Mitsuyoshi Horikawa

Three-layered traceability system supporting both blanching and assembly process

Under variety production circumstances, it becomes more important to manage production and distribution history information of each individual product. Information system tracing the history is generally referred to Traceability System. Traceability system has gradually obtained much attention, especially on food industries. Since the purpose of the existing traceability system is focused mainly on the consumer service, the system itself is generally independent of main management system and, therefore, the obtained traceability information may not be a contributing factor to the solution of production and distribution management problems. In this paper, we propose a three-layered traceability system, which consists of Application Service Provider, ASP, layer, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP, layer and Physical logistics layer. A prototype system is implemented under scenario of Processed Seafood Industry.

Loss detection model with kanban card for automobile assembly line

In a modern automobile assembly line, kanban cards or e-kanban cards are used for parts supply. In the line, if a worker would assemble incorrect part to a car body, an inferior product may be shipped to the following production process. Such inferior products will be caught at the inspection process however suspension of production line will occur. In this paper, we propose a loss detection model for a work station which requires installing certain parts. Relationship between number of conveyed car bodies and consumed parts are compared to detect the loss, where we use kanban cards to count parts consumption. We present mathematical models to detect losses and some numerical examples to show stochastic performance of the proposed loss detection model.

Traceability Information Management System for Composite Production Process

Much attention is now being paid to traceability systems which provide information on the production and distribution history of a product, especially in the food industry. Since the purpose of the system is focused on consumer service, the system is generally independent of a main management system, and therefore, the obtained traceability information is not applicable to the solution of production and distribution management problems. For example, dispatching the order information of parts, which is necessary to the traceability system, has generally been managed in MRP modules. Furthermore, sharing rigid inventory information of an individual product, which is easily obtained from the traceability system, can enlarge and extend the performance of supply chain management (SCM) systems. Horikawa et al. (2005) proposed a traceability information system which cooperates with ERP. The system comprises three-layered modules, namely physical logistics layer, ERP layer and independent data management layer. Traceability is realised with an information exchange among the three layers. This structure has the advantage over other applications at practical level as it replaces some modules to more suitable components such as more commonly available ERP package.

Development of traceability system for attribute information identification

In this paper, we introduce a traceability system which consists of three layers: Physical Logistics, ERP and Independent Data Management layers. Physical Logistics layer manages and records information which allocates production plan and material inventories. ERP layer deals with main core of business information, such as order, purchase, production and shipment. At Independent Data Management layer, entire information is gathered both from ERP layer and Physical Logistics layer. Independent Data management layer also produce inter-company traceability information. We have implemented an experimental prototype system and applied to tradings data based on seafood supply chain scenario. Each material and product is identified with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags. Users including consumers can obtain precise traceability information such as manufacturing and distribution through web application. We have applied purchase information for 8 weeks at distributors to the system and confirmed that the system works accurately.