Knoll Mfg., an office furniture manufacturer in East Greenville, Pa., is recognized for creating "exciting, mature, long-lasting" office furniture. The company's commitment to innovation and modern design has yielded considerable benefits in office systems, chairs, archives and storage, work benches and desks, wooden box products, textiles and accessories.
New system replaces old way
Recently, Knoll has added a material handling/order tracking system to its office chair product and packaging business, which significantly reduces cutting costs, eliminates order processing errors and speeds up the shipping process. The system combines radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, bar code technology and Accu-Sort Systems equipment, new conveyor belts and processing equipment from Stokes Material Handling, which coordinates the project, and system software, controllers, and scanning from BP Controls. Instrument and other components. Knoll's production facility in East Greenville has a chair production building that includes four office chair production lines that produce Chadwick, Life, RPM® and Bulldog® brand furniture.
In order to be able to transmit down and track correctly, the assembled chair wrapped in the film, as shown in the above picture, will be placed in a reusable, attached to a "plate" and can be used throughout The factory identifies the RFID tag of the chair in the plastic tray. The tag is encoded using an RFID tag write/reader.
Previously, after the chair was assembled, tested, and perfected, the manual label was labeled with a production label containing the shipping date, route selection code, box/tray number, order type and number, item number, and product quantity.
The chairs are then wrapped in a protective film or loaded into a shipping box with up to 4 chairs per pallet.
The pallet is then forked into one of three Knoll "mixed" or stock centers in the transport area approximately 1,000 feet away from the building, where the chair may be shipped with other office furniture.
This operation keeps the factory in an uninterrupted busy schedule, and the forklift shuttles back and forth between the production and transportation areas of the factory. This raises a lot of concerns, including forklift maintenance and fuel costs, and warehouse safety, according to Knoll. But the biggest concern is the integrity of the order, and the chair may be accidentally sent to the wrong inventory area, causing significant shipping errors or delays.
To reduce traffic problems and simplify the order tracking process, Knoll contacted Stokes Material Handling to develop an automated material handling system with the following features:
· Identify chairs by order number, purchase number, and their destination.
· Automatically transfer the chair to the correct sorting area.
· Automatically direct the goods to the correct gate.
Stokes Material Handling offers the latest conveyor belts (including those from Hytrol []) and automated chair lifts to make new processes even easier, as well as Accu-Sort's recommended RFID system, and BP Controls. Controller to create a new way to track. )
Easily handle two packaging methods
Knoll now specifies that the chair is either packaged (carton pack) or wrapped (film wrap). A packaged chair will be loaded into a two-piece corrugated container with detailed production information, including product information and chair description, customer identity, order number, and individual product number.
In order to optimize the use of the trailer space, Knoll has also recently improved its packaging chair product line, so that 80% of the products are disassembled and transported, that is, the bottom of the chair and other components are separated.
Then, all the parts of the chair are packed into a smaller box. However, the wrapped chairs are all assembled, so they cannot be transported in the same way. Instead of transporting it, it is covered with a transparent film cover, transported out of the factory and transported vertically.
When the chair is produced, the production department uses a desktop printer to produce a bar code that contains information about the chair, including the destination mixing center (or direct shipping). The label attached to the front of the box on the packing chair can be easily scanned using a fixed position scanner on the conveyor.
However, the label attached to the wrapper cover film poses a challenge for bar code scanning because the chair can be rotated up to 360 degrees, because the position of the label on the wrap chair cannot be fixed. So the wrapped and assembled chair will be placed on a reusable transfer tray, making it easier to transport down the packaging line.
Knoll recognizes that the transfer tray is an ideal application for radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. Each tray is fitted with an RFID tag wrapped in plastic supplied by Accu-Sort and secured to the tray with Velcro®. When the chair is transported downstream in a closed circulatory system, it is easy to read the information on the RFID pallet label that acts as a "license".
The label is placed at the center of the square tray, making positioning a problem that is not a problem. Accu-Sort's RFR-02 FRID label reader/writer will be on the label each time the tray receives a new chair. Write new order information. Once the chair travels to the end of the line, the tray is brought back to the starting point of the line, and when the tray is loaded with another chair, the label rewrites the new information.
