Use Cases of Real-Time Locating Systems for Factory Planning and Production Monitoring

Abstract

Production companies operate in an increasingly dynamic and unpredictable market environment. The ever shorter innovation cycles and the associated decreasing product life cycles require production systems and processes to change continuously. Furthermore, rising complexity in market enfactories through product variety leads to an increased coordination effort in factory operations. To stay competitive, decision making in factory planning as well as production planning and control (PPC) must be done target-oriented and in the shortest time possible. A fundamental basis in this respect is a reliable and consistent database, needed for the overall and holistic improvement of the logistics performance of a company’s internal supply chain. However, the collection and preparation of data is associated with a high expenditure of time and thus represents a great challenge. Additionally, required data in practice is often inhomogeneous or inconsistent, which makes it difficult to track ongoing processes precisely. Due to the continuous availability of exact positions at any time, Real-Time Locating Systems (RTLS) offer the potential to provide movement data of essential elements of the production system such as material supply, resources and workforce with comparatively little effort. To demonstrate the resulting potentials for factory planning and PPC, use cases for RTLS have been identified and implemented in the Learning Factory of the Institute for Production Systems and Logistics (IFA). After a short introduction of the IFA Learning Factory and the principle of Real-Time Locating Systems, the use cases in factory planning, factory operation and production monitoring are described. Having summarized the achieved benefits provided for the training participants in the IFA Learning Factory a summarizing conclusion is given, underlining the great possibilities of real-time localization in production environments and providing an outlook on further research activities.