Customer Use Case: Material on moving storage equipment
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 with monitoring material on mobile storage and eliminated late replenishment requests using TeDaLoS sensors and cloud.
His Problem: Material on mobile storage, late replenishment requests
Materials at staging storage locations in order picking – for shipping or production replenishment – are often difficult to count piesewise. C-parts and small tailormade parts are delivered as loose bulk on pallets, e.g. in a cage box or with a stacking frame or in returnable containers of a supply chain participant. In many industries, parts are not picked by counting, but rather according to the rough weight or filling level of the Kanban bin to be filled. The rule is “better more than too little”.
For ergonomic workstation design, drawer pull-outs or trolleys are also installed in the warehouse racks for pallet storage, not only to facilitate reloading, but also to move the required material into a more ergonomic position for picking. Smooth-running drawer slides can be operated by hand, even when a pallet is stored on top. Dollies offer the added value of pushing material directly to the picking location or to and from the manufacturing location in-house without the need for a fork lift.
The inaccurate consumption of the material and the mobility of the storage equipment result in the issue that physical stock level falling below the demand reporting point is not recognised from the IT system and is then reported by staff on site too late and only when urgently needed. Emergency and evasive processes, as well as grey stocks (the employee sets aside reserve quantities), which are processed manually, cause stress, drive up process costs and lead to material bottlenecks and downtimes.
You have already considered permanently installed level sensors, but rejected them because of the mobile storage locations?
Solution: TeDaLoS smart sensor units
Wireless sensor units are retrofitted to the storage location. This requires no change in warehouse equipment, no IT department resources, no wiring, no programming skills. The supplier and freight forwarder do not change anything about the container, over-packaging or material handling. Drawer pull-outs for pallets and dollies for pallets are supplemented by the smart sensor units and also make mobile storage spaces continuously monitorable. The storage location including the sensor remains fully mobile. The stock level measurement is also carried out at locations outside the storage area, as the smart sensor units are battery-powered and connected to the TeDaLoS Cloud software via long-range radio technology. Your installation procedure: lift the pallet, place the sensor unit on the dolly or drawer pull-out, place the pallet back on top, done. No cables, no programming, no IT network integration.
The virtual association of sensor unit to article, department, storage location, cost centre, etc. is done remotely and can be adjusted remotely at any time by your purchasing department or warehouse logistics department. The autonomous monitoring of stock levels with piece-wise accuracy now makes automatic inventory management possible. The sensor units remain mobile. The digital measured values of the current stock level transferred without manual operation and wirelessly to the TeDaLoS cloud software several times a day. The cloud also displays historical charts via smartphone or PC. Defined threshold values trigger online reorder requests. Purchaser and supply chain managers – even your suppliers if you allow them – can view current stock levels across locations without having to enter the warehouse.
The result: Automatic replenishment requests, single click inventory countings
The real stocks in the picking warehouse are continuously detected without manual triggering. The consumption curve and measured value history is immediately available online as digital information. Warehouse management and buyers always see the actual stocks and changes even within the container. If desired, your suppliers can receive stock information on the respective materials via online access in order to organise replenishment production and delivery in time based on real consumption instead of theoretical forecasts.
Below a self-defined minimum level, an additional alarm notification is sent which contains all important data for reordering. Several pallets of the same material can be measured as a sum so that you do not receive unnecessary alarms of individual pallets.
This way, urgent requirements are no longer overlooked. Standard interfaces in IT systems ensure a transfer and comparison between theoretical consumption and physical reality. Intermediate inventory countings are now available online at the push of a button. Waiting forklifts with replenishment, empty storage positions, manual processes and walking distances of employees, etc. are reduced.
If you have a similar problem, have a look at our 2-month test packages!
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