It may be that within a company you have several locations, and that a large number of company assets such as welding stations, forklift trucks and other rolling stock are used by several employees at these locations. The best way to keep a clear overview is with TAG.GPS. Locating and tracking become child's play with this solution. Moreover, it offers many possibilities for specific configuration tailored to your needs: hours of operation automatically received, movement detection, ... In this case, TAG.GPS is used for the management of forklift trucks.
During the preparation of the transport of cooling elements, things went wrong at Baltimore. All-Connects established a 'dialogue' between the finished goods and the forklift trucks.
Baltimore Aircoil Company (BAC) manufactures evaporative cooling towers and thermal storage solutions. The American company is part of the Amsted Industries group. Baltimore employs more than 2,000 people in facilities worldwide. Approximately 340 employees are active in the Belgian branch in Heist-op-den-Berg, which is also the European headquarters of BAC.
Because there were frequent problems in locating the correct finished products on the site, Baltimore looked for a solution to track them.
Ward Lemmens (Production Engineer) explains:
"We produce (sections of) cooling towers, which are assembled on site. On a typical day, there are about 150 of these sections on our site, ready to be transported to the customer. Often, it is quite a job to find the right elements. That's why we looked at how we could get a better overview of the finished products to greatly reduce the search work."
Baltimore devised a system to divide the warehouse into zones. The location of the cooling towers was recorded in a table, but it was not always possible to keep it up to date. Moreover, the available surface is quite limited and in peak periods elements had to be moved.
This experiment showed that automation was necessary. The first requested providers proposed to provide the 150 or so elements with a GPS tracker. Efficient, but with a (too) high price tag.
When Baltimore finally consulted All-Connects, a better alternative was soon on the table. The special thing about this track & trace solution is that it never leaves the Baltimore site. Each element that rolls off the production line is given a Bluetooth tracker. The eight forklift trucks are in turn equipped with a GPS tracker and a Bluetooth gateway.
"The system is ingenious in its simplicity. Every movement of the cooling tower activates the Bluetooth tracker and communicates with the tracker on the forklift truck. Thus, the exact location of the element on the site is always known. When loading the truck, the tracker is removed and reused for the next element," says Ward Lemmens.
Since it is a cloud-based solution, Baltimore carried out a data security risk assessment. The system was then tested on site. A few adjustments were necessary, as the application is slightly different from the standard product of All-Connects.
Ward looks back on the collaboration with satisfaction:
"We do not yet have concrete data to calculate the time and efficiency gains, but the employees involved clearly notice that everything is running better. We are also very enthusiastic about the possibility to link photos of cooling towers loaded on trucks to the system. That saves us a lot of unnecessary discussions afterwards. In short, All-Connects has certainly lived up to our expectations!"
Locating assets
A GPS + Bluetooth gateway was placed in the forklift trucks. A BLE (Bluetooth) tracker was attached to the cooling elements, which 'wakes up' when movement is detected and starts communicating with the BLE gateway of the forklift truck.
The CHECK.connects platform - powered by All-Connects - that can be used via desktop, and mobile app.
The Katoen Natie company started receiving and handling cotton in the port in 1854. The company formed the link between the stevedores who were responsible for loading and unloading ships, and the transport to and from the hinterland. Over the years, the company expanded further with, among other things, storage in its own warehouses, transport, forwarding and customs clearance. In time, specialised services for the petrochemical, automotive and major distribution industries were included in the service package. Today, Katoen Natie is a worldwide supplier of logistical solutions with added value and applied technical solutions.
With 33 locations in Belgium alone that can be linked to Katoen Natie, there are a huge number of forklift trucks and other rolling equipment operating for the company every day. This made it difficult to keep track of where all these forklift trucks were located in an orderly fashion. It was also a challenge to keep track of the number of hours worked. As a result, no up-to-date maintenance schedule was available, which sometimes caused surprises.
With employees working across multiple locations, it was a requirement that the tag could show a detailed location of the asset. The TAG.GPS was the best choice as it transmits the location based on GPS data and is therefore very accurate.
Each forklift truck is equipped with a TAG.GPS, of which the number of communications per day can be set according to preference. With one single report of the running hours (in the evening) and one location update per day, Katoen Natie has the necessary information. Employees no longer lose time in forwarding the operating hours to the person responsible. Because all the data for each individual forklift is available on the platform, it is easy to keep track of when each asset needs to be serviced.
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