Radio frequency identification system for tracking and managing materials in a manufacturing process

#The present disclosure generally relates to using radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to advantageously track, manage and control the flow and or positions of material, such as inventory items, within a manufacturing process or an inventory storage facility, to make the tracking and retrieval of inventory items more automatic and efficient.

#Many manufacturing processes today are highly automated. However, in some industries, manufacturing processes still require manual operation and/or human intervention. An example industry with manually intensive manufacturing processes is the corrugated packaging industry, which typically produces corrugated boxes, point-of-purchase displays, and other kinds of paper based protective and distribution packaging.

#In a typical corrugated plant, the manufacturing process can be generally divided into four stages. In the first stage, rolls of paper material, called rollstock, are received and stored in a rollstock inventory area. In the second stage, the paper rolls are transferred to a wet end area of a corrugator or corrugation machine where the rolls are converted into a continuous corrugated board by gluing multiple layers of paper together in some manner, such as gluing a layer of corrugated paper with one or two layers of smooth paper. At the end of the corrugator machine, the corrugated board or paper is cut into sheets which are stacked before being placed in a work in process (WIP) area to wait for further processing. In the third stage, the stacks of corrugated sheets are delivered from the WIP area to a finishing area where machines typically called folders and gluers convert the sheets into boxes and other packaging or display products through operations such as die-cutting, printing, stapling, folding and gluing. During this stage, the boxes or other packaging and display products may be printed using, for example, printing plates or may be painted to provide graphics on the products. In the fourth stage, finished goods coming off the finishing area are banded and are palletized to get these finished goods ready for either storage in a warehouse or dispatch and delivery to customers.

#FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an example inventory and process management system that uses RFID technology to track inputs and outputs to manage or control the process flow in a manufacturing process.

#FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a manufacturing process used in a corrugated packaging plant in which the inventory and process management system illustrated in FIG. 1 can be used.

#FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating placement of RFID tags on various objects used in the corrugated packaging plant shown in FIG. 2.

#An inventory and process management or tracking system uses RFID technology to track and control the flow of inputs and outputs in a manufacturing process by using a single or a network of steerable antennas, such as beam steerable phased array antennas or other beam steerable antennas, to provide real-time, three dimensional location detection and tracking of RFID tagged materials and goods being used in an inventory or in a manufacturing process. The system uses the detected location and movement of the RFID tagged materials and goods to perform various steps in managing the flow or use of materials within a process to increase the productivity of the process including inventory management, to increase the production accuracy or quality of production of the process and to minimize labor costs and other costs associated with manual operational errors within the plant or process.

#More particularly, the process management system performs inventory management by documenting, tracking and recording the location of received raw materials in an inventory area or region of a plant using the 3D RFID detection and tracking system. The system updates the inventory by tracking the movement of the raw materials from place to place within the inventory area or region to other areas or regions of the plant where the raw materials are converted into intermediate products and/or finished goods. The system also directs process or production activities by first determining the required inputs (e.g., the raw materials), the required process activities (e.g., the process steps), and the generated outputs (e.g., the finished goods) in each stage of a manufacturing process. The system then regulates or manages the overall process or production flow by tracking and directing the movement of material inputs to and material outputs from each manufacturing stage using RFID tags, thereby improving efficiency, reducing downtime and cutting overall costs in the plant. Still further, the system manages the delivery, loading and shipping of finished goods by tracking the movement of finished goods within a loading bay of the plant to assure that the correct goods (for a particular job order or job number) are placed onto the correct truck for shipping or delivery to the customer. The system may also assure that the right number of goods are loaded, and may automatically generate, for example in real-time, a bill of landing including the exact goods loaded onto the truck. Moreover, if desired, the system may assure that finished goods are loaded onto a truck in the proper order to assure that unloading the truck is easier or more efficient when, for example, the truck must make multiple deliveries to different locations.

#FIG. 1 illustrates an example inventory and process management or tracking system 10 including a command system 12 connected to an RFID detection and tracking system that includes a network of antenna systems 14 (which may be for example, one or more electronically steerable phased array antenna systems each having multiple antenna elements 24) connected to a processor (not shown) that directs or operates the antennas or elements 24 in a manner described in more detail herein and performs RFID detection and tracking. While the antenna systems 14 may use an electronically steerable beam for RFID detection and tracking, other forms of antenna systems including directional antenna systems, for example, mechanically steerable beam antennas such as rotatable or movable parabolic antennas, Yagi antennas, log periodic antennas, corner antennas, etc. may be implemented to perform RFID detection and tracking. The command system 12 is also connected to one or more process or manufacturing controllers 16, each controlling process activities in one of a set of manufacturing stages 18a to 18d associated with a manufacturing process 19. The manufacturing process 19 may, in this example, include an inventory stage 20 and a shipping stage 21, which are not controlled by the process or manufacturing controllers 16. With reference to FIG. 1, the manufacturing process 19 includes four manufacturing stages or regions, but generally speaking, the manufacturing process 19 could include any other number of manufacturing stages or regions. During operation, material inputs and material outputs at each stage or region of the manufacturing process 19 are tagged with RFID tags 22 for identification and tracking. The antenna systems 14, which may be, by way of example, any of the phased array systems sold by RF Controls LLC and/or disclosed in U.S. Pub. No. 2010/0207738 (the entire disclosure of which is hereby expressly incorporated by reference herein), are used to detect and track the location and movement of the RFID tagged material inputs and material outputs and use this tracking information to manage the manufacturing process 19 using, for example, the controllers 16. Although FIG. 1 illustrates the phased array antenna systems 14 as having three antenna elements 24, the phased array antenna systems 14 in general may include any number of antenna elements disposed in a one-dimensional pattern (e.g., a line), a two dimension pattern (e.g., a grid) or even a three dimensional pattern.