, enterprises relied on manual, error prone track-and-trace processes to determine asset status. Fact is, controlling hundreds or thousands of assets throughout large indoor and outdoor production environments remain a daunting operational challenge. Such practices simply cannot scale as product mixes change, and the global supply chain spans geographical boundaries. Enterprises in large discrete manufacturing sectors remain encumbered with tracking processes originally created decades ago. To remain competitive and boost agility, these businesses need actionable intelligence on all critical assets right now. Common Asset Challenges In a business climate of consolidation and change, there is no room for inefficient, labor-intensive processes. Consider large manufacturers in the aerospace, automobile, and heavy machine industry. Components are pre-assembled and shipped from around the world integration can occur anywhere. In many cases, these components remain in storage until final assembly. Then, the final product moves to a containment area, and customized features are often integrated based on the end-customer s needs. In traditional processes, assemblies were manually catalogued as to location and feature set. Imagine trying to locate a particular assembly in a vast facility or storage yard filled with hundreds of nearly identical assets. Consider further the challenges of determining which product needs what off-line process, and in what order. Workers must manually locate the product, which consumes time. What happens if they misidentify the product, or place it in the wrong storage area? After the fact, workers must perform a tedious search, costing more time and potential shipment delays. Delay Breeds Inefficiency Inefficiencies at any point of the logistics and build queue create bottlenecks to productivity, reducing throughput. The longer the assembly remains in queue, the longer it takes to ship and generate cash flow. Multiply this times hundreds, or even thousands of components over time, and it is easy to visualize the cost magnitude, especially during the market-critical window of new model launch, such as an airliner or automobile fleet rollout. In each of these cases, the most sophisticated BI or enterprise resource planning (ERP) system will only report the results, and not fully deliver maximum value from the IT investment. Consider quality assurance as well. Complex products, such as vehicles will not ship until all quality concerns are resolved. Unfortunately, workers at the end of the line do not have access to a system that alerts them that the assembly has a quality concern. Often, a paper traveler is the only thing they have access to, a hand-written document that the inspector on the main assembly line updates as they discover a quality concern. The traveler contains information if the defect was rectified, still requires resolution, and the expected repair timeframe. A Zebra Technologies White Paper 3

4 For example, a vehicle may have scratch in the paint. In aerospace, an engine may have a misaligned blade. Without looking at the traveler, workers at the end of the line do not know if the assembly should proceed to the repair workstation, or proceed to final test and inspection. This lack of accurate, timely information creates confusion and inefficiency. Sending a non-quality component through the assembly line consumes capacity for off-line processes. The component may have to transit the off-line process once again, which consumes more capacity, and reduces the overall throughput of finished assemblies flowing out through the end of line. Optimizing Asset Traceability Drives Efficiency Solving the asset traceability challenge requires a system that provides constant visibility and integrates with BI and ERP systems. The system, built upon RTLS technologies, enables real time, workflow management of products from final assembly to shipping, making it easy to locate specific sub-assemblies and final product to fulfill custom orders or identify products on hold for quality control. The main goal is to minimize the product s dwell time between end of line and the delivery chain, while enabling instant visibility, wherever the product is located. In this new system, workers tag every asset, assembly, and finished component with configurable information such as serial number, when a status changes, or if a quality concern applies. The system must integrate with the ERP database, and provide real-time, accurate information. Managers can access this information to determine what must happen with the asset should it be contained, placed into a specific work area for use or repair, or allow it to proceed through the normal process. Such a system would allow the plant to maximize asset management and product throughput as assemblies flow through the normal process. Key Benefits Implementing an integrated, real-time location and management system allows operations to find assets in a matter of seconds, as opposed to taking hours using a manual process. OEMs gain improved visibility on all finished products at the facility, better coordination of post-assembly verification and test processes, and efficient management of QA, repair, containment, and shipping zones. Beyond the ability to locate a sub-assembly or final product on demand, operations can use the tracking data and BI analytics to optimize processes, workflow cycle time, and dwell time. Reduce Search Time for Misplaced Assets When assets are misplaced or lost, staff can use RTLS to view the precise location of assets without the typical manual searches and audits that distract them from their primary responsibilities. Staff can respond more rapidly to user requests by significantly reducing the number of misplaced assets and quickly locating misplaced assets. 2-D site maps and location data integrates into existing ERP systems, allowing enterprises to maximize use of equipment and existing IT infrastructure. Reduce Equipment Movement Real-time enterprise visibility minimizes the need for equipment relocation. Instead of moving equipment to central locations, assets can be stored closer to the point of use, which increases production velocity. By decreasing travel time to production areas, the time from request to operational use dramatically shrinks. Doing so also prevents unnecessary road miles on rolling equipment and decreases the potential for accidents. 4 A Zebra Technologies White Paper

