Lumileds: Streamlines with traceability and automated vehicles

Lumileds needed to streamline its operations. To do so, they chose to look at automation of their manufacturing and transportation. They wanted increased tracking of their transportation for better data. In the factories, they wanted to increase the efficiency of the work between humans and automated vehicles.  Together with Euvic’s team, they developed a solution where, among other things, six automated vehicles deliver goods between more than 40 logistics points on a track a few hundred meters long.    

Lumileds is a global lighting company that helps customers around the world deliver differentiated solutions. As the inventor of Xenon technology, a pioneer in halogen lighting and a leader in high-performance LEDs, Lumileds builds innovation into everything it does.  

Lumileds had defined its challenges and needed help finding a solution:  

• A shortage of people to work in freight transportation has led to an increased demand for automated and technological solutions to maintain efficient supply chains. 
   
• To meet the high quality requirements, full traceability of raw material shipments has become a must.  
   
• Robots that need to work together with humans. Human-machine interaction requires careful planning and design to ensure a safe and efficient working environment.
  
• Challenges of irregular raw material transportation from external warehouses

• Reduce the stock of final products in the production area to optimize the use of space. 

To meet Lumiled’s challenges, Euvic put together a cross-functional team with expertise in mechanics, electronics and IT, who together take overall responsibility for the development and implementation of the system. 

Together they created the solution below:

• The project involves an integrated solution that combines a customized IT system with autonomous vehicles to streamline internal transport processes in the industrial sector. 
  
• The developed solution is equipped with advanced sensors and programmable logic controllers that continuously monitor the location of materials to be transported. The IT system uses advanced algorithms to create transport missions and assigns them to the most suitable autonomous mobile robot (AMR) based on efficiency and availability. 
  
• To ensure the reliability of the solution and reduce downtime, the IT tool includes features to predict maintenance needs. Based on careful analysis of the usage data of the autonomous guided vehicles (AGVs), the system proactively informs users of upcoming maintenance efforts to maintain optimal operation. 

 

The results for Lumileds are summarized in the following points:  

• Raw materials and final products are delivered between production lines and warehouses in a fully automated way.
  
• Vision systems used for product identification eliminate the delivery of raw materials to the wrong production lines.
  
• Full insight into the performance and problems of the transportation process
  
• Since May 2020, Lumileds has moved more than 200,000 pallets. On a track a few hundred meters long, 6 automated vehicles deliver goods between more than 40 logistics points. With an average intensity of 15-20 pallets per hour and a maximum efficiency of 40 per hour. 
  
• Automated processes have solved the labor shortage for freight transport and also reduced irregular deliveries.