Information management: When outsiders become insiders
Materials handling systems suppliers and integrators are joining a new team: Yours.
By Tom Andel, Editor-in-Chief -- Modern Materials Handling, 10/1/2008
Recreational Equipment Incorporated—better known as REI to the outdoors enthusiasts this retailer caters to—likes to appeal to its customers' sense of adventure in the marketing of its camping and sporting gear. However, REI doesn't like indoor adventures, especially when they involve any aspect of the materials handling systems that help prepare their gear for shipment.
REI's Bedford, Pa., distribution center has about 6.5 miles of conveyor—the main pathway through its automated materials handling frontier. Although this is a one-shift, five-day-a-week operation, any type of downtime in a certain area can create ripple effects that cascade down to the other departments waiting for product. Two years ago when this facility was new, such an occurrence wasn't unusual.
“At one time, we were having communication glitches with the programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and some of the servers,” explains Rick Crum, systems engineer for REI. “Every month we would have a systems crash where we'd lose communication and it would kill us. That's the worst thing that can happen here because the conveyor system was useless until we regained the communication path.”
That's quite an admission coming from someone as technically savvy as Crum. However, although he has controls and PLC experience, software communications issues were a challenge neither he nor his maintenance team were prepared to handle. That's why REI reached out to its systems integrator, W&H Systems (201-635-3471, www.whsystems.com), to become a virtual arm of its support staff so those “failures to communicate” didn't become debilitating.
“They can dial into our system with software engineering support and controls engineering support,” Crum says. “They've been able to find the cause of failure and re-establish the communication link to get us up and running within an hour to an hour and a half.”
Since the facility opened, Crum and his crew have gradually learned to be more self-supporting, however he doesn't anticipate that he'll break free from the W&H lifeline.
“At this point we're relying on W&H for 10 to 15% of our issues,” he says. “Six or eight months ago we relied on them probably half the time. But I don't see them being phased out because there will always be issues coming up that are far too complex or proprietary.”
Service yields ROI
Indeed, the priorities of managers responsible for order fulfillment have changed in recent years. Time is critical, and every second of downtime is costly. Part of this is a return-on-investment (ROI) issue, as well.
“Clients have become so aggressive with the rates they have to get out to customers that even a few percentage points of performance degradation means a lot of dollars to them,” says Peter Carpanese, vice president of operations for W&H. “Clients are demanding increased service from vendors like us because of the unbelievable amount of money they can lose when they have downtime. If we can anticipate that something in their system is degrading and stop it from causing a shutdown, that means a lot. Some of these clients may employ 500 people to keep the plant running and if the materials handling system goes down they may be losing $50,000 an hour plus the fact they probably have to go to overtime because they still have to get out the door.”
W&H offers a man/machine interface package, called Wizard. It's a graphic representation of the client's operation, showing on/off statistics and sorter statistics such as the number inducted, the number of no-reads, the number of diverts per lane, etc. It's on the client's Intranet, so managers can view these stats from remote locations.
“Quite a few customers want us to do remote audits where we dial in and make sure these statistics aren't drifting, or that they aren't getting a higher percentage of no-reads or recirculated products than they had before,” Carpanese explains.
A matter of security
Chris Roach, vice president of customer service & support in North America for FKI Logistex (877-935-4564, www.fkilogistex.com), says technology has enabled a new level of remote diagnostic capability for materials handling system suppliers and integrators, but there's a price for this convenience, and it's not just financial. System vendors must be sensitive to their clients' privacy and security issues.
“Twenty years ago the control of an industrial system resided within a building and many times there was just a modem connection—and many times that modem was unplugged,” Roach says. “If someone needed remote based support you told them to plug the modem into a phone line.”
Today entire industrial networks are accessible to outsiders. That includes the control system, which can be PLC- or PC-based, as well as higher level software, including the WMS. That makes it possible for vendors to see when scanners are getting mis-reads or there's a high level of bad diverts in the sortation system.
“Some customers aren't that comfortable having peering eyes at any time of the day,” Roach admits. “But people will become more comfortable with that as these networks become more secure. Complexity is driving them. These are very specialized systems. Take Java programming, for example. We understand how to connect Java programming back to industrial controls, hook it to a PLC, shake hands with one of our competitor's systems along the way and understand the interface in real time. Most of these customers have a dollar value on what 1 minute of downtime costs. They're not about to read a manual to solve a problem. They want to be back up in 8 minutes.”
He cites the example of a client in the freezer business which is growing rapidly. Three years ago they turned facilities maintenance over to FKI Logistex.
“In doing that, their productivity and equipment uptime went from the 60% range to the 90% range,” he says. “That company is now going global and they're building facilities in China, Thailand and Vietnam. They can do that quickly because we're going with them. They only have to worry about putting the building up and operating it. We'll put all the equipment in and maintain it. The Web and other forms of connectivity allow you to provide such support very efficiently.”
Ground support
Even with the remote diagnostics made possible by high-speed Internet and VPN connections, many situations still call for having “eyes on the ground” to confirm what that remote technician is seeing.
“On the PLC side things get trickier,” says Chris Krafft, manager of technical service for SSI Schaefer (704-944-4500, www.ssi-schaefer.us). “We may get a signal saying this conveyor is down, but we wouldn't know necessarily if the motor is burned out or if the belt has broken. By its nature, a PLC is closer to the electromechanical, physical side of the DC, and that's where it becomes important to have a person there supporting you for PLC issues.”
SSI has been providing in-residence PLC and IT tech support for two Walgreens DCs for a few years now: one in South Carolina and one in Connecticut. The feedback SSI has received from these sites is helping this international systems integrator with German roots learn more about the needs of the U.S. market.
Sometimes the needs of U.S. companies extend beyond the management of sophisticated systems and call for good old fashioned physical inventory management. John Hines, president of HK Production Logistics at HK Systems (800-457-9783, www.hksystems.com), explains how his company, which specializes in the implementation of automated materials handling systems, wound up managing logistics for a Caterpillar engine plant.
“When we were putting this business together we saw the need for onsite full-time maintenance for the automated storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS),” he says. “We came up with the idea of hiring people of varied backgrounds, including facilities maintenance. You need three-shift-a-day, 365-day-a-year coverage because the system is mission-critical. By hiring people of varied technical backgrounds they can also do facility maintenance.”
Caterpillar requested these services at a high conceptual level, and after a year of working with them, HK defined a service model for them, which included logistics management. Access between the vendor-side and client-side systems is done via e-mails and Web sites. Cat has access to an HK portal, where system and inventory data are posted.
“They see what is in our plant and where it is in our plant, whether it be on the receiving dock, in inspection, or in storage,” Hines says. “Our system, because it's a very controlled environment, provides a lot more accuracy than they've been accustomed to.”
A bridge to the future
As the market for materials handling systems and services rises and falls in this turbulent economy, you can expect to see the service bar raised even higher while suppliers compete for business. SSI Schaefer's Krafft says his company has learned a lot from serving Walgreens' systems needs.
“If we could go back to day one we would take more of a leadership role in the IT portion of the facility, as well as the maintenance part,” Krafft says. “In the next 20 years as facilities become more automated, the IT structure and maintenance departments in these DCs will have to become more sophisticated. Those that don't will be left behind. Until that way of thinking changes we'll act as the bridge.”
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