Changing lifestyles and consumption habits are increasing consumer demand for personalized and customized products, as manufacturing industries face rapidly changing markets. The production patterns of the past such as mass production, standardization, and long product life cycles can no longer meet today's market demands. In past decades manufacturing industries in Taiwan endeavored to implement automatic production, but today they must adopt a higher level of automation and add intelligent manufacturing processes to the equipment and factories they already have. Smart manufacturing is needed to meet market demand for small-volume large-variety production. As each industry moves towards smart manufacturing, all types of smart devices such as sensors, industrial computers, controllers, and management & analysis software are being applied to help generate production parameters that are real-time, digitalized, and visualized, and offering more manageable production processes to customers.
Smart manufacturing provides customers with flexibility and instant information that accelerates effective communication among managers, producers, and clients, allowing them to adapt to fast-changing markets. The goal of smart manufacturing is to connect customer demand and manufacturers' production patterns with the IIoT, a cloud database, and management systems. The cloud database can simulate the best working processes for managers to make decisions, including ordering, receiving orders, production estimation, preparation, supply, scheduling, distribution and logistics. In addition, high-density automation and the cloud database can help predict capacity requirements, optimize processes, and reduce production errors, to achieve flexible production based on order demand, as well as to manufacture various products in a single production line. The management systems also help monitor the equipment maintenance cycle, and remind managers in advance, which saves on costs for equipment maintenance and manpower factory management.
Among all business modes, logistics is the first priority for integrating with smart manufacturing. With an automatic distribution system and information transparency that helps bridge existing communication patterns, smart logistics can be achieved and various problems solved from material preparation to effectively managing production processes. Automatic guided vehicles (AGV) are one of the most important elements for smart logistics. During production, AGVs are coupled with smart devices to establish a smart logistic distributing system. Material management and AGV distribution are connected by the IIoT and require minimal manpower management, to perform automatic material refilling and feeding. Overall production efficiency can be greatly enhanced with real-time information feedback and management to reduce manpower delivery in the supply chain.
Recently, Delta provided a comprehensive solution for a client in China's food processing industry to specifically enhance material distribution for the production process. This particular production line processes assorted frozen food, and seals the products with packaging equipment before proceeding to the next process. For the bag feeding process, the packaging machines require enough bagging materials to ensure a continuous sealing process that does not delay the later production steps. In the past, the client needed several workers to move the bagging materials from the warehouse storage and refill the equipment. These workers also needed to inspect the remaining material load to ensure the sealing process.
To reduce the dependency on the use of manpower for material feeding of the packaging line, Delta offered a smart logistics solution to our clients by implementing automatic guided vehicles and optimizing the existing material distribution and feeding processes. Matched with high-end mid-range controllers, the solution monitors AGV operation throughout the production lines. It also adopts industrial wireless devices for real-time exchange of the material consumption data for each production line. Based on the data, the system can distribute AGVs to feed materials with timeliness by monitoring the remaining material load. Delta's AGV monitoring and distributing system solution can provide many smart manufacturing benefits to corporations.
For the technological structure of the AGV distribution system solution, Delta offers the Hot Swappable Mid-range PLC AH500 Series as the main controller, which operates material request messages and precisely dispatches single or multiple tasks to the AGVs based on the remaining material load. The solution is also equipped with the IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n Wireless AP DVW Series that monitors the remaining material load throughout the packaging lines via high-speed Ethernet communication. In addition, the factory logistic processes are automatically managed by smart devices, as the entire management system requires only one worker to confirm feeding requests by using the Large-Size HMI DOP-W Series at the main station, greatly reducing the cost of manpower required for feeding material.
Each AGV in the factory is equipped with the industrial wireless transmission devices DVW Series to receive commands from the main controller AH Series via high-speed Ethernet communication. After receiving dispatch commands, the AGV's Compact Modular Mid-range PLC AS300 Series programs the task routing, and controls the vehicle to automatically drive to the storage warehouse, where one operations worker assists in uploading materials to the vehicle. After uploading, the AGV proceeds to the designated packaging line based on the main controller's command to complete the feeding task. In addition, the operating personnel can check the AGV's status and remaining battery with the Standard HMI DOP-B Series on the AGV, and adjust the vehicle's task commands in real-time based on demand, and enhance the flexibility of distribution logistics.
In actual application, the smart logistics solution enables acquiring equipment operating data, monitoring the remaining material load of the packaging lines, as well as controlling AGV operation, simply by using the wireless Ethernet that covers the factory. This solution has successfully brought the following advantages to our clients:
• Smart logistics distribution saves labor cost: Before implementing the Delta solution, workers in the production line were required to carry a massive 1.5 tons of packaging materials for refilling using only manpower. After integrating the smart logistics solution, the feeding process was completely taken over by the AGVs without requiring any workers to carry the material. The labor distribution of the storage warehouse was reduced from 4 workers to 1, successfully saving manpower by up to 75%. In addition, the distribution process required only one operations worker using a human machine interface to confirm tasks programmed by the main controller, greatly saving labor costs for clients.
• Powerful integration capability achieves multi-tasking and safe logistic distribution: As the main controller, Delta's Hot Swappable Mid-range PLC AH500 Series offers high-efficiency programming capabilities. Based on historical data, the main controller simulates the best distribution routes and manages the AGV's battery condition at the same time. For urgent and multiple low material situations, it can automatically merge single tasks into multi-tasking by using the powerful vehicle distribution integration. In addition, for AGV processing capabilities, each AGV is installed with the Compact Modular Mid-range PLC AS300 Series as well as with an I/O module and several smart devices to monitor AGV's lithium battery temperature and information in real-time. When the battery power is low, the AS300 Series sends a command to the vehicle calling it back for charging. If the battery overheats, the AS300 triggers alerts to managers for inspection, ensuring highly efficient AGV operations and management.
• Data acquisition to establish smart factory: With a variety of smart devices, the smart logistic system acquires the on-site machines' operating data to establish a logistics information database that can be used as a crucial data foundation for further factory automation expansion. Our clients can equip Delta's self-developed cloud platform DIACloud to integrate important logistics information, achieving a smart factory with production, management, and energy consumption visualization.
• Delta's one-stop integration for quick and high-compatibility services: With 20 years of experience in a variety of industries, Delta offers our clients comprehensive industry solutions using professional industrial integration techniques, and can implement industrial upgrades based on a client's existing production equipment. In addition, the solution adopts Delta automation products that offer high-compatibility and easy maintenance, while providing one-stop shopping for an optimal automatic production line.
Delta provides a smart logistics solution that adopts equipment automation and a smart distribution system. By monitoring the material loading of the on-site machines, the solution dispatches tasks for refilling production line materials and reducing the cost of time and labor. With smart devices, the system also enables building a data foundation to help customers generate production patterns for smart manufacturing, while achieving an industrial upgrade and enhancing market competitiveness.