Case Study: Dematic sees clearly with visualization

Case Study: Dematic sees clearly with visualisation

www.onwindows.com (United Kingdom) - May 5, 2009

“Of all the features that we need, pan and zoom is the most important.”
Joe White, Dematic

Dematic wanted an end-to-end visualisation system that could handle its complex warehouse management requirements. It found the solution in ICONICS’ GENESIS32-based technology.

Dematic Limited is a market leader in logistics automation systems and solutions. Based in the UK, its products and services range from individual products and systems to complete integrated solutions with warehouse management/control system functionality. The company’s portfolio of products includes: automatic storage and retrieval machines; conveying and sortation systems; order picking systems; voice technology; and palletising systems. A key element is the ability to visualise the exact status of all parts of the systems to ensure that availability is high. The Dematic visualisation system is built on ICONICS’ GENESIS32 technology.

In some cases, retail customers have outsourced their logistics to Dematic where warehousing of 34,000 items and the supply to 700 retail stores is typical. In such cases, there is no way that a supervisor could physically manage the warehouse without electronic visualisation - thus it constitutes a key function of the system.

The use of a SCADA product in logistics applications has specific requirements. All such systems are capable of visualisation, but without true ‘pan and zoom’, the density of the visual display is meaningless, even using large high-resolution screens.

“Of all the features that we need, pan and zoom is the most important,” says Joe White, software design manager at Dematic.

Looking at the Dematic ‘worldview’ reveals a web-like diagram of the physical layout of a warehouse. This shows all the mechanical and electrical components, which are colour coded according to their status. Red indicates a fault and yellow a consequential problem (typically a backup of items that cannot progress on conveyors owing to the fault). The warehouse supervisor can pan and zoom to get accurate ‘localised’ information about a problem and then dispatch a ‘jam-buster’ by radio telephony to investigate the problem and effect a solution, or to escalate it to an engineer.

Architecture
A logistics system is usually connected to a company’s ERP system as a key part of the supply chain. The ERP connects to the warehouse management system, which communicates to the warehouse control system - which in turn connects to PLCs at the equipment level. In this architecture, the SCADA or visualisation is placed above the PLCs but not in the direct data flow - it is there to provide supervisory visualisation. Additionally, GENESIS32 can be deployed in dual redundant mode for high levels of availability

Development Efficiency and Access
Dematic is a long term user of the Microsoft Windows-based GENESIS32 technology, and since 2000 they have used it continuously. Other SCADA solutions had been tried but when evaluated for pan and zoom, and development usability, they all had elements of compromise, unacceptable ‘workarounds’ and unneeded complexity when compared to GENESIS32.

ICONICS’ Symbol Technology allows Dematic engineers to develop modular solutions within the visualisation software. This has helped deliver significant engineering savings when implemented on subsequent projects. Application quality is also inherently improved as the modules are thoroughly tested in development and repeatedly proved in use. Dematic has developed configuration wizards that allow a menu-driven approach to be taken - this means that the focus of a project can be on the logistics solution rather than repetitive detailed software development.

Warehouse supervision has its own special requirements when compared with process or discrete SCADA applications.

“We have used various SCADA packages and to a degree they are all ‘open’ and they can all support various kinds of scripting,” says White. “However, GENESIS32 differs in having effective openness at the right level. We do not want to go to deep machine code to obtain the functionality that we need, but other packages do not allow modification and development of their functionality at a higher-level. GENESIS32 does and ICONICS helps us to do this when we have a really special requirement.”

ICONICS UK has an open dialogue with Dematic for the development of functionality that may be required as its products evolve. The solution is initially supplied as a patch to GENESIS32 which, when thoroughly tested, is rolled into the main product on the next release - ensuring that Dematic continues to use the mainstream product and not an increasingly isolated derivative.

The company uses GraphWorX32, AlarmWorX32, TrendworX32 and ReportWorX32 from within the GENESIS32 product. The tight integration of these visualisation, alarming and reporting tools results in a solution that provides high levels of availability through fast and accurate information processing from the automation level.

Alarms and Reporting
Alarms are handled by the system, but Dematic systems also require alarms and events to be reported. Reporting is automated, but the jam buster or engineer at the location of the event can input extra information using drop down menus. This annotation is added to the alarm to provide root-cause information for later analysis. Where the problem is faulty item packaging (for example a burst carton) the carton label can be captured to trace the problem to the supplier of the item (and therefore to implement carton quality or packing changes).

Further distribution of alarm and event information is greatly facilitated by ICONICS’ Web technology - information can be displayed using standard browsers, at any point within the warehouse’s IT system. This allows local and remote distribution of information in the form of event screens and availability trends. Dematic makes use of this to respond quickly to major issues - augmented by their network of on-site engineers.

Continuity
Dematic systems have a long life-cycle, they are complex to develop and, notwithstanding updates to effect extensions and improvements, the visualisation system tends to be frozen at that release, which was current at the project’s creation. ICONICS supports all versions of GENESIS32 and also ensures backwards compatibility, so Dematic can be confident that the consequences of either upgrading or not upgrading are minimal. The company uses the latest GENESIS32 version on each application - assured that their investment in symbol technology and modules is safe. The use of ICONICS’ technology by Dematic can be seen at over 30 installations across 25 warehouses in the UK alone, with a total of over 120 installed GENESIS32 systems.

http://www.onwindows.com/Partners/Iconics/479/Default.aspx

ICONICS Background Information

Founded in 1986, ICONICS is an award winning leader in the development of Web-enabled industrial automation and manufacturing intelligence software for Microsoft® Windows® operating systems. Our solutions are certified for Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista. ICONICS has successfully deployed more than 250,000 solutions in over 60 countries worldwide. Its solutions meet diverse customer needs in a variety of industries including Automotive, Building Management, Food & Beverage, Oil/Gas/Petrochemical, Machine Builders, Pharmaceutical/Biotech, Security, Water/Wastewater, Utilities, Government Infrastructures and more.

ICONICS’ corporate headquarters is located in Foxborough, Massachusetts (USA) near Boston. The company has offices throughout the United States, as well as in Australia, China, France, India, Italy, Germany, Netherlands and United Kingdom. ICONICS also has a joint software development and sales office in the Czech Republic.

© 2010 ICONICS, Inc. All rights reserved. Specifications are subject to change without notice. GENESIS64, GENESIS32, Pocket GENESIS, BizViz and their respective modules, OPC-To-The-Core, and Visualize Your Enterprise are trademarks of ICONICS Inc. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.