Bridging global divides with tracking and tracing technology

Product-tracking technology is increasingly available to big players in the value chain connecting producers to consumers, giving them new competitive advantages. Such shifts in technology don't benefit small producers, especially those in developing regions, to the same degree. This article examines the practicalities of leveling the playing field by creating a generic form of tracing technology that any producer, large or small, can use. It goes beyond considering engineering solutions to look at what happens in the context of use, reporting on work with partners in Chile and India and reflecting on the potential for impact on business and community well-being

Reliability solutions for a smart digital factory using: (1) RFID based CEP; (2) Image processing based error detection; (3) RFID based HCI

New technologies have a great influence on the production process in modern factories. Introducing new techniques and methods is crucial to optimize and enhance the working of factories. However, ensuring a reliable and correct integration requires complete evaluation and assessment. In this thesis I utilize RFID systems and image processing to develop and implement real time solutions to enhance and optimize the production and assembly processes. Solutions include: RFID based CEP to detect production error, image processing based errors detection to detect post-assembly errors, and RFID based HCI to help workers in assembling products. Errors that are detected using RFID are: sequence errors, synchronization errors, pre-assembly order errors, part-product mismatch error, and missing parts errors. Errors that are detected using image processing are: incorrect part position errors and missing parts errors. RFID based HCI consists of a tool to help workers at assembly points to correctly assemble parts to their products using visual instruction. I have constructed prototypes for all the solutions. As well, I have deployed them in the Lernfabrik(learning factory) which is a real manufacturing environment for practising the production and assembly processes for trainees and students. Under the optimal settings of the RFID readers and tags, the system detects all types of errors reliably in real time. The image processing algorithm detects errors with 100% accuracy in real and normal lighting conditions of the Lernfabrik

RFID for returnable container management in the automotive industry: A Discrete-Event Simulation approach

Returnable containers are a critical factor to ensure quality of manufacturing operations in the automotive industry. However, containers management is still affected by chronic issues, such as containers shortage, losses or inefficient handling. Research and industry experts agree the “Achilles’s heel” of current practice is the lack of accurate and timely data about containers flow throughout the complex automotive supply chain. Moreover, containers handling operations still rely on manual operations. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a technology that allows for automatic extraction of items flow data at key points along the supply chain, without the need of manual operations, and represents a very interesting solution for returnable containers management. RFID has already been employed in many different sectors, since giants as Wal-Mart or the United States (U.S.) Department of Defense adopted it for their supply-chain. Several approaches have been adopted in literature to explore potential applications of this technology, but few studies focus on automotive returnable containers management. In this work, a Discrete-Event Simulation (DES) approach is proposed to evaluate the impact of RFID on automotive returnable containers supply chain. The model has been developed in collaboration with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA). Applying factorial design and ANOVA relevant benefits of using RFID have been identified. The same model has been used to define main influencing factors in containers supply chain performance

The design and development of multi-agent based RFID middleware system for data and devices management

Thesis (D. Tech. (Electrical Engineering)) - Central University of technology, Free State, 2012Radio frequency identification technology (RFID) has emerged as a key technology for automatic identification and promises to revolutionize business processes. While RFID technology adoption is improving rapidly, reliable and widespread deployment of this technology still faces many significant challenges. The key deployment challenges include how to use the simple, unreliable raw data generated by RFID deployments to make business decisions; and how to manage a large number of deployed RFID devices. In this thesis, a multi-agent based RFID middleware which addresses some of the RFID data and device management challenges was developed. The middleware developed abstracts the auto-identification applications from physical RFID device specific details and provides necessary services such as device management, data cleaning, event generation, query capabilities and event persistence. The use of software agent technology offers a more scalable and distributed system architecture for the proposed middleware. As part of a multi-agent system, application-independent domain ontology for RFID devices was developed. This ontology can be used or extended in any application interested with RFID domain ontology. In order to address the event processing tasks within the proposed middleware system, a temporal-based RFID data model which considers both applications’ temporal and spatial granules in the data model itself for efficient event processing was developed. The developed data model extends the conventional Entity-Relationship constructs by adding a time attribute to the model. By maintaining the history of events and state changes, the data model captures the fundamental RFID application logic within the data model. Hence, this new data model supports efficient generation of application level events, updating, querying and analysis of both recent and historical events. As part of the RFID middleware, an adaptive sliding-window based data cleaning scheme for reducing missed readings from RFID data streams (called WSTD) was also developed. The WSTD scheme models the unreliability of the RFID readings by viewing RFID streams as a statistical sample of tags in the physical world, and exploits techniques grounded in sampling theory to drive its cleaning processes. The WSTD scheme is capable of efficiently coping with both environmental variations and tag dynamics by automatically and continuously adapting its cleaning window size, based on observed readings

Design and Simulation of RFID-Enabled Aircraft Reverse Logistics Network via Agent-Based Modeling

Reverse Logistics (RL) has become increasingly popular in different industries especially aerospace industry over the past decade due to the fact that RL can be a profitable and sustainable business strategy for many organizations. However, executing and fulfilling an efficient recovery network needs constructing appropriate logistics system for flows of new, used, and recovered products. On the other hand, successful RL network requires a reliable monitoring and control system. A key factor for the success and effectiveness of RL system is to conduct real-time monitoring system such as radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. The RFID system can evaluate and analyze RL performance timely so that in the case of deviation in any areas of RL, the appropriate corrective actions can be taken in a quick manner. An automated data capturing system like RFID and computer simulation techniques such as agent-based (AB), system dynamic (SD) and discrete event (DE) provide a reliable platform for effective RL tracking and control, as they can respectively decrease the time needed to obtain data and simulate various scenarios for suitable best corrective actions. The functionality of the RL system can be noticeably elevated by integrating these two systems and techniques. Besides, each computer simulation approach has its own benefits for understanding the RL network from different aspects. Therefore, in this study, after designing and constructing the RL system through the real case study from Bell Helicopter Company with the aid of unified modeling language (UML), three simulation techniques were proposed for the model. Afterwards the results of all three simulation approaches (AB, SD and DE) were compared with considering two scenarios of RL RFID-enabled and RL without RFID. The computer simulation models were developed using “AnyLogic 7.1” software. The results of the research present that with exploiting RFID technology, the total disassembly time of a single helicopter was decreased. The comparison of all three simulation methods was performed as well. Keywords: Reverse logistics (RL), RFID, aerospace industry, agent-based simulation, system dynamic simulation, discrete event simulation, AnyLogi