Customer Use Case: Lubricants in maintenance and Chemicals for production
In our new “Use Cases” series we want to regularly present best practice examples from our customers. This time we will show you how our customer solved his problems in maintenance warehouse with lubricants and chemicals for production with using TeDaLoS sensors:
The Problem: No information about quantities in liquid containers
Whether lubricant drums, IBC tanks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermediate_bulk_container) with chemicals or canisters with additives for production: As a rule, companies do not have accurate or up-to-date information about the fill level. Partial withdrawals are only estimated and recorded with a time delay or, as these estimates do not yield good results, remain not even noted. Visual inspections of the contents, for example during interim inventory counting, cannot be carried out due to opaque containers. To ensure availability, companies therefore always store at least 2 containers of the same article. The inventory determination remains rough: 2, 1 or 0 container inventory. It is not possible to determine when and what quantities were tapped from the containers. An allocation to work shifts, production lots or material loss (leakage, unauthorized consumption, etc…) is not possible. High stock levels and delayed debiting of quantities are a burden on the balance sheet as working capital. Twice the amount of large and heavy totes requires a lot of space and more of the expensive heavy-duty racks.
The Solution: Retrofitting with TeDaLoS smart sensor units
The oil barrels or IBC tanks are simply placed on TeDaLoS sensor units. The wireless sensor units can carry up to 1.5 tons. No changes to the shelf hardware or material handling are necessary. The smart sensor units monitor the accurate quantity (and temperature, which is a valuable addition for some chemicals) contained in the bin and communicate encrypted and wirelessly with the TeDaLoS Cloud. The weight units per volume are stored remotely in the TeDaLoS Cloud. For the first time, companies can now define re-order thresholds smaller than 1 full container. Quantities per kilogram or litre can be viewed live in the Online Cloud software at any time without manual transmission or input of data.
The Result: Halving of needed space and capital, timely reordering
The lubricant barrels, IBC tanks and liquid containers now automatically report the withdrawal and the current liquid level in the container. In the warehouse management and purchasing departments, the consumption of the liquids can be tracked over time – at last, conspicuous peaks can be detected and associated at short notice. If a defined minimum stock level is reached, the purchasing department receives the alarm information with all the necessary data on the article and cost centre in order to carry out replenishment in time. Keeping an oversized safety stock can thus be avoided, as you now know the accurate fill levels even in non-transparent containers. Of course, the information about the material stock can be automatically imported into the IT system so that the physically exact material stock is always documented in the ERP system. Despite halving the stored material value, the availability has improved.
If you have a similar problem, have a look at our 2-month test packages!
