LastObject: Eliminating Single-Use Plastic with IoT

SML Intelligent Inventory's customers, some retail and supply chain businesses wanted a cost-efficient way to improve their inventory management so that they can increase their revenue.

Moxa was asked to provide a connectivity solution for one of the world's leading cosmetics companies. This multinational corporation, with retail presence in 130 countries, 23 global braches, and over 66,000 employees, sought to improve the efficiency of their production process by migrating from manual monitoring to an automatic productivity monitoring system. The production line was being monitored by ABB Real-TPI, a factory information system that offers data collection and analysis to improve plant efficiency. Due to software limitations, the customer needed an OPC server and a corresponding I/O solution to collect data from additional sensor devices for the Real-TPI system. The goal is to enable the factory information system to more thoroughly collect data from every corner of the production line. This will improve its ability to measure Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) and translate into increased production efficiencies. System Requirements • Instant status updates while still consuming minimal bandwidth to relieve strain on limited factory networks • Interoperable with ABB Real-TPI • Small form factor appropriate for deployment where space is scarce • Remote software management and configuration to simplify operations

Sennco wanted to help its retail customers increase sales and profits by developing an innovative alarm system as opposed to conventional connected alarms that are permanently tethered to display products. These traditional security systems were cumbersome and intrusive to the customer shopping experience. Additionally, they provided no useful data or analytics.

Carrefour Taiwan’s goal is to be completely digital by end of 2018. Out-dated manual methods for analysis and assumptions limited Carrefour’s ability to change the customer experience and were void of real-time decision-making capabilities. Rather than relying solely on sales data, assumptions, and disparate systems, Carrefour Taiwan’s CEO led an initiative to find a connected IoT solution that could give the team the ability to make real-time changes and more informed decisions. Prior to implementing, Carrefour struggled to address their conversion rates and did not have the proper insights into the customer decision-making process nor how to make an immediate impact without losing customer confidence.

The company manufactures packaging films on made to order or configure to order basis. Every order has a different set of requirements from the product characteristics perspective and hence requires machine’s settings to be adjusted accordingly. If the film quality does not meet the required standards, the degraded quality impacts customer delivery causes customer dissatisfaction and results in lower margins. The biggest challenge was to identify the real root cause and devise a remedy for that.

KHS develops and produces machines and equipment for filling and packaging in the drinks industry. Because drinks manufacturing, filling and packaging consist of a number of highly complex processes, the user-friendly and intuitive operation of equipment is increasingly gaining in significance. In order to design these processes as simple as possible for the user, KHS decided to introduce a uniform, transparent and standardized solution to the company. The HMI interface should meet the requirement for people with different qualifications and enable them to work on a standard platform.