Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing 29 (2013) 502–512

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Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rcim

Evaluating the performance of a discrete manufacturing process

using RFID: A case study
Ihsan Arkan n, Hendrik Van Landeghem
Department of Industrial Management, Ghent University, Technologiepark 903, B-9052, Ghent, Belgium

art ic l e i nf o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The material flow is a major focus point in improving productivity in today’s product diversified
Received 18 February 2013 manufacturing organizations. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of efficient methods to control material
Received in revised form flow through manufacturing processes in cases where multi-item tracking is difficult to achieve. This
21 May 2013
paper presents an RFID-based RTLS (Real-Time Location System) solution for obtaining multi-item work-
Accepted 23 June 2013
Available online 19 July 2013
in-process visibility within a manufacturer. It delivers detailed performance metrics through RTLS data
analysis in order to evaluate workflow performance and to obtain a lean process. We pre-filter the RTLS
Keywords: data through the development of a middleware data collection method to acquire near real-time
RFID performance evaluation. A case study illustrates the complete process including measurements before
Rapid manufacturing
and after a workflow redesign. The increased level of detail from RFID measurements yields new insights
Material flow
into shop floor actions and the real effects of redesign efforts.
Real-time location system
Workflow layout & 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Middleware development

1. Introduction Companies must constantly control and improve manufactur-

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is an automatic identifi-
cation technology for tagging objects and receiving object data
wirelessly by the signal transmissions between tag and antennas,
linked to a central server. Its main function is to register real-time
information on the identity and location of the tags. This technol-
ogy for industrial purposes was first initiated in supply chain
operations [1,2]. Up to now, many RFID applications have been
discussed for supply chain purposes, but also manufacturing
practices have been reported [3]. However, increasingly the shop
floor has to be synchronized with the RFID-enabled supply chain
[4] and for this RFID technology must be adapted to the manu-
facturing environment. In order to track tagged products or objects
on a shop floor, RFID technology is employed in a Real-Time
Location System (RTLS) configuration. RTLS is a system that locates
objects automatically within a pre-defined area and is able to
monitor them in real-time [5,6]. This system generally utilizes
active RFID tags that signal periodically to the RFID reader antennas
surrounding an area to precisely track moving targets [7]. This
paper explores the potential of RFID technology, as an RTLS
solution, for manufacturing implementation.
ing performance to remain competitive. The major concern of
businesses is to maintain sufficient up-to-date workflow knowl-
edge to be able to effectively advance performance. This workflow
knowledge, which contains measures of material flow, worker
utilization and many complex events [8], has up to now not been
investigated in an automated manner. Time measurements are
mostly being performed manually by stopwatches and video
analysis. In complex shop floor situations, these tools are not
accurate enough, and too time-consuming for regular use. The lack
of advanced measurement tools and incomplete shop floor data
lead to a decrease in analysis skills within companies, and a
further reduction of detailed flow studies [9]. As a result, currently
many production companies lack clear visibility into their internal
plant logistics, and cannot adequately reconfigure their shop
floors, in order to meet the changes in customer demand and
product variety.
The purpose of the research is twofold:

Identify the potential of RFID location tracking in workplace
redesign.

Validate the findings in an industrial setting.

This paper describes a method for beneficial use of RTLS to

n
Corresponding author. Tel.: +32 484 56 7863.
E-mail addresses: ihsan.arkan@ugent.be, ihsan_arkan@yahoo.com (I. Arkan),
Hendrik.vanlandeghem@ugent.be (H. Van Landeghem).
analyze product flow through performance evaluation within
multi-item production process. The method has been tested in
the quality control department of a company producing plastic
bumpers and spoilers for passenger cars. The trajectories of the

