Editor’s choice
Another example that shows how costly, misplaced stock can be, is some distribution warehouses have airport style security to ensure nothing leaves by the wrong exit. Turck Banner and their sister company, Turck Vilant, have a unique track and trace system that can tell you what is in your warehouse and where it is in real time.
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The simplest warehouses often use shelf locations in alphanumeric order, with one location for each product. This is very inefficient in terms of the space requirement, as a location is required regardless of whether there is currently any stock or not. Gaps must be left for new products to be accommodated between current locations, or for larger quantities of the current items to fit in the correct location. This system does not require any form of tracking beyond goods in and goods out but is the most prone to errors and misplaced items. A chaotic warehouse system has numbered locations which get filled based upon quantity and product dimensions, not part numbers. The system keeps track of what product is in which location and directs the warehouse person to either, place items in a location or pick from a location. This
veryone who runs a warehouse knows that space is expensive, stock is expensive and even more expensive when it gets moved and you lose track of it. The MD’s office might not have a lock but the warehouse door does!
DO YOU KNOW WHAT IS IN YOUR WAREHOUSE AND WHERE IT IS NOW?
Turck Banner explain the next step up in warehouse efficiency.
solution is a much more efficient use of space, as every location can be used by any product. However it is still reliant on a person using the correct location and not moving anything. Often these two systems are combined with a barcoding solution, where every product carries a barcode and the warehouse person scans the barcode of each item, when they pick or place the item in a location. This confirms that the correct item is selected, but is still vulnerable to items being moved or removed without the systems instruction. Errors also commonly occur when a warehouse person scans the same item multiple times instead of correctly scanning each similar item. For example, they are instructed to pick three of item A, they scan the first barcode three times but have actually picked up two of item A and one of a different item, as many products look similar. Barcodes can only be read at close range, one at a time and in direct line of sight, which limits their use where large quantities are involved. RFID Tags can be read from a greater distance, do not need line of sight and multiple tags can be read at the same time. This allows a whole pallet of goods to be inventoried without removing any items from their containers. There are standards for the data content of RFID tags defining: products, shipments and assets allowing shipments from multiple suppliers to be received without issue. RFID tags are more robust and reliable than barcodes but generally cost more. Bulk quantities of low value items are often identified with a single RFID tag. In a busy shipping area, pallets of goods with
14 August 2024 Instrumentation Monthly
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