Sensors

Guaranteeing the quality of products and processes within supply chains is essential. Nevertheless, quality management is still restricted to production processes while logistics processes are normally not considered. IT infrastructures for exchanging quality data are often missing. Those needs can be addressed by using sensor systems in combination with a cross company exchange of sensor data based on EPCIS. In order to realise this approach, sensor systems, the EPCIS standard, decision support systems and business models need to be further developed.

Based on the specification of the European Pallet Association (EPAL) and GS1 the Pallet-Tagging-Robot (PaTRo) was developed. Special about the patented robot is that it can climb pallet stacks without additional equipment and can attach two RFID transponders to each pallet. During the whole process for tagging each pallet of the stack PaTRo is just supported by the stack. That is why PaTRo is very flexible and mobile for being moved to the location where the tagging should take place. For realizing the described features the construction of the robot is based on lightweight design.

The world’s rising energy and raw material costs are a reason for many companies to reduce energy and resource waste in their own production. Based on this plan, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) initiated in 2009 the project EnHiPro. Until May, 2012 the Technische Universität Braunschweig and three other research partners developed a system to make the energy demand of machines tangible by utilizing smart metering strategies. For the analysis and visualization of the energy flows, the c4c Engineering company was brought into the team in order to engineer the EnyFlow app that makes the energy flows and states of machines transparent on an tablet PC.

Since several years, there is a strong trend in integrating electronics in machines and everyday items to make them “intelligent”. For example, electronics are integrated in clothes. In addition, sensors are integrated in materials too. This is also necessary for the electronics because without sensors microprocessors cannot communicate with the environment. Integrating sensors in materials has the advantage of getting measurement quantities out of the material. The scientific community has to answer a fundamental question: How does the integrated sensor change the macroscopic behavior (e.g. thermal or mechanical) of the material or of the component? This article focuses on the scientific and technical challenges for developing material integrated sensors. Various examples are provided through which future scientific goals can be focused upon.

The development of information and communication technologies (ICT) is progressing rapidly and is seen in today‘s economic action as a key driver of innovation. Future industrial production is characterized by a high degree of customization of products and a strong production flexibility. The rapid development of the Internet has contributed especially in recent years in the private life of merging the real with the virtual world and will get stronger in the future of industrial sector. This paradigm shift is referred to as Industry 4.0. This paper gives an overview of the Industry 4.0 and represents the potential of the transformation process.

The KWS SAAT AG have implemented and automatic identification system (Auto-ID) for corn. The main reasons for this were the logistic challenges and legal requirements concerning the traceability of seeds. With this system, the aim is to increase the efficiency of logistic processes in the supply chain. Before its implementation, a research project was conducted, in which the requirements that must be met by the Auto-ID system in this specific environment were examined.

At BIBA - Bremer Institut für Produktion und Logistik GmbH a project was conducted for the electronic vehicle identification in cooperation with the firm J.H. Tönnjes E.A.S.T. GmbH & Co. KG. The aim of this research project was to find the optimal combination of inlay and reader for a passive RFID system in the UHF frequency band. RFID vignettes and RFID license plates produced by the Tönnjes company group were analysed and optimised throughout the tests.

During the last decades, automotive manufacturers have outsourced many processes. Hence, complex networks consisting of automotive manufacturers, suppliers and logistics service providers have grown in the automotive industry. The resulting transports of components in these networks often require special load carriers. Consequently, companies nowadays face the challenge to handle a growing number of load carriers. For improving the load carrier management a higher transparency is required regarding the load carriers in the whole network. Transparency can be assured by the application of radio frequency identification technology. However, especially logistics service providers have to invest in this technology, which can be implemented in different ways. In this paper, some application possibilities are described and analyzed regarding economic and energy efficiency.

In the research project LUPO a hybrid simulation laboratory is build up. This combines the advantages of the computer simulation with those of a model factory. For the systematic recording, mapping and analysis of various production processes a procedure model has been created that responds to the special requirements (quick, flexible, effortless determination of informative results) of the project. A library of production objects facilitates the reutilisa tion of existing machines and hereby a reduction of simulation effort.

In a world of steady change, manufacturing companies face major challenges. They have to react quickly to an increasing competition and more and more individual customer requests. New technologies and organisational structures like RFID or decentralised and real-time based production control can deal with this issue successfully. The specific realization of selection and analysis of each production process of the company often approves to be difficult and cost intensive. Previous simulation approaches are frequently combined with high efforts in order to state credible propositions regarding suitability and economic efficiency. The present paper shows a new opportunity towards managing these disadvantages. Additionally, the advantages are combined with computer-based simulations of the model factory. A fast and flexible illustration of the analysed production processes is achieved.