Applying Connected Assets to Solve Tomorrow’s Problems, Today

The promise of the IIoT

Distribution and fulfillment centers need to maximize the uptime of their material handling equipment and systems to meet growing customer demands. In recent years, distribution centers have been looking to the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) with optimism as a way to solve many of their complex challenges.

According to the Material Handling Institute’s annual industry report about the adoption of next generation supply chain technologies, survey respondents identified the Internet of Things (IoT) as one of the top three technologies that will either disrupt more traditional operations or provide a competitive advantage. Nearly 60 percent of those surveyed in 2018 – an increase from the previous year – looked to IoT solutions to transform their businesses.

But many DCs don’t realize that they can actually deploy and achieve immediate ROI from the IIoT today. By embedding machine-level sensors in their facilities’ assets and harnessing data from proven control systems, companies can transform how they operate and maintain their systems to achieve higher throughput rates to improve accuracy.

The Challenge to Connect

Many DCs today struggle with repetitive issues in their operations. They simply do not have good, long-term views of their asset performance data. This information is often transient – essentially, it’s just captured and dumped on a regular basis at the end of a worker’s shift. It’s not properly analyzed over a long period of time.

DC operators also don’t have a lot of time to walk their systems and identify issues. They have even less time to maintain those systems to prevent downtime. With an entire generation of skilled maintenance technicians close to retiring age, DCs currently face a scarcity of workers with historical knowledge of complex systems.

Today’s distribution centers already feature several assets that can readily be IIoT-enabled to provide operations managers with detailed real-time, actionable data.

For example, sensors embedded into conveyors, or added in after-market, can measure motor vibration and power consumption. This continuous asset monitoring notifies operators if there are spikes in vibration, which could indicate a piece of equipment is in critical need of inspection and preventative maintenance.

The primary goal is to help lower the cost-per-case-shipped by identifying issues before they cause downtime or erode performance. Providing greater visibility into the critical path of a facility’s systems and the health of that equipment helps to achieve this.

Better Visibility Through Better Analysis

To be successful, DCs need an effective platform to monitor key performance indicators from thousands of data points. DCs need to look no further than the oil & gas industry to see how connectivity can improve operations by monitoring the health of their assets. Honeywell customers in the oil & gas industry have used a platform called Uniformance for years, which was initially designed to enable smart operations by providing actionable insights based on data from the facility.

Today, we’re applying this platform to material handling systems, thus enabling customers to make more informed decisions – resulting in improved performance. In doing so, we improve access to both real-time and historical information on a variety of data points such as throughput, read-rates, motor temperature and vibration, control panel temperature and ambient conditions, such as facility temperature.

This can help operators make comparisons and correlations like examining the relationship of throughput and temperature, or system utilization and electrical power consumption.

In addition to data analysis, operators can benefit from receiving alerts on a laptop or a handheld computer when a piece of equipment or a condition is outside of a specified range. These system notifications then prompt operations managers to immediately deploy maintenance technicians to investigate before the issues worsen.

The payoff to each of these preemptive steps is increased visibility into the entire facility as well as across the enterprise in order to make informed decisions.

The Future is Now

This use of the IIoT isn’t just a proof-of-concept; it’s real and being deployed by distribution and fulfillment centers today. Honeywell Intelligrated is helping companies harness the power of the IIoT with its Connected Distribution Center offering, which can increase reliability, improve utilization and maximize productivity. The Connected Distribution Center brings together machine-level sensors, smart controllers and connected devices to deliver real-time information on asset health and facility performance.

For example, one customer was notified of increased motor vibration in their sortation system. This enabled them to identify the specific motor that wasn’t performing properly, and they took immediate action to service the equipment before it led to any unplanned downtime.

Another customer was alerted to increasing no-read rates on their outbound sortation system. They quickly identified an issue with a particular label printer that was causing the scanning errors and replaced it before it impacted another day’s production.

To learn more about how the IIoT can improve your operations and minimize unplanned downtime, contact Honeywell Intelligrated today. Also, watch a replay of Honeywell’s new product showcase to see new software, hardware, and services that increase productivity, efficiency and safety.