The Opportunity
Our client, an important steel manufacturer of seamless pipes, explained us the problem of inefficiencies in the processing of its products, associated to the losses and confusion generated by the lack or incorrect identification of them.
The tubes are stored in sheds or yards without coverage, exposed to different environmental factors, as they pass through their manufacturing process. Therefore, the solution to their needs must contemplate these conditions.
The Solution
The Solution The proposed solution integrates tags with RFID technology, devices prepared to support the environmental conditions of the yards without coverage and also allow the storage and updating of the information as the product pass through the different stages of the process, without needing to replace them during the transformation towards the final product.
Each of the tags, in addition to having the information recorded in digital form, has the basic non-variable information printed during the process in QR format. In this way, the information can be read by RFID readers and transceivers, as well as by any QR reader device, obtaining great versatility for the tracking and traceability of each product.
The solution allows to know the position of stock of the pieces: location, stocks, reserves and others, to consult pending orders of reception and to realize the entrance of received quantities. It also allows carrying out the tasks of inventory counting in all its phases (initial counting and gap analysis), making the outputs of materials from dispatch based on reserves or other reasons and reallocating materials.
The Results
With the implementation of this solution, it was possible to establish the desired level of control, positively impacting the reduction in the times for the identification of the products in the warehouses, as well as an important improvement in the traceability of the movement and distribution of the products until delivery to the final customer.