WAREHOUSE MOVEMENTATION IN A WHITE ROOM

OVERVIEW

Our customer, a well-known Ticino pharmaceutical company, decided to adopt an automatic storage system in order to move the product from the warehouse to the production department. The six-step redesign project included savings on personnel costs, errors and inventory, and better use of space, as well as the fiscal benefits of the Industry Plan 4.0.

TECHNICAL DETAIL

Automation is increasingly a strategic lever for improving efficiency and process control, even in non-industrial contexts.
To meet these traceability requirements and to reduce manual work, our customer has decided to install an innovative automated warehouse for the storage of materials.
The cabinet is entirely controlled via WiFi and integrated with the management information system. It also has an optical barcode reading device that allows the IT association between the calibration code of the individual package and the relative batch and expiry data given in the loading document.
The warehouse had to work in a clean room.

The warehouse had to work in a clean room.
The project of analysis, sizing and evaluation of the automated warehouse was divided into six phases:

  1.  AS-IS process analysis: study of the activities carried out by the customer before the installation of the new warehouse, carried out according to the principles of business process orientation (Davenport, 1993).
  2. Collection and study of historical data: creation of a database of all incoming and outgoing movements and their respective stocks, in a time horizon representative enough to serve as a basis for the sizing process.
  3. Identification of the TO-BE scenarios: definition of a series of possible scenarios as the values of some drivers of the future state change: the evolution over time of the demand for different materials; their coverage index in stock and the way in which the warehouse is used during loading and picking of materials.
  4. Sensitivity analysis: calculation of the impact of the variations in each of the drivers considered on the size of the storage area and on the hourly daily occupation of the robotic system. The stress test has allowed to identify the ideal capacity and to verify the robustness of the system to the different scenarios assumed.. 
  5. Layout and flow redesign: find the optimal location for the automated system within the warehouse and production spaces.
  6. Economic evaluation: carried out on the basis of an estimate of the investments required for the installation of the automated system, the operating costs and the savings achieved through its adoption.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

  • System Power Supply: 15Vac / 1A rated
  • Level sensor: 1 proportional in barrel
  • Temperature sensors: 1 proportional in cask
  • Outputs ON/OFF: 16 type [EIOS] max 32Vac/2A
  • Digital inputs: 8 of type [EIOS] max 32Vac/48Vdc

APPLICATIONS

  • Industrial washing
  • Metal washing
  • Hospital washing
  • Mining

WATER WASHING SYSTEM

OVERVIEW

The system consists of several boards assembled to form an autonomous unit.

It is typically an ‘industrial’ product oriented to light industry, industrial machine tools and similar [e.g.: metal washers].

It completely manages the entire complete water-based washing cycle.

Tenet has remained constant: we’ve always focused on the intersection of people, processes, and information. As the Association for Intelligent Information Management, we help organizations put their information to work.

TECHNICAL DETAIL

Equipped with proportional level sensor, PTC temperature probe, and other 8 digital inputs of the ‘advanced’ type [EIOS] [e.g.: unbalanced load, thermal-motor protection, closed porthole, locked porthole, detergent presence probe, programming access key, etc.] and 16 outputs ON/OFF 32Vac / 4A each synchronous, for low industrial voltage, of the ‘advanced’ type [EIOS] able to minimize both radiated electromagnetic interference [EMI] and harmonics conducted at the level of the machine power supply line.

The outputs manage a variety of machine peripherals, such as heaters, water inlet solenoid valves, portholes, multi-speed motors, rotation reversal, numerous solenoid valves/detergent dispensers, solenoid valves/drainage pumps, alarm signals.

It has some “FIXED” washing programs that cannot be deleted by the user but can be recalled/modified/launched, without the modifications made altering the FIXED program used as ‘base’. A large non-volatile onboard memory, allows you to create, edit, save, launch and recall many work cycles directly from the user, so in fact, to create your own library of work cycles.

A backlit display with 2 lines of 20 large alphanumeric characters with dynamic fields management, allows to have detailed information both during the cycle execution phase and during the creation/modification of the cycles, even at a minimum distance from the screen panel.

It has a serial communication port [for use with a PC] for loading data on the [DGM] terminal, usually by the manufacturer, which allows the system to be adapted to the specific machine on which it is installed; these DGMs contain mechanical and electrical data, timings, limitations, etc. specific to the machine.

The DGMs are also stored on non-volatile memory.

The communication port also allows you to read from the system all its content in terms of washing cycles, DGM and any other type of data useful to be stored [backup] on a local PC, so you can eventually create a CLONE on another machine directly from PC.

The diagnostics on the display is based on string-error + errorcode that can be found in the user manual and then better explained in terms of details, causes, remedies, etc.

The system allows the loading [always as DGM] of a file containing the ‘language’ used in the messages on the display, greatly increasing the possibilities of customization / customization.

Keyboard with 12 multifunction keys added to the 7 LEDs complete the screen of user interface.

Technology has come a long way since then, and the variety of the information objects we’re managing has changed a lot, but one tenet has remained constant we’ve always focused on the intersection of people, processes, and information. As the Association for Intelligent Information Management, we help organizations put their information to work.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

  • System Power Supply: 15Vac / 1A rated
  • Level sensor: 1 proportional in barrel
  • Temperature sensors: 1 proportional in cask
  • Outputs ON/OFF: 16 type [EIOS] max 32Vac/2A
  • Digital inputs: 8 of type [EIOS] max 32Vac/48Vdc

APPLICATIONS

  • Industrial washing
  • Metal washing
  • Hospital washing
  • Mining