0736-5845/$ - see front matter & 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rcim.2013.06.003
 I. Arkan, H. Van Landeghem / Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing 29 (2013) 502–512
products are collected automatically as location data streams. This
data collection is improved by developing a middleware which
pre-filters redundant data before storing into the database. From
the database we calculate productivity and other key performance
indicators (KPIs) linked with time and motion analysis, such as
cycle time analysis and speed. In a separate study the workflow is
redesigned via a simulation model. The redesign step using the
simulation model is only described succinctly, since it is not the
main focus of the paper, but nevertheless it forms an integral part
of the case study. Consequently, the redesign is evaluated with the
previous productivity parameter and KPIs recalculated using
newly obtained RTLS data. The significant level of detail of
productivity and KPIs could not be achieved before RTLS with
current measurement tools. This kind of beneficial application of
RFID was up to now largely missing in literature.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows; in Section 2,
the background for this study is provided, mainly focusing on
positioning technologies and previous work on asset tracking; in
Section 3, the shop floor case with the RTLS implementation is
described; in Section 4, the developed middleware is explained; in
Section 5, the research steps that follow data mining and then to
obtain the KPIs are stated; in Section 6, the results are presented and
discussed, and in the last section, the conclusions and future research
are summarized.
2. Literature study
2.1. Technical background
An RFID system consists of fixed readers and mobile tags that
communicate by messages, sent by the tag’s transponder to
antennas of the readers within the work space boundary [10].
RFID functions as an indoor wireless positioning technology that
determines tag positions with a timestamp. The position is
represented in terms of a set of coordinates [11] and it is basically
estimated by triangulation algorithms that also yield the accuracy
of the measurements.
RFID technology has been mostly used in supply chain settings
[1] (such as warehousing or transport yards) and only recently
emerged for use on the shop floor. The dense plant environments
with the dynamic production flow need accurate measurements
with high update rates. At the same time it presents a difficult and
challenging environment for electromagnetic waves. Few RFID
systems are built up on low-frequency wave spectrum solutions
[12]. The low-frequency systems provide accurate data, but require
many readers throughout the shop floor to track sequenced
operations, since the reader-tag proximity is important for the
data update rate [13] and this need for proximity decreases the
usefulness of the wireless feature of the system. Therefore, many
RFID systems are built up on the UHF (Ultra High Frequency) wave
spectrum and WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) solutions [13],
but they do not provide location accuracy of centimeters which is
required for this case. In this case study, Ultra Wide Band (UWB) is
used to track shop floor operations, which delivers enhanced RTLS
performance in terms of location accuracy, throughput and envir-
onmental robustness [14,15]. Ubisense UWB technology was
selected for this study [13]. It provides the appropriate accuracy,
precision and wireless technology solution.
RFID tags are divided into three main categories: passive, semi-
passive and active. The differences between these types are found
in their frequency limits, detection range, memory space and
battery specifications [10]. In this case, active tags were used, as
they constantly broadcast strong signals and can communicate
with readers over long ranges of 20 to 100 m [8]. Also, active RFID
yields enhanced communication performance [16].
503
2.2. Existing work and methodological background
RFID systems are used in many fields such as supply chain,
manufacturing, business processes and warehouse operations
[17–19]. In manufacturing applications, companies have been using
this system mostly for access control [8], inventory management
[3], product quality improvement [20], but rarely for shop floor
process control in real-time [21]. The manufacturing application
which addresses in-plant logistics is the case discussed in this
empirical study.
Recently RFID technology applications in manufacturing are
focusing on asset tracking in real-time [14,22,21]. We are inter-
ested in using trajectories of goods and handling equipment to
optimize asset flows and work organization. The facility layout has
a significant impact on shop floor productivity [21]. Some optimi-
zation studies using indoor positioning technologies are discussed
conceptually [23,24], but practically, data streams are not pro-
cessed or analyzed.
The articles about RFID data acquisition are mostly based on
generating time series of position data [25,26] and the data is
usually analyzed through data cleansing methods [27], adjusting
the monitoring frequency [28] and event extraction [29]. Specifi-
cally, in this research, product workflow measurements are con-
verted by RFID middleware into node-arc data [23], and this type
of data is then processed by time analysis and material flow
visualization.
3. An industrial case study
As part of a collaborative research project on RFID in-plant
logistics, an RTLS object tracking system was used in the QC
(Quality Control) department of a plastic bumper/spoiler manu-
facturing company in order to evaluate the performance of work-
flow, before and after a redesign. Next, the shop floor overview,
the RTLS deployment and the simulation model are discussed.
3.1. Shop floor overview
The characteristics of the QC department and the workflow,
before and after the redesign are described in this section.
The department forms a small cell with an area of 375 m2
between a paint shop and the warehouse for final part assembly,
with the purpose of assessing the quality of products. The products
are plastic bumpers and spoilers for passenger cars, and there are
32 types of items. The dimension of a bumper is about 1.5 m in
length and 0.5 m in width, and 1.5 m by 0.2 m for a spoiler. Each
product requires one to five process steps. The process is a low
automated craft job. The workers carry and process unfixed,
lightweight and fragile items between work islands. Fig. 1 shows
a cross-section of the QC department. The work units are located
1–2 m from each other. The environment is highly metallic
because of the infrastructure consisting of multi-item carrier skids,
process tables, WIP (work-in-process) conveyor buffers and stor-
ing units. The shop floor can hold up to 52 items as WIP. The
incoming skids carry 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 or 12 pieces depending on the
item type.
The workflow follows the process steps shown in Fig. 2. Items
arrive into this department from the paint floor according to a
production schedule and they are carried by skids which are
moving on a rail. The process is divided into two steps named
QC1 (Quality Control 1) and QC2 (Quality Control 2) respectively.
The process before redesign goes as follows:
1. The pieces on incoming skids are removed by two operators to
conduct a first visual quality control. This is carried out either
504 I. Arkan, H. Van Landeghem / Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing 29 (2013) 502–512

