Indoor Asset Tracking
Edgenesis has partnered with a Fortune 500 food company to develop a customized indoor asset tracking system specifically for its filled pastry manufacturing facility. Traditionally, the factory relied on manual record-keeping and Excel spreadsheets to manage the locations and statuses of ingredient tanks. This process was inefficient, often leading to delays in locating the tanks, frequent ingredient waste, and expiration issues. Our solution leverages real-time positioning and intelligent monitoring technologies to automatically track assets and manage them precisely. This not only dramatically improves the efficiency of locating ingredient tanks, reducing search times from hours to minutes, but also minimizes waste caused by human error, thereby enhancing the overall operational efficiency and product quality of the factory. In doing so, it generates significant cost savings and competitive advantages for the enterprise.
Solution Highlights:
- Enhanced Tank Management Efficiency: The automated system significantly reduces the time spent on manually searching for ingredient tanks, cutting the search time from several hours to just a few minutes, which greatly accelerates production flow.
- Reduced Operational Costs: Utilizing BLE technology cuts down on the time costs associated with tank positioning and management. Annually, this translates to savings of tens of thousands of yuan in raw material expenses that would otherwise be wasted.
- Improved Data Accuracy: By minimizing manual input, the system optimizes inventory and supply chain management, ensuring high data accuracy.
- Scalability: The platform is designed to integrate additional intelligent features in the future, such as AI-based image recognition, environmental monitoring, and smart inventory optimization.
Challenges
- Multi-System Integration: The factory’s long-standing use of manual records alongside various automated devices has resulted in diverse data formats, interface standards, and update frequencies. Achieving real-time integration and data consistency is a primary challenge.
- Device Integration: With numerous devices from different vendors each using unique communication protocols, establishing a unified standard for communication and control is exceptionally difficult.
- Real-Time Data and Concurrency: The facility generates a vast amount of time-series data daily, requiring the system to support high-speed data writing while ensuring real-time query and alert functions.
- Seamless Integration: The system must deeply integrate with existing ERP and SAP platforms, which involves data format conversions, interface compatibility, and stringent security measures—requiring meticulous adjustments.
Edgenesis Solution
Data Management
Replacing Excel with cloud/local storage ensures data security, backup, and convenient access while seamlessly integrating with existing SAP systems.
Automated Reporting
The system periodically generates operational reports covering metrics such as usage, average weight, and content types to support managerial optimization.
Automated Process Management
The system automatically identifies and updates the status of ingredient tanks as they undergo processes such as cleaning, maintenance, or heating.
Food Ingredient Tank Tracking and Positioning
Utilizing BLE technology, the system achieves centimeter-level precision, ensuring that ingredient tanks are accurately located within specific factory areas, regardless of the facility's size.
Automated and Semi-Automated Data Collection
Ingredient tanks are automatically weighed at designated checkpoints using automated weighing devices. Combined with BLE technology, the weight data is automatically collected and recorded, reducing the need for manual input.
Result
Users can locate and update the information of ingredient tanks using mobile devices, while a centralized real-time dashboard enables comprehensive monitoring and management of the production process.
