1 Introduction
When you enjoy the fresh and nutritious Alaskan salmon, do you know what kind of “hardships†this kind of delicacy needs from a deep sea to a table? Are you aware that the temperature control during the entire process has a crucial influence on the quality of the fish? Do you understand the advanced real-time logistics technology behind this delicacy?
In the Qingdao Hongdao Aquatic Industrial Park, which was newly put into operation by the Enli Group of the Pacific Ocean, a busy but orderly scene can be seen: After a vessel loaded with various fishes that have been frozen and recovered, the warehousing personnel use the RF terminal. Scan the tray number and confirm receipt. Immediately, the forklift truck sends the goods to the designated position according to the position allocation information sent by the information system, and scans the inventory information with the RF terminal. The receipt information is returned to SAP WM. At this point, the storage operation is completed.
The entire warehousing process is orderly and smooth. The removal of thousands of tons of frozen fish raw material from each vessel can only enter the cold storage within a short period of time, thus ensuring the fish's fresh and high quality. At the same time, the storage information is complete and the bar code immediately includes detailed data such as the species name, fishing vessel name, and fishing date. These real-time "preservation" data not only meet the needs of the finished product sales, but also make the future delivery, inquiry, inventory and other operations simple and efficient. It is with the help of SIEMENS' advanced SCALANCE W wireless real-time transmission technology that the "double preservation" of fish and information becomes a reality.
2, project background
As a world-renowned water-industry giant, Pacific Andes International Holdings (hereinafter referred to as “Pacific Ener Groupâ€) is principally engaged in the global procurement, transportation, and supply of frozen seafood. Pacific Enli Foods Co., Ltd. is a direct subsidiary of Pacific Enli Group in Qingdao, which integrates the processing, transportation and trade of aquatic products. Its leading product, the frozen squid series, is a recognized A-level product in the international fishery industry and enjoys a high reputation in the aquatic industry at home and abroad.
According to Forbes magazine, Pacific Ener Group is the world's largest producer of fish fillets by volume. As China's per capita fish consumption increased four-fold during the 20 years from 1983 to 2003, emerging fisheries in Asia have also rapidly prospered, and Pacific Enli is a leader in the industry. In 2007, the Group generated revenue of US$1.08 billion and net profit of US$40 million. The sales volume was three times that of 2001.
In order to expand its production capacity to meet the growing demand, Pacific Energie Group built a new processing plant in Qingdao Hongdao in 2007. The total investment of Hongdao Phase I project is approximately USD 90 million. The processing capacity is expected to reach 60,000 tons per year. Mainly engaged in the processing of finished products, such as ready-to-eat products, can be operated up to full capacity approximately 2 to 3 years after the start of production.
At the same time, in order to reduce operational errors, improve efficiency, and strengthen management in the cold storage operations, Pacific Energroup decided to transform its existing traditional business processes, implement SAP business systems, and establish a new IT system architecture. Moreover, in order to obtain the maximum advantage from the implementation of the new ERP system, Pacific Ener Group decided to adopt real-time logistics operations in the cold storage and adopt a highly flexible and reliable wireless transmission scheme for information transmission.
3, the overall situation of the control system
Due to the industry characteristics of the Pacific Enlight Group and the characteristics of this project, it brings some difficulties to the design of the project and the implementation of the project. First, the cold storage temperature of Enli Pacific in Red Island is set at -35°C (currently -28 °C, can be upgraded to -35 °C at any time), in such a low temperature environment, to ensure efficient and stable operation itself puts a nearly "rigorous" requirements on the equipment; Second, the customer requirements to complete a seamless connection with the SAP system The design and implementation of wireless solutions are difficult to implement without powerful wireless products.
Based on the above requirements, SIEMENS system integrator Dematic's total solutions for the Pacific Energie Group include the DEMATIC Pick-Director System (integrated SAP system, the device unified drive interface middleware system), SIEMENS industrial grade specifically for the harsh environment The design of the wireless access point SCALANCE W786 and SCALANCE W788 classic wireless access point, combined with LXE's low-temperature wireless mobile terminals, Bluetooth scanners and bar code printers, as well as waterproof freeze-resistant electronic tags.
