MHD WAREHOUSES AND DCS
TRACKING PRODUCTS WITH MULTI-CODE READERS
ifm efector’s Eugene Inbaraj, a Field Technical Support Engineer gives MHD an insight into the German company’s identification sensors and how they’re being used throughout the COVID-19 pandemic in warehouses and distribution centres.
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he German tech company ifm efector, a manufacturer of industrial sensors and solutions of technical process by means of sensors, networking, and control systems, is equipping the supply chain and logistics industries with a range of advanced sensors to help with sorting and tracking products in warehouses and distribution centres. Eugene Inbaraj, an electrical engineer has been working as a Field Technical Support Engineer at ifm for the past three years. With the latest update in the O2I5xx multi-code reader, the company now offers optical character recognition (OCR), which Eugene says was introduced by vision-based tech companies back in the 1980s. It utilises vision technologies and methods to identify texts on packaging. This is used to check if an expiry date is properly labelled on a product or if its details are correct or incorrect. Before businesses can deliver their products from a warehouse or DC to a retail store such as a supermarket, they can use OCR to ensure important dates are printed accurately on the product. With the uptake of IoT devices in industry, the exchange of data between manufacturer and retailer has made this process easier. “With O2I5 series code readers we can read a single line barcode, 2D QR codes and do OCR with the same device,” Eugene says. “The processing is done on board of the camera, and it has various functions to identify which codes are being presented to it,” he adds. “We cover a foundation of products from photoelectric, inductive and
With the uptake of IoT devices in industry, the exchange of data between manufacturer and retailer has made this process easier. capacitive position sensors right up to complex systems where we investigate vibration analysis, condition-based monitoring, track and trace systems, vision systems, and we can help provide a complete solution package for a broad range of industries from that large portfolio.” Eugene explains how code reading is a very big business in terms of track and trace. “It’s a broad umbrella of a symphony of different technologies coming together that provides insight of where the product is in the whole manufacturing process and supply chain.” He says once it reaches the customers’ hands, they can trace its genealogy. This helps to identify counterfeits and help manufacturers in establishing lead times and stock levels, especially when there’s a short supply of raw material or components, or when there’s nothing available. Each of these materials or products
that are being manufactured will have some sort of code, and these will be fed back into a planning scheduler, Eugene says. An example he gives is if someone is shopping at a local store and wants to know where a product was manufactured – depending on the product; they can find this out just by scanning something like a QR code. Additionally, they can ascertain as to whether the country of origin subscribes to the UN’s Human Rights policy, hence helping the customer make an ethical purchase. “It helps the end-user to make a conscious decision on what product they’re buying, who’s touched it, who’s manufactured it, preventing counterfeit, and it also helps in reducing lead time and storage, and time to manufacture so the customer knows everything and every point of the process,” Eugene explains. He says if a product doesn’t have a MHD JUNE 2022 | 29
