Experiments - Lighthouses

Lighthouse description

The main objective for this experiment was the improvement of the efficiency and innovativeness of FCA Supply Chain, implementing and using MIDIH solution that, by mean of both FIWARE and custom components, allows a better knowledge and understanding of events that can happen during the shipment of components from the supplier plant to the production plant.

The adoption of this solution has allowed to have information in case any issues occur, in order to improve availability and timely scheduling of the production, thanks to the real-time tracking and monitoring of materials during the supply.

The i4.0 Smart Logistic application, developed by Cefriel, and that leverages on MIDIH Platform, has been used for the scope of this part of the CRF Lighthouse experiment. The application leverages on custom tracker devices, called Ologer (Outdoor Logistics Tracker). These devices permit the tracking of the parameters needed for the monitoring of the environmental and mechanical events impacting the components status during transportation from a starting plant to destination plant.

FROM CHALLENGE TO SOLUTION

• CHALLENGE:
  
  Inbound logistics is sometimes characterized by a low level of visibility and information sharing on one side, and, on the other side, on the complete absence of measurable indicators enabling to monitor the level of quality of the transport.
  
  For example, localization is provided for the 3PL with rough indications such as «your transport has left the supplier site». Another example is the impossibility to know how components with specific needs regarding temperature or shocks (metal sheet, headlights) have been handled during transportation. A third example is a truck incident or delay, which is usually reported manually by the driver through personal or company devices (e.g. phones).
  
  In the AS-IS situation, only localization at starting and arrival point was indicated, by manual input, and data about the status of components weren’t available, as for example vibrations or temperature data. This implies that, in case of delays or quality issues during the supply of components needed for the production, the plants were informed with a delay of possible logistics issues, with a negative impact on the efficiency and timing of the production processes and product delivery.

• SOLUTION (Main results expected to be achieved):
  
  The implementation of MIDIH solution has allowed:
  • Data visualization, enabling the user to contextualize and understand parameters trends;
  • Data monitoring, giving to the user the possibility to have notification in case of delays or if parameters are out of the predefined range, in order to understand in advance possible issues during the shipment:
    • GPS position
    • Temperature
    • Humidity
    • Vibrations
  
  Thanks to these functionalities, it has been possible to improve the knowledge about the Supply process, enabling the condition monitoring of the containers during their shipment, and then a better management of unexpected issues. This has brought to the optimization of the whole Supply process in FCA, in terms of quality, efficiency and costs.
  
  Moreover, the collaboration with suppliers strengthened, enhancing the FCA value chain.