5 Improve Audits and Recover Lost Property With real-time, online auditing of assets, workers can locate equipment without requiring a formal process or shortcut the time involved in a formal investigation. Businesses can avoid expensive investigations and legal processes when searching for misplaced equipment. If equipment leaves a defined area, RTLS automatically alerts the team. In recovering property, investigators gain detailed historical records of when and where the asset was last located information that expedites resolution and provides an audit trail for financial liability. Shorten Maintenance Downtime Too often, teams take equipment out of service to pre-stage for required maintenance. RTLS provides current and historical views of equipment maintenance records, which helps to decrease equipment downtime and increase equipment utilization. RTLS enables teams to make informed decisions about elective maintenance procedures and equipment dispatch, including scheduling during off-peak times and balancing wear. Create Return on Investment Opportunities Timely knowledge of asset movements can expedite tasks and transactions. Measuring and reporting richer performance, utilization data enables accurate forecasting and improves asset value while reducing the order-to-cash cycle. RTLS Delivers Workflow Intelligence Whether tracking containers through a supply chain, optimizing manufacturing, materials fulfillment, or providing wide-area asset traceability, RTLS provide actionable and constant value. RTLS extends asset visibility out to 1,750 meters (5,700 feet) far beyond the abilities of passive RFID. RTLS communicates the physical location of assets by zone, slot, and/or intelligent interactive graphical mapping along with historical visibility into the asset s location, with accuracy of within a few feet. Enterprises can leverage a wide range of application software and hardware to locate, track, manage, and maximize the utilization of high-value assets, equipment, and people. Workers can attach RTLS tags to assets of many kinds, such as production WIP, material handling equipment, parts carts, assembly frames, rolling stock, tools and specialized support & test equipment, as well as trailers and containers. The telemetry capability of RTLS tags afford easy use for a wide variety of applications ranging from simple on-time monitoring to sophisticated machine operation monitoring. The combination of location data from the RTLS system and the telemetry data enables a host of new applications. Configurable and Scalable RTLS tags feature programmable transmission rates that send out identification and telemetry data at fixed intervals. This allows location monitoring of intelligent assets even when there is no triggering event. Depending on the application, users can preprogram blinks at rates ranging from fractional seconds to multiple hours between blinks. Once activated, the tag transmits a signal to identify the asset s precise location, until workers remove the tags for release to shipment. At specific locations around the facility, exciters send messages to the tags to transmit to wireless location sensors, which record the exact time a tag passes a specific location. The information then transmits to application software. The location sensors allow flexible placement in and around the facility, in the shipping yard, on light poles, or corners of outdoor buildings. A Zebra Technologies White Paper 5