Fig. 1. A photo from QC department.

QC1

Item arrival Quick scan WIP buffer

Scrap unit Quality control

QC2

Assembly

Warehouse rack

Fig. 2. An item production cycle in quality control department.

on a QC1 table or operators perform the task quickly while
holding the part by hand. Afterwards, operators place the items
randomly on conveyors that have space available, where as in
the case of a defect the item is moved to the defects unit. The
conveyor belts serve as WIP buffers between QC1 and QC2. The
spoiler is placed at the upper shelf and the bumper that is
going to be mounted unto it is located at the lower shelf of the
same conveyor belt.
2. On the other side of these buffers, in QC2, six operators process
the items. The workflow in QC2 is sequentially;
(a) Removing a part from a conveyor,
(b) Conducting a second quality check generally on a
QC2 table,
(c) Assembling two pieces on an assembly desk if necessary,
(d) Scanning the item and
(e) Placing it unto an empty rack close by. Again in case of a
defect, the item is placed in the defects unit.
3.2. RTLS deployment
3.2.1. Requirements analysis
An object tracking technology is required to track the items
wirelessly and automatically through their cycle, and further to
assess the performance of the workflow. A robust system solution
is necessary according to the requirements and challenges of the
shop floor:

Up to 52 items of WIP require rapid location data or tracking in
seconds.
 I. Arkan, H. Van Landeghem / Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing 29 (2013) 502–512 505

The location measurements should be accurate enough to
distinguish the work islands, since some of them are less than
a meter from each other.

The metallic infrastructure of the environment can cause signal
deterioration.
The comparison of indoor wireless process measurement tools
of time and motion is illustrated in Table 1, together with more
classic tools such as stopwatch and image processing of video
records. The representation of the characteristics of indoor posi-
tioning technologies from [10,11,14] is extended with this table.
The challenge of precise and fast tracking of multiple items
demands a stable communication platform of radio frequency and
ultrasound technologies [16]. Besides, to track an item throughout
the shop floor, the antenna network has to have a clean line of
sight, penetrating the whole area. Conventional RFID systems such
as gate antenna systems cannot detect the tag’s location within a
defined space. An RTLS solution based on Ultra Wide Band (UWB)
communication with active RFID tags was therefore selected.
RTLS particularly determine the approximate location of the
objects in real-time by employing reader antennas to collect
signals from active tags, and a software program triangulates the
signals to find the coordinates of the tag. Triangulation algorithms
use Angle of Arrival (AOA) and Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA)
algorithms to calculate the precise location of tags.
3.2.2. Implemented solution
The RTLS consisted of some hardware components and system
software. Nine Ultra Wide Band (UWB) readers, a hand held tag
reader, 52 active tags and a database server constitute the hard-
ware components. Fig. 3 represents the shop floor layout with the
implemented RTLS solution. The readers were strategically located
to avoid signal deterioration, to reach 710 cm position accuracy
and to precisely locate a tag with as many readers as possible.

Table 1
Comparison of indoor time and motion measurement tools.

Tool/parameter Stopwatch Video record Conventional RFID RTLS

Sight Line of sight Line of sight Non-line of sight Non-line of sight

Read range Few meters Hundreds of meters Passive tags, 1–2 m active tags, 10–30 m Active tags, 20–100 m
Scan One unit at a time One unit at a time Several units Multi-units
Cost Low Medium to high Medium Medium to high
Measurement process Static Continuous Static Continuous
Location accuracy N/A N/A 1–3 m 15 cm
Communication spectrum N/A VHF UHF UWB
Location positioning Manual Semi-automatic Automatic Automatic
Update rate Seconds Milliseconds 2–5 s Milliseconds

Tag

Fig. 3. RTLS layout on top of the shop-floor layout.

