Outcomes, Insights, and Best Practices from IIC Testbeds: Track & Trace Testbed
87 is designed for tightening a specific type of screw against a specific type of material which creates two car windows. This particular tool, with Program 87 activated, can only be used in Work Zone Number 3, because Work Zone Number 3 is the only location with a car needing assembly of a car window. All of other work cells are in a different process step.
The Track and Trace Testbed takes it down one level farther: When Track and Trace is combined with the Bosch ActiveAssist( the intelligent workplace – receiving work instructions from a Manufacturing Execution Systems( MES) system), it will activate the specific program on the tool for a given task and will prevent the worker from using the tool in any other position: The system will disable the tightening tool, unless it is being held in the right position related to the work requirements. MES are computerized systems used in manufacturing, to track and document the transformation of raw materials to finished goods – the“ production process.”
As an example of process optimization, one of the Track and Trace Testbed’ s first commercial deployments was with an aircraft manufacturer. The worker is required to very quickly perform many tightening actions inside the aircraft body. First of all, process optimization in this example relates to the fact that the worker no longer needs a paper list indicating his or her next task, or which tightening program should be used for a certain situation, etc. All of this is now automated via the tool. Secondly, the tightening tool now has the intelligence to determine that there is a problem, i. e., while the worker is tightening, the screw is breaking. The human eye cannot detect the breaking screw because it is happening inside of the hole. The tightening tool, in the Trace aspect of the testbed, will be able to detect the break and sound an alarm. This allows the start of a sub-process where the worker is able to unwind the screw, instead of being confronted with a broken piece of screw stuck in a hole, needing another tool to remove it or replacing the entire part needing the screw.
This aspect of the Track and Trace Testbed has been deployed by Bosch in its Craftsmen Sector. It has also been deployed with some of their original equipment manufacturing( OEM) customers, who use it in car production.
The initial implementation of the Track and Trace Testbed was a general-purpose implementation, using a standard set of sensors attached to different types of tools. But over time, the team has learned that they need different flavors of Track and Trace for different use cases and different products. So, the advanced version of Track and Trace for tightening tools looks very different from the advanced version for Track and Trace for forklifts, which integrates with SAP Vehicle Insights and SAP Warehouse Management.
Forklift Use Case- Tracking
Bosch is a lead user of technology and this technology is driving growth in their plants. Bosch runs a large manufacturing plant in Traunreut, in Bavaria, operating more than 40 forklifts in both a production environment and a huge warehouse of household appliances. They wanted to improve utilization and optimize the usage
IIC Journal of Innovation 39