Borealis Stenungsund, Sweden
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RFID and SAP online validation improve process quality
Borealis Stenungsund, Sweden
The customer:
Borealis headquartered in Vienna, Austria is a leading provider of plastics and has acouple of regional centers and production sites throughout Europe and Middle East. Borealis has more than 40 years of experience as supplier of polyethylene and polypropylene (known as polyolefin). Products from Borealis are used for the production of automotive parts, appliances, power cables as well as for distribution pipes for water, gas and sewage. Borealis delivers plastics for further processing to their customers as pellets or powder in various types and sizes.
The challenge:
The missing transparency of logistics processes across different locations and also the quality of logistics processes caused Borealis to look for a better solution. So Borealis assigned Dematic the task to develop and realize a concept as general contractor. An important duty was the improvement of the process quality, especially the quality of the put away processes in the manual bulk storage.
The solution:
Dematic identified the logistics processes as the essential key factor for the mission’s success. The processes had to be reshaped in order to achieve harmonization across different locations. The first step of Dematic included the analysis and adaptation of the processes in order to make them applicable for this mission. For this reason the SAP modules SD, WM and Transport were adapted to these requirements.
The task to improve the quality of the put away process of the bulk storage was solved by automated online validation based on RFID technology. The common principle of immobile RFID readers and mobile RFID tags was reversed. The RFID readers are mounted on fork lift trucks and the tags are embeded in the floor. In this application scenario RFID technology has decisive advantages in comparis onto other ID technologies. It works as well in very coarse conditions durably, reliably and fast.
In order to assure highest possible identification rates a pair of two passive RFID Tags were embedded in the floor at each of the putaway locations. At the same time it was assured, that the roll over by a fork lift truck can not damage the embedded RFID tags. Additionally to the RFID readers the fork lifttrucks are equipped with radio frequency data terminals that provide online connection to SAP. The validation of storage locations are made by a direct comparison of the storage location number that is provided by the SAP system and the storage location number that is provided by the RFID tag. The process quality that is required for the retrieval processes specifies that each single palette has to be identified by its pallet ID. This is done by conventional barcode.
Implementation:
Processes and their implementation in the SAP environment were in special focus of the project realization. These services were delivered directly by Dematic. Dematic was responsible for the operation of the entire solution (general contractor) and the people at Borealis were very happy with the results. The concept developed for Stenungsund will now be used as blue print for other Borealis production sites and warehouses. The corresponding rollout is yet in preparation. The validation solution based on RFID has proofed of value. It is recommended to use this technology as well for other missions.
Customer benefits:
