Yard Management solution for a Steel Plant
Customer Information
The company manufactures various types of steel coils. HR coils and Zinc lumps are used as raw materials. Depending on customers’ requirements various grades of FG coils are manufactured. Both the raw materials and FG coils are stored in multiple yards. The company was looking for a solution that would help them locate the correct coils quickly and pick them for dispatch. Additionally, they wanted to track the locations where the raw materials are stored. They wanted the solution to be interfaced with their Oracle ERP system so that mobile solution seamlessly works with their system.
Problems Faced
The coils produced by the plant are stored in huge yards. Each coil is specifically manufactured for a particular customer according to their specifications. When the coils have to be dispatched, it used to be time consuming operation to locate the coils and pick them up for dispatch. The productivity of the dispatch department was very low. At times wrong coils were dispatched to the customers. When the dispatch trucks waited for extra time, the company had to make additional payments to the transportation companies. These factors were negatively affecting the profitability of the company.
SolutionOffered
XCELtrackerbased asset tracking system was customized and offered for this project. As soon as HR coils and Zinc lumps are received, the coils were tagged and their supplier information was entered in the handheld devices. Crane operator picked up the HR coils / lumps and stored them in the empty locations of yard area and entered the co-ordinates of the location of the items stored. The yard area is divided in multiple rows and columns. Similarly, after FG coils are produced, the Oracle ERP system generates details containing the coil ID and the customer ID. The labels are attached to the coils. The crane operator picks up FG coils and places them in the empty locations of the yard and enter the data in the handheld devices.
When a new batch of coils are manufactured, user can enter the type of steel coil to be produced. The system displays the storage location details corresponding to the HR coils and Zinc lumps. The crane operator picks up the items and transfers them to the processing area.
When the items are to be dispatched, the dispatch operator selects the customer ID and the system displays the pick locations in the yard which contains the coils to be dispatched. The crane operator picks up all the items and they are loaded on to the truck.
The server application is a web based application. This application maintains the inventory of all raw materials and their storage locations as well as storage locations of the FG coils. System preserves the user ID corresponding to all activities along with the date and time stamps. System generates various types of reports related to raw materials received, dispatch history, inventory, storage location details etc.
Benefits
•Visibility of the storage location of the raw materials as well as that of finished goods
•Mobile solution and integration with the ERP system increases the productivity
•Eliminates the need for manually inspecting coils to locate the correct coils for dispatch
•Increases the number of dispatches made per day
•Reduction of costs and manual labour
•System offers full track and trace capabilities
About Indusmation
Our Principle has been a leader in offering advanced mobile enterprise software solutions using barcode/RFID technologies since 2001. Indusmation specializes in offering solutions for applications such as Manufacturing, Supply Chain Management, Asset Tracking, Maintenance Management, Healthcare, Warehousing, Distribution etc. Our mobile solutions are supported in Windows Mobile devices as well as Smart Phone platforms such as BlackBerry, Android, iPhones, Nokia and others. Indusmation team has excellent experience in offering industry specific mobile solutions to process industries like Cement, Steel, Paper, Oil-Gas, Power and Mining. Our solutions help to extend the ERP right to the smart phones and empower users to work more efficiently and help companies to improve the bottom lines. Indusmation offers a full spectrum of Consulting Services, Software Development/Customization, Hardware Configuration, System Integration, Implementation Services, Training, Post Implementation support and Maintenance services. For additional information please contact at info@indumation.com visit our website at www.indusmation.com for additional information.