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Intelligent Logistics: ArcelorMittal Brasil Longos

A world leader in steel production and one of the largest in mining, the ArcelorMittal Group has customers in 160 countries and has more than 190,000 employees. In its 11 research centers, around 1,300 researchers develop more efficient products and processes aimed at generating value for customers and ensuring future growth.

ArcelorMittal Brasil operates in the production of steel in the country, with an installed capacity of over 12.5 million tons/year. With industrial plants in six states, it employs around 16 thousand people. It produces high quality long and flat steel for the automotive, home appliance, packaging, civil construction and shipbuilding industries. It is also active in mining, power generation, production of renewable bioreducer and information technology. Its extensive distribution and service network meets the demands of domestic and international markets.

Through creative environments that relate to the ecosystem, ArcelorMittal encourages and supports the development of innovative ideas aimed at improving the internal processes of products and services, and also aimed at contributing to global efforts to face the global challenges of humanity.

The industrial business unit ArcelorMittal Brasil Longos, based in Juiz de Fora – MG, leads an innovative Industrial Logistics Master Plan program called Intelligent Logistics, comprising a series of projects. This plan was conceived in 2018. In 2019 it was already possible to carry out the first proofs of concept and, even during the entire period of the pandemic (2020/2021) it remained active and strong in its objectives of producing results and delivering the first technological solutions that operate In real time.

In 2021, the project is already showing its fruits, reaching its maturity with the Rollout actions in the Industrial plants. The creator and Project Leader, Wanderson Guedes Terror, Project Specialist & IT and TA Solutions – ArcelorMittal presents the first Technological Innovation packages:

Technology packageScopeDescriptionSolutions
TEC1R&D
Research and Development
RFID Tags, RFID Collector, Automation of Forklifts and Overhead Cranes. IT and AT Infrastructure. Application Infrastructure on the shop floor with middleware, MES, SAP. Solutions operating integrated and in real time. Network Infrastructure in the ArcelorMittal Information Security standard and compliance.
TEC2RFID Portal
Automatic Collection of Production and Laminated Products
Portal RFID Coletando automaticamente produção de laminados via Portal lendo etiquetas e Tags RFID nos produtos. Aplicações integradas no MES e SAP
TEC3RFID mobile collectorRFID Mobile Collector – Operates with SAP with the functions of moving, auditing, receiving, consulting, shipping laminated products
TEC4RFID Overhead CranesRolling Bridges – Integrated automation solution operating in the movement and dispatch of products
TEC5RFID ForkliftsForklifts – Integrated automation solution operating in the movement and dispatch of products
TEC6RFID Anti-Fraud PortalAntifraud Portal – Automatic checking of shipped and shipped products
TEC7RFID Portal
Automatic Receipt and Handling of Road Products
RFID Portal – Collection of product information in road transport updating intercompany stock automatically.

AMS – ArcelorMittal Sistemas was the company responsible for the development and coordination of the entire project. It was supported by the selected companies:

– PCX Tecnologia – provide and support the approval of RFID equipment;

– Automaway – implement automation project requirements and solutions (portals, collectors, forklifts, overhead cranes), Middleware application and MES interfaces;

– Itapem – Engineering projects and technical documentation of all solutions (Word and CAD).

PCX Tecnologia Companies and Automaway are participants in the IMPINJ Channels program.

With this multidisciplinary team, the results can be seen in the table below:

ProjectAdopted ProductsInnovationsResults
Industry 4.0: TEC1Automation of Industrial processes, equipment and devices. Industry 4.0Cost reduction, productivity, assertiveness, safety and competitiveness. Application of RAIN RFID tags and tags
RFID Portal: TEC2RFID Portal with Speedway R420 Impinj Readers. Industrial process automation in
automatic collection
Reception of products in the 100% automated logistics stock. Factory floor FTE withdrawal. Assertiveness of logistical stocks. Update of constant stocks and in real time. Safety, productivity and automatic product traceability. Application of the fixed reader RAIN RFID Speedway R420 Impinj.
RFID Mobile Collector: TEC3RFID mobile collector for contingency in QRCode / Barcode options and RFID manual operations.Productivity and automatic product traceability. Application of the RAIN RFID mobile collector operating SAP with the functions of moving, auditing, receiving, consulting and dispatching laminate production
RFID Overhead Cranes: TEC4Moving Rolled Products automatically updating inventories and dispatching products via overhead cranes with RAIN RFID Speedway R420 Impinj readers.Productivity and agility in logistics operations. TPV reduction by 50%. Stock reliability and security by eliminating operator traffic on the shop floor. Rolling Bridges – Integrated automation solution operating in the movement and dispatch of products. Application of the fixed reader RAIN RFID Reader Speedway R420 Impinj with integrations by external GPIO. Initial solution with R420 and in 2022 being expanded and updated to other units with R700 Impinj readers.
RFID Forklifts: TEC5Moving rolled products automatically updating inventories and shipping products via forklifts with RAIN RFID Speedway R420 Impinj readers.Productivity and agility in logistics operations. TPV reduction by 50%. Stock reliability and security by eliminating operator traffic on the shop floor. Quality. Operators work in climate-controlled cabins. Forklifts – Integrated automation solution operating in the movement and dispatch of products. Application of RAIN RFID Speedway R420 Impinj fixed reader with external GPIO integrations. Initial solution with R420 and in 2022 being expanded and updated to other units with R700 Impinj readers.
Anti-Fraud Portal:
TEC6
Automatic anti-fraud solution with RAIN RFID portal readers RAIN RFID Speedway R420 Impinj.Safety in the process and end of deviations due to fraud – Automatic checking of products shipped according to shipment order.
Portal RFID
Recebimento:
TEC7
Receipt of Inputs (laminated products) automatically through an RFID portal to
automatic receipt of road products
Reception of products in stock 100% automatic. Factory floor FTE withdrawal. Reliability of logistical stock. Safety and Productivity. Collection and receipt of rolled products in road transport via RFID portal. Updating of logistics stock automatically, with intercompany transfers.