506 I. Arkan, H. Van Landeghem / Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing 29 (2013) 502–512
Fifty-two active tags were deployed to track the maximum
number of items of work-in-process. A handheld tag reader was
used to read and match the tag data automatically with the item
info on an Excel sheet. The database server was capable of storing
a high volume of data. The system implementation was rather
practical and did not affect the production process, since the
readers were mounted on the ceiling, the database server was a
remote pc suite that can be placed at any available space and the
tags were easily placed unto the incoming items using a plain
rubber band. The tag placement started at the entrance of the
department where skids arrived from the paint floor. We intended
to tag as many items on a skid as possible without influencing the
production speed. At least the first item and most of the last items
on a skid are tagged. The operators removed the tags from the
pieces at the end of the process cycle and sent them back to the
entrance for reuse.
The system software contains a tag location engine to manage
data streams and a 2D spatial platform for real-time monitoring of
tag motions on a map. The engine converts the received tag signals
into location data, i.e. the tag’s X, Y and Z coordinates with a time
stamp, so the data can be represented with a tuple of the form:
(EPC, time, location) where EPC (Electronic Product Code) is the
tag’s identity number, time is the instant that the tag is read and
the location is the tag’s coordinates calculated by the readers [30].
The location engine is fine-tuned according to the workflow
parameters, since each data aggregation changes with different
shop floor parameters. The important parameters of this workflow
tracking are:

Tag read update rates.

Level of filtering of immobile items.

Accuracy in location measurements.
Firstly, the tag read update rate, which is also the data
streaming frequency, is the production cycle time for a tag to
transmit signals to the readers for position calculation. The rapid
movements of tags, when workers carry and operate items, need
Fig. 4. Middleware design for pre-data filtering.
fast location update rates to track items without missing critical trails.
The items can irregularly fluctuate more than 1 m/s in motion velocity
and according to the mode of the highest motion velocity range, the
update interval tuned to 0.432 s. Secondly, the items can stay steady
on WIP for many minutes, sometimes more than 5 min, which
accumulates unnecessary location data of database. An option for
tag immobility filtering is reached with a “sleep state” feature of the
active tags. Sleep state is the sleep mode of the tags when they stop
sending signals to the reader until they start moving again. This also
conserves batteries. An item stays at least 4 s on a buffer and
accordingly, the sleep state is set to 4 s. Lastly, the location data must
be reliable and this is achieved by configuring the accuracy filter. The
configuration parameter is called “Maximum valid position variance”,
which is the maximum variance of the position estimate that is
reported as a valid sighting, is configured to 3 m. This is the critical
distance between work islands.
The key characteristics of this UWB RTLS infrastructure com-
pared to the RFID systems [12,31] that aim internal WIP visibility
and traceability with lower frequencies are:

RTLS functions as an accurate indoor GPS (Global Positioning
System) which has complete visibility and traceability through-
out the shop floor.

RTLS readers are mounted around the shop floor area which do
not disturb or contact with WIP units.

It does not need specific proximity between readers and tags.

The jobs are automatically identified based on the movements
of the tags. No additional job completion reports are needed.
The system was monitored and tag location data was stored
during the production process. Before redesign, the system gen-
erated 228,000 location measurements (26 MB) in 3 h. This
excessive amount of data was not practical to analyze, requiring
long processing times which can reduce the up-to-date informa-
tion aspect of the system. For this, a middleware feature is
developed to filter the redundant data during data retrieval and
also to facilitate further analysis.
 I. Arkan, H. Van Landeghem / Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing 29 (2013) 502–512
4. Middleware development
An RTLS middleware design is proposed to reduce the database
size and speed up the data analysis process. The high volume of
data streams is redundant in many cases, such as duplicate
readings from items that wait in buffers for many minutes or
predictable patterns when items move in a straight line between
work areas. These excessive data streams lead to huge database
capacity requirements and increase data cleaning times. This flood
of data is one of the major problems of RFID applications. Many
different data reduction methods are proposed in the literature to
cope with this challenge. However, most of them work on the huge
database of retrieved data [25,30,32]. It is also suggested to reduce
the database size itself by decreasing the data stream frequency to
seconds or minutes, but this increases the chance of missing
critical location information, especially in a fast production pro-
cess. Hence, we are interested in retrieving filtered data directly
from RTLS to safeguard the real-time knowledge embedded in it.
The data aggregation methods that are proposed by Bleco and
Kotidis, and Gonzales et al. [25,30] to convert basic tuples (EPC,
location, time) to stay records of (EPC, locationi, time_in, time_out)
are applicable in middleware level. Also, duplicated records
aggregation can be extended even more, to an event-based data
aggregation level. For example, if an item is placed and assembled
on an assembly table, the assembly process can be considered as
an event and just the process record (EPC, Zoneassembly1, time_in,
time_out) of the event can be stored. The event-based data
streaming follows three steps:

To define event types and events.