6 Ultra Wideband (UWB) When Deep Traceability Matters High Tag Throughput and Capacity Deploy up to 10,000 tags, with 3,500 1 Hz tags/second throughput Exceptional Performance Performs in high RF multi-path environments with ranges up to 200 meters (650 feet) Unmatched Accuracy Better than 30 cm (1 foot) line of sight ISO/IEC When Long Range, Accuracy, and Low Power Counts Exceptional Performance and Range Wide-area indoor or outdoor performance with a range up to 1750 meters (5700 feet) Accuracy Better than 3 meters (10 foot) Low Power Seven-year battery life for tags operating in ISO/IEC mode Wi-Fi Ready Supports a/b/g WiFi-compliant and multimode communications By leveraging at the edge intelligence, managers now can improve their BI value by analyzing workflows and taking measures to optimize repetitive and work order manufacturing operations. Highly scalable, RTLS is an integrated solution that enables tracking and management of thousands of assets and personnel in even the most challenging environments. Analytics for Smart Workflow Optimization Data and information often becomes an enterprise s most valuable asset, especially in complex manufacturing processes. The optimal RTLS platform includes workflow tools for adding rules based on the unique needs of the business and task. This information connects through application middleware to the plant s ERP and BI systems. Plant managers can use the location information received from the RTLS tags to analyze the amount of time it takes for assemblies to pass through certain key steps, and compare the data with the expected time and to identify areas needing improvement. The RTLS-enabled data provides opportunities to issue dwell time alerts or create alternative workflows if the system detects a bottleneck within operations. At the shipping yard, workers can use long-range RFID readers to scan the product s RTLS tags and verify shipment authorization. Doing so creates another check in the quality control process that ensures an asset does not release for shipment until it passes through the required steps. The shipping system provides another key RTLS integration point, which includes rail management, haul away, and electronic data interchange (EDI) for complete distribution and logistics visibility. Once deployed, RTLS provides several key benefits including: Maximized labor efficiency RTLS helps eliminate manual inventory audits and cycle counts, automates data entry tasks, and provides opportunities for business process and product quality improvements. Increased production velocity and throughput Enhanced visibility, measurement, and reporting of assets throughout the enterprise enables betterinformed decisions related to standard inventory practices, which improves productivity and reduces inventory-carrying costs. Improved process reporting and analytics Real-time location systems enable granular audit trails, supporting chain of custody liability, while enhancing the ability to convert the business intelligence gathered into predictive, operational intelligence. Lower costs Decrease inventory carrying costs and gain higher utilization of manufacturing physical space without sacrificing safety. 6 A Zebra Technologies White Paper

7 Summary and Conclusion Today s businesses demand a solution to intelligently locate and manage assets so they can optimize their operations and supply chains. The objective is to provide increased visibility of assets across the value chain. Managers need a way to synchronize product volume and configuration with actual manufacturing capacity, which drives throughput and increases asset utilization, while lowering inventory costs. To be effective, location-based system must provide a scalable, flexible, and intelligent solution that easily integrates with manufacturing facilities and IT systems. Zebra leverages a wealth of unique, deep expertise within the manufacturing, logistics, and distribution industry to create RTLS solutions that deliver the widest range of benefits to the manufacturing industry. RTLS systems from Zebra integrate hardware and software along with existing BI and ERP solutions to help enterprises align their strategies across functions. Businesses will stand above their competition by doing a better job of tracking, locating, and managing assets across the value chain. RTLS gives businesses the accuracy and visibility they need to drive better decisions based on real-time predictive data while improving efficiencies and the balance sheet. Zebra Technologies Corporation (NASDAQ: ZBRA) gives customers visibility of critical assets, people and transactions through a broad range of printing and location technologies. Our bar code, card, kiosk and RFID printers as well as real-time location solutions have made us a recognized global leader in providing enabling solutions that identify, track, and manage critical assets, people and transactions for improved business efficiencies. For more information about Zebra s solutions, visit A Zebra Technologies White Paper 7

8 CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS Zebra Technologies Corporation 475 Half Day Road, Suite 500 Lincolnshire, IL USA T: F: USA Zebra Technologies Corporation 333 Corporate Woods Parkway Vernon Hills, IL U.S.A. T: or F: EMEA Zebra Technologies Europe Limited Dukes Meadow Millboard Road Bourne End Buckinghamshire SL8 5XF, UK T: +44 (0) F: +44 (0) OTHER LOCATIONS USA California, Georgia, Rhode Island, Texas, Wisconsin EUROPE France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Turkey LATIN AMERICA Zebra Technologies International, LLC 9800 NW 41st Street, Suite 200 Doral, FL USA T: F: ASIA-PACIFIC Zebra Technologies Asia Pacific, LLC 120 Robinson Road #06-01 Parakou Building Singapore T: F: Copyrights 2010 ZIH Corp. All product names and numbers are Zebra trademarks, and Zebra and the Zebra head graphic are registered trademarks of ZIH Corp. All rights reserved. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. ASIA-PACIFIC Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand LATIN AMERICA Brazil, Florida (LA Headquarters in USA), Mexico AFRICA/MIDDLE EAST Dubai,South Africa