Project Background:

The fast development of the automobile industry and highway construction leads to a surge of demand for tires globally. However, the absence of effective regulatory tools has caused frequent traffic accidents and a waste of resources. 70% to 80% of traffic accidents were related to low quality tires. Therefore, informationalized management plays an indispensable and irreplaceable role in enhancing the supervision of tire production. By sticking a barcode label to each tire and part, manufacturers can realize efficient and effective management of product quality and life cycle.

As a world-renowned tire manufacturer, our customer pays close attention to quality control and production monitoring. Its factory has implemented barcode management of production with the printing solution provided by POSTEK I200 - an industrial printer boasts its all metal construction, high strength aluminum frame and rugged parts, achieving a timely, rapid and accurate information collection.

Solution:

Information and technology are of great importance for tire manufacturers to improve production efficiency and enhance market competitiveness. Therefore, tire manufacturers have widely adopted ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), MES (Manufacturing Execution System) and WMS (Warehouse Management System), which enable their users to increase efficiency, strengthen management and cope with the ever-changing and competitive market.

In these systems, data is entered, collected and transferred with the help of barcode or RFID technology. Barcode technology can realize fast, automatic and accurate data collection and transmission, avoid mistakes caused by manual operation, promote information traceability, keep record of production schedules, staff's working performance and procedure time, assist in scheduling and perfecting production process, as well as drive enterprise efficiency.

The informationalized management of production is achieved through a wireless network. The wireless network environment is enabled by multiple Access Points which connect to switches. Each workshop is equipped with a switch, several APs, various wireless barcode label printers, and wireless mobile data collectors. All the printers and collectors are connected to the latest AP and realize data interaction through the switch. The wireless system consists of three parts: Client Center Management System, wireless network, and terminal equipment.

Challenges:

To ensure higher efficiency and accuracy, the tire manufacturer and its system integrator set a strict standard for the quality of terminal equipment. After several rounds of rigorous testing, POSTEK I200 with Wi-Fi stands out for its excellent quality.                 

POSTEK technical engineers actively partnered with the customer's project leader to provide a thorough solution ensuring the stability of printers under a wireless network environment. When the current wireless signal is abnormal or unstable, the printer will execute reconfiguration automatically and reconnect to the latest AP to guarantee normal data interaction.

Effects:

1.Realize efficient and effective management of product quality and life cycle for the manufacturer;

2.Eliminates messy cables in workshops, improve production security and operation convenience though a whole-network data sharing and real-time printing.