To format the data structure for them.

To design RTLS middleware platform accordingly.
The first step is to define event types and events of the
workflow to describe in the middleware. The workflow is a
network that can be structurally described by node–arc topology.
The node and arc represents two different types of event. A “node”
or work represents an item being processed on a fixed location
and an “arc” or flow is a linear trip from one fixed location to
another. The fixed locations consist of the incoming rail, QC tables,
assembly desks, conveyors and racks. And the arcs represent
movements across the production platform, as lines to circumvent
the difficulty of accurate distance calculations and indexing. Each
node and arc is therefore a simple event. The combination of these
simple events builds the complex events such as QC1 or QC2. The
overall event is then the cycle of an item.
The second step is to format the data structure. Two types of
events are aggregated from the data: a stay record, which
represents an entry and exit information when a tagged item
passes a node into a designated zone [33], and a flow record,
which indicates a departure and an arrival between two zones.
Each entry and exit data should be written separately to be able to
combine two types of event. Then, a single data row contains
either an entry or exit information with tag identity, zone
identification and the time: (EPCi, Zonei, timei, In/Out).
The third step is to design RTLS middleware platform. An event-
based filtering algorithm is applied by spatial management of RTLS
platform (Fig. 4). The space covered by RFID readers sighting is
spatially configured by the middleware on top of visual software.
The RTLS software contains a dynamic map to monitor the RTLS
readers’ defined space. The nodes are defined as rectangular zones
in the middleware platform, so when a tag enters or leaves a zone a
data row is collected. The shapes of the zones differ for each work
bench, depend on the area that a bench covers. Specific zones are
labeled: Rail as “Zrail”, Quality control tables as “Zqci”; i є {1,…, 9},
507
Assembly tables as “Zassemblyi”; i є {1,…, 6}, WIP buffers as “Zbufferi”;
i є {1,…, 4} and Racks as “Zracki”; i є {1,…, 6}.
An example of middleware data filtering is also displayed in
Fig. 4. A tag’s data stream is shown with dots. The tag EPC1 passes
from Zbuffer1 and arrives to Zqc1. The red points are filtered out
and just the green dots are transferred to the database. The
collected data are (EPC1, Zbuffer1, time1, In), (EPC1, Zbuffer1, time2,
Out) and (EPC1, Zqc1, time3, In). This pre-filtering reduces the
database size dramatically without losing critical information. Its
value as a network tracing can find application in production
platforms by utilizing RFID system middleware.
5. Research method
The aim of the method is to generate and provide elaborate
KPIs to the enterprise using reliable RTLS data, which before relied
on conventional, manual and less frequent observations. More-
over, the enterprise can remotely assess the workflow perfor-
mance in near real-time. In doing this, two development steps are
required. First is data mining; to clean and cluster the filtered RTLS
data ready to analysis. The second step is to generate KPIs of the
plant floor for lean visibility and to define RTLS data analysis
algorithms to calculate these KPIs.
Our RFID data mining model follows a similar approach as the
first two steps of the framework by Zhong [34]:

Data cleansing for duplicate records.

Data clustering to recognize patterns and to retrieve the data
streams of the item production cycles.
Generating KPIs
This step defines KPIs of the workflow on the plant floor or
what to measure in detail. This selection of appropriate perfor-
mance measures [35] has to be in line with the organization’s
requirements [36,37]. Four key performance areas are specified
here: (i) Time, (ii) Speed, (iii) Quality and (iv) Efficiency.
(i) Time
Time measurement is the basic information that is aggre-
gated by RFID data. The cycle and processing time, which
are the basis for process control [38], are the main KPIs that
can be extracted from time measurements. A cycle of an
item is studied here as a complex event, consisting of a
network that is formed from simple events. The processing
time represents the meaningful events that are extracted
from cycles such as QC1, QC2 and assembly operations. If we
order the events from complex to simple, the time mea-
surements we can deliver are:
Cycle time⇒QC1, QC2 processing time⇒work time (i.e.
buffer, assembly bench) and flow time (i.e. buffer to
assembly bench)
The definition of specific variables are:
tend ¼end of cycle time
tstart ¼tag to item attachment time
track ¼ the input time to a rack
tscrap ¼the time that item fails quality control and
removed
The time measurements are calculated as:
Item cycle timeðt cycle Þ ¼ t end t start ; t end
¼ ft scrap ; if def ect; t rack ; if qualif iedg
508 I. Arkan, H. Van Landeghem / Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing 29 (2013) 502–512

