Logistics is facing a wave of modernization. Deliveries will soon find their way to the autonomous receiver is unnecessary burdensome paperwork, fewer packets are lost.
Opportunity makes the thief, about to the loading areas of supermarkets. There are stacks of empties – tempting as cash lying around openly. Again and again, not just disappear cola or beer crates that can be safely Silver closest reverse vending machines, but also the pallets on which drinks and other bulk items will be delivered to the supermarkets. The wooden goods carrier actually circulate, like reusable bottles, as pledged property in the logistics cycle until they are worn. But it has developed a thriving black market, pay on the fence dishonest professional truck drivers three to four euros per pallet. The annual damage to the German economy going in the millions, warns Alex Kotsiwos, CEO of Willich security consulting SSD safe services, last November at a logistics conference in Stuttgart.
If permeated what the range landlord Chep and Dortmund Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics (IML) until the end of 2013 the project “smaRTI” (Smart Reusable Transport Items) practical test, make petty criminal motorists soon no longer cut. The blue pallets used in smaRTI are no longer anonymous bulk. They are “intelligent goods carrier” that leave lasting traces of data – in the factory, in trucks, on receipt of goods. On the middle board is equipped with special glue a robust RFID radio chip (Radio Frequency Identification Device) fixed, which makes each individual item identified. While supplier, carrier and customer so that every step along the supply chain from the loading ramp of the truck can follow to pick stock of empty pallets, recognizes the Chep headquarters, in which consignee how many empty pallets are ready for redemption or which driver it has when charged.
The idea is an” autonomous “Logistics as marketers like to call the system: The Lend-goods carriers phone almost home when he arrived, and says you know when he wants to be picked up when empty. This facilitates an economically optimal route planning and reduces the loss: If the charge is not completely on target at the system sounds an alarm. The radio pallets belong strictly to the first articles in which the term “Internet of Things” aka “IoT” (Internet of Things) fits doubt. The Fraunhofer IML is under the direction of Michael ten Hompel as Germany’s first choice for IoT applications.
His merits, however, it has acquired with innovations that would be more aptly described as “Intranet of things” because they are limited to the so-called intra-logistics, ie well manageable movements of goods within a company. A real internet counterpart for physical transportation of goods is still new territory, even for Dortmund. Their ambitious goal is the “self-controlled flow of goods”., A chain of self-organizing paperless processes for consumers everyday human error or misconduct prevented on the way from the factory where it’s justThe basic concept is explain: Physical objects and cover all the places they go through, each get a virtual alter ego in the form of a unique IP address. This identity is stored in a cheap and robust medium that can be read wirelessly. Most of them are ordinary RFID tags, depending on the application but are also related techniques such as NFC (Near Field Communication, a short range) or ZigBee (longer range) are used. Send to a thing now works just like to send an e-mail. Once the sender enters the recipient’s address, transmits the packet real piggyback a data package. Whose invisible header with the necessary details for delivery, in the jargon as a header called, determines where it’s at. Each truck or the best way from the shelf to the picking chooses not man made, this job take him from software agents, which are calibrated for efficiency: short distances, less empty runs, low energy consumption
What with. current technology use inside the factory, everything is already implemented, interested parties can try yourself in the “OpenID center” of the IML. In the 1500-square-meter hall not only RFID chips from different manufacturers have been installed, but also various transport systems. The technique develops their potential, however, only if all trading partners involved in the value chain to invest in a standardized infrastructure.
How could such cross-company logistics cycles someday look shows the smaRTI project. In the pilot project, the Rewe group are involved with their daughter Penny Value and the dog food producer Mars beside the IML and the Chep pallet pool. It is one of the first major practical tests for IoT components in harsh everyday to the ramps. Under practical conditions, the partners want to work out a process architecture that will later serve as a reference model for commercial use. “Rewe has installed at the distribution centers RFID transmitters that illuminate the entire incoming goods area,” explains Björn Anderseck IML expert. At the output of goods and disposal zone where the empties will be stacked in the stores, the same technique was mounted. They serve in addition to the detection of the movement of goods and to avoid costly mistakes: “We can not only identify the charge, but also localize.” Sliding a warehouse worker output on a range of goods on the wrong track, hit the alarm system. <- Googleoff: all ->
This text is taken from the Technology Review magazine Issue 02/2013. The booklet can, just like the current issue, be ordered online here.
