RFID enables error-free, accident-free, automated packaging process

Asahi Glass Company

"This innovative solution has given us an extremely new approach that improves tracking of stillages across the factory, reducing errors and transforming the way we manage packing of some of our glass products." - Gilles Dauphinais - CEO AGC Europe IT

Overview

In addition to packaging slowdowns, this major glass company´s manual glass packing process sometimes led to employee injury. The company saw the potential for using radio frequency identification (RFID) to identify the glass put onto the stillage, and to program the packaging machine to accept and package it. RFID would also help the company keep track of the location of all of its stillages.

Business need:

Asahi wanted to fully automate the process for packaging large sheets of raw glass, eliminating as much as possible all human intervention in the process.

Solution:

The company engaged IBM® Global Business Services to implement an end-to-end RFID solution as part of an automated, error-free, first-of-its kind packaging process for the company.

Benefits:

RFID enabled an entirely new way of following glass movements. Employee accidents and their associated costs were avoided, and efficiency improved due to reduced waiting time and automated processes.

Case Study

Headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, is the European branch of Japan-based Asahi Glass, the world´s largest glass maker. With production sites across Europe, Asahi (formerly known as the Glaverbel Group) operates in the fields of raw glass (including float glass, coated glass, patterned glass, laminated glass and mirrors in large dimensions) and processed glass (including glass and mirrors for the building industry, furnishing and interior decoration and transport).

To ensure success in each market, Asahi is structured in divisions and business units that serve specific industries, such as the building industry, the automotive industry and various industrial sectors. The company employs 17,000 people, and in 2002 it reported €1.9 billion in sales.

Business challenge

This major glass company produces many sizes and types of raw glass. After being produced in the oven, the sheets of glass are put into a frame, called a stillage, which holds them steady on a large transport cart that takes them to a packaging machine.

In the company´s operations, an operator had to manually program the packaging machine to tell it what size and type of glass was on the stillage. If the programming was incorrect, there would be errors and stoppages in the packaging process. The glass was then manually loaded into the machine, which wraps it in plastic and wood for transport. Once the glass was packaged, another employee loaded it into another stillage for transport out of the factory. The company wanted to automate this process and eliminate all human intervention. In addition to programming errors and packaging slowdowns, manual loading sometimes led to employee injury, which would be eliminated by automating the process.

The company was preparing to install a new packaging machine for large sheets of raw glass and saw the opportunity to implement an error-free packaging process with the new machine. It envisioned using radio frequency identification (RFID) to identify the glass put onto the stillage, and to program the packaging machine to accept and package it. RFID would also help the company keep track of the location of all of its stillages, eliminate backlogs at the packaging machines, and ensure error-free packaging.

Solution

The company engaged IBM to implement an end-to-end RFID solution to enable fully automated and error-free packaging. This first-of-its-kind packaging process at the company could not have been implemented without the RFID technology. RFID tags eliminate human intervention by "telling" the glass packaging machines what type of glass is ready for packaging, preventing human injury and ensuring error-free packaging within the
machine. The application is applicable to other areas of the company, potentially changing the way it operates internally in packaging and shipping its glass products.

An RFID tag is placed on the stillage and transport equipment when they are loaded with glass. When the stillage passes through a gate, a reader on the gate picks up the stillage information and sends it to the packaging machine. A robot takes the glass from the stillage and loads it into the packaging machine, which puts plastic and wood around the piles of glass. The robot puts the glass on another stillage at the other side of the machine and the glass is ready for transport outside of the factory.

IBM Global Business Services designed, deployed and tested the end-to-end solution. The solution includes IBM´s WebSphere® RFID Infrastructure (WRDI) edge server and source readers from CAEN. WRDI is linked into the company´s back-end systems, and integrated into the software of the company´s packaging machine. This complex and innovative integration does not use, in this first stage of implementation, the IBM RFID Premise Server - to limit the initial investment from the client.

Benefits

• First error-free glass packaging operation at this major glass maker - RFID enabled an entirely new way of processing and packaging glass for the company.
• Avoiding employee accidents and their associated costs will give the company a payback of less than three years.
• Fully automated process reduces waiting time at machines, increasing operational efficiency.
• Improves tracking of stillages within the company.
• Is applicable to other areas, such as tracking stillages with packaged glass on their way to transport.