Item Q C1 timeðt Q C1 Þ ¼ t ðZbuf f eri;InÞ t Zrail

in a separate study to improve the work organization through
Item Q C2 timeðt Q C2 Þ ¼ t end t ðZbuf f eri;OutÞ redesign of the workflow layout of the QC area described above.
A stay or work timeðt node Þ ¼ t ðZonei;OutÞ t ðZonei;InÞ The company accepted the proposal and requested an evaluation
A f low timeðt arc Þ ¼ t ðZonei;InÞ t ðZonei1;OutÞ of the redesign to know if they should keep the new layout or
whether they needed to introduce further improvements.
To assess the new layout, we collected shop floor data before
(ii) Speed
and after the redesign. Multi-item position data collected during
Production speed of materials has significant importance on
3 h of production process before and 3 h after the redesign. The
productivity [37]. Fast speeds can influence quality
data analysis was done with MS Excel. The simulation model, RTLS
(scratches and bumps) and slower rates can result in lower
data analysis that consists of productivity and KPIs, and the
productivity. Item speed is a distinctive KPI to assess the
discussion of the results are respectively described in the rest of
consistency in the material flow. The item speed here is
the section.
calculated for cycles, QC1 and QC2. The time measurements,
RTLS data accuracy is not discussed in this section, since the
as the component of the speed, are already calculated as
system is precisely configured as it is described in the implemen-
stated above. The distances were indexed as it is discussed
ted solution section. Data quantity is summarized in Table 2. The
in middleware development section. The speed equations
accurate location data was reduced by 98.6% through the middle-
are:
ware and further data cleaning took this to 96.1% reduction. The
Item cycle speedðscycle Þ ¼ ð∑distancecycle Þ=t cycle clean zone data is then analyzed to obtain the productivity
Item Q C1 speedðsQ C1 Þ ¼ ð∑ðdistanceðZbuf f eri;InÞ and KPIs.
distanceZrail ÞÞ=ðt ðZbuf f eri;InÞ t Zrail Þ
Item Q C2 speedðsQ C2 Þ ¼ ð∑ðdistanceend
distanceðZbuf f er;OutÞ ÞÞ=ðt end t ðZbuf f er;OutÞ Þ

Table 2
(iii) Quality Database size reduction with data processing.
Quality is recognized as a strategic must for all companies
RTLS database after redesign Location data Raw zone data Clean zone data
[36] and throughout their production flow the ratio of scrap
indicates the quality level. The quality is measured as reject During 3 h of production
ratio in the production process and this ratio can be 218 items tagged and tracked
acquired from RTLS data (tags entering the reject zone). Database size: 73 MB 1 MB 40 KB
Row count: 610,143 14,708 1000
The defect rejection ratio is calculated as the numbers of
Improvement in size (%): – 98.60% 96.10%
defects rejected over the total items processed. Moreover,
the reject ratio can be calculated in periods (i.e. Defect reject
ratio per hour).
Total def ect reject ratio ¼ ðNo: of def ects=No: of
items processedÞ n 100

(iv) Efficiency
Efficiency is in terms of work space utilization. We consider
workload allocation and bottleneck operations visibility.
The workload allocation is to compute the division of tasks
in the same work group. The shop floor has five different
work groups: WIP buffers (Zbufferi), assembly desk opera-
tions (Zassemblyi), rack transfer units (Zracki), QC1 and QC2
table operations (Zqci). WIP buffers are the focal point,
because they are the material tracking areas where
movements of various materials can be traced and
controlled [39].