Separately guide the two packages
Any of the four production lines can handle wrapped and packed chairs. At the end of each chair line, the chair enters Knoll's so-called "guiding area", which houses an RFID station that "guides" the chair into Knoll's computer system with chain transfer and merge control logic. It is equipped with a BP Controls design with a button with a transfer button
A small console consisting of a hand-held scanner, a secondary signal light and an Accu-Sort RFR-02 RFID tag reader/writer.
A fixed-position, high-frequency tag reader/writer compatible with the ISO 15693 standard reads and writes Knoll's passive tags (RF tags) at a frequency of 13.56 mHz. The HF reader/writer system has a 5x16-inch antenna designed for automated control, automated material handling and asset identification in the factory. Each major RFID/guide area is also equipped with an automatic lift from Stokes Material Handling that allows the operator to either transfer the film-wrapped chair to the transfer tray or to load the chair into the corrugated loading on the floor. In the container.
When the chair reaches the guiding area, the staff will determine whether to pack or wrap by looking at the work order number that matches the chair.
In the case of a packaged chair, the staff moves the selector button on the console to the packaged position, places a box on the lift, loads the chair into the box, and seals the box before pressing the "Transfer" button. You can continue to move downstream. The label on the package is scanned with BP Controls' hand-held scanner while the box is automatically raised and transferred to the production line.
For a wrapped chair, the staff will move the button to the wrap position and place a plastic transfer tray on the lift. The chair is then turned to a transfer tray and the product barcode label on the plastic film cover is scanned with a hand-held scanner. Next, pass the scanned information to the Rockwell Allen-Bradley SLC 5/05 processor/programmable logic controller provided by BP Controls, which formats the same scan for the RFR-02 RFID writer. information. Next, the RFID writer encodes the information onto the RFID tag of the transfer tray.
The RFID station with the console and scanner in the above picture is located in the "boot" area at the end of each packaging line at the Knoll Mfg. production plant.
When writing a label, the semaphore for each boot area will flash. When the label write operation is successful, the signal light turns green, and the lift automatically raises the chair and unloads it onto the main production line. If the label fails to be written (misplaced, scanned incorrectly, etc.), the signal light turns red and the staff repeats the process. If the label is not successfully written, the system will not guide the chair to the main production line.
When the chairs go to the shipping area, they first pass through a strap-and-confirm area equipped with an Accu-Sort AxiomTM laser barcode scanner and an RFR-02 RFID tag reader. Axiom offers high-speed scanning at speeds up to 1,400 beats per minute, Accu-Sort said.
When the RFID tag reader detects the tag on the transport tray holding the wrap chair, it will cause the wrap chair to bypass the next station bundling station on the production line and proceed to the classification area.
However, if the Axiom barcode scanner detects the barcode label on the package chair box, it will send a signal to transfer the chair out of the main production line and forward it through the strapping area equipped with two EAM-Mosca automatic strapping machines. Packing tape.
The strapping station positions the box so that the box faces forward and its product label faces the side. The bundled boxes are then automatically "redirected" or sent back to the main production line, with the front of each box facing the same side.
Accurate classification and delivery
Next, the wrapped and packed chairs will enter the sorting area. There is an Accu-Sort Model 24i DRX bypass barcode scanner with periscope to detect the packing chair, and the barcode label is used to locate the shipping box of the chair. There is also an RFR-02 RFID reader/writer that scans and verifies the RFID tag on the wrap chair. The data sent to the sorting computer will determine which outbound product channel will send the chair to the shipment. The Bypass Scanner scans 3,000 times per minute and has a maximum reading range of 70 inches, Accu-Sort tells.
The chairs are then tracked and sorted and sent to the correct outbound transport lane or loading dock. The classification computer identifies the product by an order number or a single product number, providing detailed channel assignment instructions specified by the hybrid center.
Carl Visscher, Knoll's factory production manager, said the company is pleased with the combined RFID/barcode encoding system, which helped Knoll increase production and reduce mishandling of shipments. With it, Knoll expects to save $300,000 in direct labor costs and another $200,000 in purchasing costs because the chair no longer needs to be picked up with a forklift. Instead, they can be sent directly to the shipping area to achieve a higher utilization of the warehouse. Visscher pointed out some other advantages of the system: "The new method has greatly reduced the fuel and maintenance costs of the forklift, and it also reduces the amount of forklift traffic in the factory and improves the safety of the plant," he said. “If we choose another type of scanning setup, our investment will be a lot bigger. We should be able to see the return on investment ratio within 3 years, including the depreciation of equipment, hardware and software.â€
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