Background
For more than 135 years, Curt Bauer has been designing, producing and distributing luxurious table and bed linen ranges to the world on state-of-the-art Jacquard weaving machines and electronically controlled finishing equipment at its Erzgebirge site in Aue-Bad Schlema, a center of textile tradition.
The main product range of Curt Bauer is bed linen and table linen, which has an excellent national and international reputation. As a high-quality manufacturer for contract textiles, such as hotel linen or linen for the catering industry, Curt Bauer has also quickly made a name for itself. Thanks to its high quality and innovative, hard-wearing and recyclable materials, Curt Bauer has won over not only system suppliers, but also leading car manufacturers directly. Nowadays, more than ever, supplying products of the best quality to meet the highest demands is at the core of Curt Bauer’s corporate philosophy.
Curt Bauer GmbH is a multi-stage textile company. The production covers weaving preparation, weaving, warehousing, fabric inspection and finishing.
Objective
The aim of using the ZIGPOS real-time localization system (RTLS) is to locate the merchandise carriers. For this purpose, the ZIGPOS Badges with eInk display were attached to the merchandise carriers.
This allows the following effects to be achieved:
- Better space management, associated reduction of set-up times.
- Batch tracking
- Reduction of the goods carrier search by the employees
- Blocking of goods carriers by dynamic writing on the e-Ink display of the ZIGPOS badge
ZIGPOS RTLS Integration
The integration into the goods carrier management was implemented by the Sächsische Textilforschungsinstitut e.V. (STFI) based on the ZIGPOS RTLS API. The functions of the goods carrier management system developed by STFI include those listed below:
Functions
- synchronicity ZIGPOS location system and SFTI goods carrier management
- master data management: by means of object-based data storage and mapping table
- demand: transmitted to the carrier management system by means of mobile device input, ViewBox and carrier type selection
- product carrier suggestion: available product carriers in the vicinity are displayed by means of a location view box and color coding.
- collection of goods carriers: by means of a dock tractor and booking out of the storage location by means of geofence
- plant allocation: by means of geofence
- product-goods carrier assignment at the end of production: by means of input on a mobile terminal or by means of interface to the MES or to the machine-related order control of STFI
- display on the product carrier: by means of the e-Ink display of the ZIGPOS badge, shows which order is on the product carrier
- destination suggestion: by means of location-view-box and color marking, the clearing location becomes visible.
Special features of the ZIGPOS solution
- Use of the extensive ZIGPOS RTLS API for integration into the developed goods carrier management: including position retrieval, status of the ZIGPOS Badges, writing to the e-Ink displays of the ZIGPOS Badges
- Use of the battery-powered solution for the proof-of-concept: this made it possible to quickly and easily set up a test setting for several weeks
- By using the ZIGPOS setup wizard in the RTLS GUI a quick setup was possible
Result of the Proof-of-Concept
The ZIGPOS localization system and the STFI goods carrier management were extensively tested in the warehouse area of the finishing department of Curt Bauer GmbH in real application over several weeks. The proof-of-concept was a valid and informative test for the future of goods carrier management at Curt Bauer GmbH. The users and management were enthusiastic about the possibilities offered by transparent flows of goods.
The proof-of-concept was carried out as part of the futureTEX project SmarMoTEX.