Digitale Transformation der Tracking- und Bestandserfassungsmethoden in der Intralogistik

  • Raphael Plakolm

Student thesis: Master's Thesis

Abstract

This thesis examines the technological developments in inventory and asset tracking within intralogistics. The task of these technologies is to accurately record inventories and efficiently track components to deliver the right product at the right time to the right place. Current warehouse and intralogistic management systems often have low visibility of inventory levels as well as material flow and a rigid infrastructure that can be improved through data-driven approaches. The methodology includes a systematic literature review and practical experiments in an industrial environment. The literature review presents various key technologies and trends in the field of tracking and inventory management. Furthermore, the importance of these technologies concerning AI applications in intralogistics and the current maturity level of the industry regarding "Industry 4.0" is explained. The following section discusses the technical fundamentals to provide a basic understanding of how the mentioned technologies work. Subsequently, current research applications and their practical implementations are presented. The results of the literature review show that existing technologies are continuously being developed to improve the control and optimization of material flow. Efforts are being made to use these technologies without human assistance to reduce costs and avoid errors. New technologies are being developed to meet industry-specific requirements. The development of intelligent products and the integration of technologies with artificial intelligence promises advancements in the accuracy and efficiency of automated inventory tracking. Finally, based on the findings, a product-tracking matrix is developed. This matrix is intended to help companies make a fundamental choice of the appropriate tracking technology based on their product and process requirements. Furthermore, it can be checked whether existing technologies are suitable for the required application. In the experimental part, the automated application of two of the presented technologies, RFID and barcode recognition, is examined under real operating conditions. For this purpose, an experimental setup was created to test both technologies and compare them in terms of detection rates. Finally, the experimental findings are compared with previously conducted experiments found in the literature. The conducted experiment shows that automated asset tracking using RFID technology has higher detection rates than using barcode technology. Furthermore, the detection rates determined in this work were higher than those of experiments with manual detection. However, overall, neither technology achieved a 100% detection rate in all cases considered, which is insufficient for production planning based on the detected assets. Measures such as separation, phased hybrid technology implementation, and additional controls using camera systems could increase the detection accuracy and overall performance of the automatic inventory tracking system. Whether the products and processes in the operation are suitable for automatic detection should, in any case, be determined in a company-specific, practical test beforehand.
Date of Award2024
Original languageGerman (Austria)
SupervisorJosef Wolfartsberger (Supervisor)

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