Obtaining detailed visibility of a material flow is needed to

distinguish the outliers in the process. The visualization is Fig. 5. A snapshot from the simulation of the QC department.
obtained here by drawing spaghetti diagrams based on position
data streams. The product type and color are distinguishable in the
diagram. The diagram helps to analyze the workflow visually in Table 3
Comparison of the workflow parameters with simulation.
order to gain insight into the complete picture and for the
different item types. Each cycle is drawn with lines by connecting Workflow parameters Before redesign After redesign
the zones. The diagram was drawn in a freeware program called
Inkscape with different item colors. The diagram is shown and Total number of operators 8 7
QC1 operators 2 2
explained more in the results section.
QC2 operators 6 5
Item distribution to WIP buffers Random Specific
Idle time of operators QC1 operators (%) 14 12
6. Results and discussion QC2 operators (%) 26 15
Average production rate (skids/hour) 45 45
(items/3 h) 558 558
In this section, we present how a workflow redesign was Max. production rate (skids/hour) – 50
validated using RTLS data analysis. A simulation model was used
 I. Arkan, H. Van Landeghem / Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing 29 (2013) 502–512 509

6.1. Simulation model Fig. 5. Based on the simulation model observation a new workflow
organization was proposed. All changes were applied on the
A simulation of the department was designed in Flexsims workflow layout after collecting initial RTLS data. The detailed
software and simulation parameters were obtained from the simulation study was described in [40].
workflow profiles. The process times follow a normal distribution Table 3 summarizes the workflow parameters of the simulation
for every material. A snapshot from the simulation is shown in model before and after the workflow redesign. The two major
organizational changes were switching from random to dedicated
Table 4 item allocation unto WIP buffers and removing one QC2 operator.
Comparison of workflow parameters with data analysis. The objective was to decrease the excessive idle times of QC2
operators while keeping the production rate the same or even
Workflow parameters Before After Improvement
redesign redesign (%)
reaching maximum capacity of 50 skids/hour. The simulation
program processed a typical production schedule for both models.
Skid arrival rate (skids/ 3 h) 133 127 5 The duration of the simulation was 4 h.
First hour (skids/ hour) 47 36  23
Second hour (skids/ hour) 45 47 4
Third hour (skids/ hour) 41 44 7
Item arrival rate 6.2. Productivity
592 470  21
(λ¼ items/ 3 h)
Item service rate Production and capacity utilization rates were calculated by the
556 419  25
(μ ¼ items/ 3 h) analysis of the RTLS database. The database of the initial workflow
Capacity utilization rate 0.94 0.89 5
(ρ¼ μ/λ)
consisted of the data streams of 260 tagged items, but only 250 of
them completed their production cycle in 3 h. In the new layout,

Table 5
KPI results.

KPI's Before RTLS (data from company) With RTLS (before redesign) With RTLS (after redesign)

Mean SD Per i.t. Per period Mean SD Per i.t. Per period Mean SD Per i.t. Per period

Time (mm:ss)
Cycle (tcycle) 6:00 6:00 9:02 7:17 18:31 6:39
QC1 (tQC1) 0:27 0:07 1:57 1:13 6:27 3:09
QC2 (tQC2) 1:49 0:28 3:17 5:36 4:45 5:16
Single flow (tnode)
Single stay (tarc)
Speed (m/s)
Cycle (scycle) 0.04 0 0.02 0.01
QC1 (sQC1) 0.04 0.1 0.01 0.01
QC2 (sQC2) 0.06 0.1 0.04 0.08
Quality (%)
Defect reject ratio 11 9 7.5

SD = standard deviation, i.t. = item type, = not available, = Available.

Discrete distribution of cycle times

1st analysis(before redesign)

100 mean = 542sec

standard deviation = 437sec

80
Data from company
Frequency (#)

mean =360sec
60
standard deviation = 360sec

2nd analysis(after redesign)

40
mean = 1111sec

standard deviation=399sec
20

Cycle time (sec)