The framework of the design scheme can be used to visualize the operating mechanism of the adult body: SAP is equivalent to the human brain, and wireless terminals and the like can be compared to the hands and feet of adults. The brain needs to use the nervous system to direct the hands and feet. SIEMENS wireless products SCALANCE 788/786 The effect is equivalent to the nervous system. The SAP WM module uniformly drives the underlying wireless terminal equipment through the reliable transmission of the wireless system, and then feeds back the implementation of the equipment to the WM module. When performing operations such as inbound/outbound operations, the SAP WM module issues corresponding instructions. How to flexibly and efficiently drive the terminal equipment to achieve the optimal utilization of the system is the main function of the control level equipment.
Take the warehousing process as an example: After the goods arrive at the warehouse, the SAP system orders the warehousing instructions. The DEMATIC PDS downloads/receives the receiving operation instruction of the WM module and automatically distributes the instruction to each underlying device driver hardware to complete the task. When dispatched, the PDS will perform flexible configuration according to the busy condition of the system. Immediately, the warehousing staff used an RF terminal to scan and record the pallet serial number barcode to confirm the receipt. Then, the forklift truck sends the goods to the designated position according to the position allocation information sent by the information system, and scans the inventory information with the RF terminal. The receipt result is collected and summarized by the middleware and then returned to the SAP WM module.
This series of actions must be guaranteed by reliable wireless transmission.
4, solution
Pacific Enli Group's cold storage in Hongdao mainly stores raw materials such as raw fish and fish products. The cold storage temperature is set at a low temperature of -28°C to -35°C, making the selection and operation of the equipment unique. For warehouses that use steel-structured drive-in shelving and fully-enclosed forklifts, workers need to scan barcodes through the forklift's glass. Vehicle terminals are installed in the forklift. At the same time, in order to enhance flexibility, each car terminal is equipped with a portable wireless. Bluetooth scanner, when necessary, workers can walk out of the car and carry a wireless scanner to scan the bar code; in the frozen environment, the device's housing, battery, and the internal circuit board structure, etc. require special treatment, and require equipment to have Anti-condensation effect.
At the same time, for a large warehouse logistics system, how to quickly complete some of the listed library outbound operations through wireless transmission requires strong wireless product support.
In this scenario, the integrator selected the SIEMENS SCALANCE W786 wireless access point for high-critical environments (operating temperature: –40°C to +70°C; it can operate in 2.4G and 5G operating modes simultaneously).
In the application environment of warehousing and logistics, how to arrange wireless networks to achieve seamless coverage of signals is also an important aspect.
Red Island cold storage uses a directional antenna wireless access point layout scheme, as shown below:
Design Notes:
1. All sites that need to be covered are guaranteed to have two different AP signals to ensure that when one AP fails, the signal coverage will not drop.
2. The AP in Red Island adopts dual antennas, each antenna covers one operation channel, and the investment is saved under the guarantee of coverage effect.
3. All APs use industrial grade 7dBi planar directional antennas to ensure signal coverage and depth.
4. Overall Network Topology Connection Diagram Double redundant coverage of dual-host, dual-link, and dual-switch redundant wireless AP signals is shown in the figure below:
5, user benefits
The system satisfies the needs of Pacific Ocean Group and will achieve significant results in improving business processes, improving customer service, enhancing operational efficiency, reducing daily operating costs such as energy consumption, and satisfying the system's rapid on-line requirements. .
Business Process Operational Aspects: This system enables Pacific Ocean Group to manage order and related inventory data in a more efficient and cheap manner. Through this system, Pacific Ocean Group reduced the error rate and processing costs caused by errors, improved data integrity, inventory visibility and order availability, increased sales and improved customer service levels, enabling customers to lower costs Enjoy more adequate and timely delivery.
In terms of performance improvement, the most obvious benefit is to reduce the demand for forklifts in cold storage. Because the RF terminal system in the wireless environment can present commands in front of the operator in real time, the time for searching and waiting in the past for forklifts is greatly reduced. Currently, one forklift is sufficient for each library (1 km2 in area).
6, user feedback
The successful application of Siemens wireless equipment in the cold storage warehouse has freed the low-temperature storage logistics industry from wireline restrictions, greatly improving the working efficiency of the equipment and improving the overall economic efficiency.