Abstract
Warehousing is one of the most important activities in the supply chain, enabling competitive advantage. Effective management of warehousing processes is, therefore, crucial for achieving minimal costs, maximum efficiency, and overall customer satisfaction. Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) are the first steps towards organizing these processes; however, due to the human factor involved, information on products, vehicles and workers may be missing, corrupt, or misleading. In this paper, a cost-effective Indoor Positioning System (IPS) based on Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology is presented for use in Intralogistics that works automatically, and therefore minimizes the possibility of acquiring incorrect data. The proposed IPS solution is intended to be used for supervising order-picker movements, movement of packages between workstations, and tracking other mobile devices in a manually operated warehouse. Only data that are accurate, reliable and represent the actual state of the system, are useful for detailed material flow analysis and optimization in Intralogistics. Using the developed solution, IPS technology is leveraged to enhance the manually operated warehouse operational efficiency in Intralogistics. Due to the hardware independence, the developed software solution can be used with virtually any BLE supported beacons and receivers. The results of IPS testing in laboratory/office settings show that up to 98% of passings are detected successfully with time delays between approach and detection of less than 0.5 s.
Highlights
Based on the samples collected during the calibration phase, a calibration was performed for the selected beacons
The main drawback of the proposed Indoor Positioning System (IPS) are the limitations on transmitter and receiver positions—we found that the system works best if the receiver is attached at the front, to the belt of the person carrying the receiver
The authors presented a cost-effective Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)-based IPS that can detect passings-by with very high accuracy in office/laboratory environments with few false detections in real time
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Logistics is becoming an increasingly important activity globally, with an estimated annual industry value of EUR 5.73 trillion in 2020. The value has dropped since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, but it is expected to rise to EUR 6.88 trillion by the year 2024 [1]. Intralogistics (internal logistics), including the warehousing processes, is one of the largest activities in Logistics, accounting for around 20.5% of the total Logistics market in 2018, indicating the strong importance of Intralogistics in the economy [2]
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