The choice and use of world-class products and industrial robustness was crucial to the success of the Project. IMPINJ products were exclusive for RFID solutions and products from other companies for other requirements. According to Terror, these are Projects to serve the Industry with solutions to operate in a strategic, critical mission, in a hostile environment that requires high availability.

IMPINJ was the main partner in the project, supporting the channels through its product engineering team.

The Intelligent Logistics project: ArcelorMittal Brasil Longos continues to grow. In addition to the expansions planned for 2022 in new business units with the technological update with the Impinj R700 reader, new challenges are being proposed. The objective is to always use the application of the Industry 4.0 concept with RAIN RFID.

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Smart Pallet by SLS

The SLS RFID smartPALLET is smart, easy and cost-effective! Perform full asset inventory, including location, in your warehouse, distribution center, storage facility or truck yard in hours, or less, instead of days.

Once reliability,consistency of operation, expandability, maintainence and process interruption costs are factoredin, SLS portals often offer the lowest overall cost.

  • Plug-and-play
  • No installation, all self-contained (reader, Wave® antennas, battery, cabling, wireless)
  • Can be used by numerous forklifts and/or pallet jacks – “one-to-many”
  • No need to handle items to read tags
  • Roam to read
  • Read floor / location RFID tags and/or use GPS, indoor beacons, etc. for location
  • Rugged – can be used indoor or outdoor
  • Long battery charge life and rapid re-charge
  • WiFi and cellular connectivity (via the tablet)

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ID-Cotton guarantees cotton quality from the agriculture

RFID solution with Impinj technology aims to eliminate failures in the marking and identification of harvested bales, which guarantees more quality and better price

30 de July de 2020

By Edson Perin

ID-Cotton developed a radiofrequency identification (RFID) solution three years ago for the traceability of cotton, from the harvest to its processing. Flávio Tarasoff, executive director of ID-Cotton, says that it is a product aimed at the annual harvest. “We started with a production unit and today we already have more than 45 using the solutions”.

John Deere harvester in action on cotton crop

Bom Futuro Agro Group, largest Brazilian cotton producer, it was a pioneer in the use of ID-Cotton. Then come the units of the Scheffer, Amaggi, Locks and Cortezia Agro Groups, all from Mato Grosso, which together represent more than 20% of the Brazilian feather production. “For the Brazilian harvest, Conab estimates that the area with cotton should reach 1.7 million hectares in 2020, while production should be relatively stable at 2.82 million tons”, he informs.

Headquartered in Cuiabá (MT), ID-Cotton centralizes in its headquarters office the production, operation, support and sales of the systems. “In addition, this year we established ID-Cotton Agribusiness LLC, in the United States, based in the city of Doral, Florida,” says Tarasoff. “The location is strategic, because it is close to the local port and airport, and will concentrate the manufacture of equipment to distribute on the international market, with the kits already ready. The proximity to Texas is also a facilitator, because there is the largest cotton acreage in the USA ”.

Tarasoff spoke exclusively with Edson Perin, editor of the IoP Journal, about this project. Find out more by watching the interview below (vídeo in Portuguese):

ID-Cotton’s solutions for cotton traceability aim to combat flaws in the marking and identification processes of harvested bales. In addition, they eliminate manual labels, handwritten spreadsheets, “spray painting on canvas and other ancient methods of identifying producer, farm, variety, field, border and contaminants.

The ID-Cotton system facilitates yard management and processing, avoiding contamination of cotton varieties, ensuring the final quality of the product and also the price of the feather cotton sign.

