Steel Coil Tracking with Bluetooth Beacon Technology

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If your crane operators are manually searching for specific coils and manually recording the coil location every time it's moved, you can relate to these issues:

1. Risk of picking the wrong coil 
2. Manual searching is inefficient, labor-intensive, time-consuming 
3. Put-away locations aren't precise; subject to operator error
4. New locations aren't always recorded when coils are moved
5. Cycle and Physical counts are labor-intensive, unproductive and costly

The SPEDE Locator System uses BLE Beacon technology to Automate and Control:

• Receiving 
• Put-away 
• Tracking 
• Counting 
• Picking 
• Shipping  

At Receiving - a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) Beacon, which has a unique ID, is attached to a Coil via magnet. The operator can scan the Beacon ID to associate it to the Coil ID, and then scan/ enter additional Coil specs if desired (Processor Tag, Heat Number, Lot Number, Grade, Mill, etc.) to complete the Receipt transaction.  The SPEDE Locator App,residing on a handheld tablet PC, records the Receipt. The Beacon will transmit its ID to the Locator App whenever the coil /container is lifted or moved. 

At Put-away - crane-mounted distance lasers identify the XY or XYZ location where the coil is put. 

At Picking - the operator simply enters the search criteria for the desired coil. The SPEDE Locator System App displays the specific location of the desired coil. Distance lasers on the crane verify the crane is at the correct location, and SPEDE confirms the desired coil ID is being picked / loaded. The SPEDE Locator database is instantly updated with the coil transaction.  

Key Features of the Bluetooth Beacon: 

1. Small Size (1.5 in diameter, .5 in height)
2. Long Battery Life (3 years)
3. Replaceable internal button battery (CR2032)
4. Extended Bluetooth transmit distance (up to 300+ feet)
5. Internal Accelerometer inside Beacon wakes up on coil movement, and automatically triggers BT data transmission
6. Beacon has a magnet for easy attachment to coil
7. Beacon has an optional 2D barcode that can be scanned to associate the Beacon ID to the coil’s data, e.g., part nbr, heat, supplier, etc.
8. Beacon transmits its unique Beacon ID to a SPEDE BT App on a handheld Windows 10 PC tablet, where the Coil Location database resides
9. Optional WiFi support for multiple tablets and/or interface to a host computer system

Advantages of Bluetooth Beacons:

1. Simple to use and reusable
2. Inexpensive
3. Precise - Data transmission occurs only when the target item is moved (Beacon wakes up)