The Impinj partner community represents a wide range of services, geographies, solutions and domain knowledge complementary with a common theme: the search for the best RFID solutions in the category. According to Gaylene Meyer, vice president of marketing and global communication at Impinj, the company continues to build relationships with partners who can best meet the needs of agribusiness for asset tracking, livestock management, supply chain traceability and more.

“We are pleased that ID-Cotton has chosen the Impinj platform for this important agricultural industry project,” says Gaylene. “Its successful deployment is an example of how the Impinj platform allows our partners to connect items to the Internet of Things, improving visibility and increasing efficiency “.

All management before the ID-Cotton RFID system was carried out in the cotton sector through labels and manual processes, such as bar codes. The RFID implantation follows the passive EPC UHF standard, from GS1. “The main benefit is the traceability of production, operational management, storage and increased gain in the classification of the feather, when using all ID-Cotton tools”, he guarantees. The tags in use are equipped with Impinj’s Monza5 and Monza 6 chips, from the moment of harvest until the bales are processed.

“This year we are importing the data that was recorded on the canvas tags for the new RFID tags, which will be added to the cotton lint, which can be used for packaging management, screening of laboratory analyzes, cargo management, loading and unloading and classification plume in the next production chain, which are the spinning mills ”.

In practice, after the cotton harvest, the RFID tags – inserted in the cotton rolls – are read and recognized by means of a tablet with the ID-Cotton system. This information is synchronized with the company’s ERP, which in a second moment automatically reads the loads of these rolls through an RFID portal when transferring the cotton crop, dropping the cotton from the crop and transferring this stock into the processing unit.

“One of the most important factors”, explains Tarasoff, “was the technological change, because before in the harvesting and transportation of cotton, barcode labels were used, which presented several flaws, from lack of reading to registration errors, since the process was done manually ”. The solution developed by ID-Cotton offers integration with management systems (ERP). “By facilitating the marking and identification of bales in the field, the ID-Cotton system has an impact on increasing productivity and reduces the team in the field”.

Cotton rolls with RFID tags, after harvesting with John Deere machines

With the bales receiving a unique identification, transport management becomes more agile, as well as the real-time location of each package. “Our technology reduces the time in the yard and the use of the scale,” he says. “Finally, the system saves on personnel, labels and manual processes, guaranteeing real gains in the final value of cotton”. Because it is modular, ID-Cotton serves the major players in agribusiness and can also be used by farmers, cotton units, cooperatives, among others.

The RFID technology from Impinj, a manufacturer of reading equipment and radio frequency identification chips, was chosen by ID-Cotton to be added to the platform developed by the Brazilian company. “We used the equipment in the Speedway Impinj line, with changes in the controller’s firmware and an operating rule developed together with the ID-Cotton team and the Impinj engineering,” reports Tarasoff.

The Impinj platform used throughout the cotton tracking solution contains Impinj Monza chips and tags attached to cotton rolls, Impinj Indy chips with RFID functionality for handheld readers and equipment used in the field and on farms and processing centers for read the rolls. Impinj Speedway readers are used in portals and elsewhere to read the rollers.

The ID-Cotton and Impinj partnership is ready to compete in the international cotton market. Impinj products operate globally and can be used by ID-Cotton as they expand their solution offering. Australian cotton gin operator Southern Cotton had previously announced the use of Impinj products in this sector.

The RFID readings were related to the mass, density, structure of the vehicles that handle the cargo, climatic conditions, rain, serene, humidity, position of the bale in the trailer, variety of trailers with different heights and volumes, angles of attack of the scales and flaws in other manufacturers’ processes. “As it is a completely new technology, there were many challenges, most of which were focused on transportation”, attests Tarasoff.

The differences in tare weight of the truck without the load and the structure of the vehicles, as well as the variety of trailers with different heights and volumes and the position of the cotton bales, were questions analyzed to carry out the readings without fail. “Climatic conditions”, says Tarasoff, “how rain, sun, serene and relative humidity also influence and the system needed to take these variants into account”. To carry out the weighing at the stations, it was necessary to check all the angles of attack of the scales on the roads so that there were no reading errors.

According to Alexandre Carvalho, information technology manager at Bom Futuro Group, the advantages of using ID-COTTON have been many, starting with the gain in reliability in cotton traceability. “Technology has also promoted more agility in the field and in transportation with automation in weighing trucks. All of this generated greater quality of information for decision making ”, he explains. “Now, we intend to expand RFID into the production process, ensuring quality and shipment of cotton bales”.

Another gain was the integration of data collection from John Deere harvesters, within the ERP, as well as all integration of this information with the ID-Cotton System, in a cloud database. “The high productivity in the field, thanks to the agility in data collection, data reliability, more information for coordinated analysis with GPS, humidity, harvester, driver, etc., certainly met expectations”, says the executive.