Fig. 6. Discrete distribution of item production cycle times.
510 I. Arkan, H. Van Landeghem / Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing 29 (2013) 502–512
218 items were tagged and 199 items were completely tracked.
The data of incomplete item cycles was excluded from the
computation of the production results. Moreover, the 18 different
item types found in both databases were for 98% identical. The
production schedule of the item types differ, but parts follow the
same process steps. So, we could analyze the data aggregated in
one generic item type.
The production rate parameter is the significant differentiator
of the productivity. The production rate estimates of the simula-
tion model (Table 3) elaborately evaluated by RTLS data analysis
results as it is presented in Table 4. The redesign by the simulation
model was not an improvement, more a degradation of the
previous workflow. The average production rate parameter in
Table 3 was represented by the item service rate parameter in
Table 4. The item service rate decreased by 25% after the redesign
as compared to the previous production flow. Even the item arrival
rates of both production schedules were equally planned, after the
redesign, the item arrival rate also decreased by 21%. The decre-
ment of the item arrival rate is basically due to the skid arrival
process that pauses when the QC1 operators are busy to remove
all the items from the mobile loaded skids that approached to the
exit or when the work-in-process reaches to the maximum
capacity. But the reasons of the decrement of the arrival rate
could not be directly related to the decline of the service rate and
further analysis was required. The bottleneck operations through-
out the new workflow layout that caused the low levels of
productivity were identified via the key performance indicators.
Table 6
Workload allocation between WIP buffers.
Workload allocation Buffer1 Buffer2 Buffer3
Before redesign (random) (%) 18 33 33
After redesign (specific) (%) 35.5 21 13.5
Fig. 7. Spaghetti diagram during an hour with workflow flaws.
6.3. KPIs
The near real-time shop floor performance of the new work-
flow was then compared with the previous flow. The key perfor-
mance indicators are time, speed, quality and efficiency as
discussed in Section 5. The first three indicators are listed in
Table 5 and efficiency parameters are discussed next.
Table 5 enumerates the KPIs that were obtained from the
company and from RTLS data analysis results. Firstly, it clearly
shows the improved level of process information by utilization of
RTLS in the shop-floor. The availability of the new measurements
by RTLS, such as speed, per period and single flow parameters
enhance shop-floor visibility. The per period parameter represents
any time interval of the production process, such as per 15 min or
per hour. Secondly, the available data from the company is
markedly different from the RTLS results, demonstrating fluctua-
tions of the measurements over time. Clearly, the organizational
data was not up-to-date. The indications of performance and
efficiency deterioration of the workflow were also the reason
why the company required a redesign. The average cycle time
increased around 3 min and the standard deviation of the times
shows instability in the production flow.
The performance was expected to improve with the redesign.
However, the only improvement was in the quality, the defect
reject ratio slightly decreased. On the other hand, the average
cycle time increased with 105%. In detail, Fig. 6 shows all the cycle
times with a discrete distribution plot. Also the average item cycle
speed decreased 100%. The major increment in the cycle time and
the decline in the speed originated in QC1, respectively with
4.5 min and 0.03 m/s. It turns out that QC1 operations was a
major bottleneck, an hour in the beginning of the production flow.
Buffer4 Note that there were no operators removed from QC1.
Efficiency was represented both in quantitative and qualitative
16
30
terms through workload allocation and a spaghetti diagram. Table 6
displays the WIP buffer workload allocation before and after the
 I. Arkan, H. Van Landeghem / Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing 29 (2013) 502–512
redesign. The items mostly accumulated in Buffer 2 and 3 in the
first case, where the four QC2 workers work. After redesign, the
accumulation changed the other way around to Buffer 1 and 4.
The spaghetti diagram is a qualitative visual to observe bottle-
neck paths of the production process. The problematic hour, where
the skid arrival rate and the production speed decreased, and QC1
cycle times excessively increased, is plotted in Fig. 7. The bottle-
neck operations are reasoned in the discussion section with the aid
of other performance measurements.
In this study the RTLS data analysis results indicated that the
redesign did not improve the previous workflow. The production
rate and speed excessively decreased and cycle times increased.
It is important to identify the cause of this deterioration to
improve the production. When the spaghetti diagram (Fig. 7)
was evaluated together with cycle and time analysis results, it
was observed that QC1 operators mostly carried the items over
long distances to buffer 3 and 4 in a slow pace, even when the
buffers had space available. One possible cause could be that the
item distribution plan for the buffers was not well organized,
because the two QC1 operators should move fast enough and
balance the distances to keep up with the skid arrival rate. In the
previous layout, the workers were placing the items to buffers
arbitrarily to keep up with the (higher) skid arrival rate. Also the
operators might be confused with the new allocation plan, since
there are 18 different items to be distributed to four buffers. This
seems to suggest that the item arrival sequence of the production
schedule was not in tune with the workload distribution to
workgroups.
The data analysis could be further detailed by comparing more
workflow parameters of the simulation model. Unfortunately, we
are unable to determine operator idle times from the data, since
not all items were tagged in sequence to reveal the waiting times
of the operators between sequential tasks. Similarly, the complete
workload allocation is incomputable because many items were not
traced. Finally, the data was not 100% reliable, since signal
deterioration did occur in this metallic environments leading to
missed location data.
7. Conclusions
This paper has revealed a contribution to in-production logis-
tics performance evaluation and work in process visibility within
manufacturing. The technology has depended on RFID-based RTLS
and the visibility has been obtained by processing real-time shop
floor data from a manufacturing workshop. The focus of the
research was how to assess and improve shop floor performance
indicators of a low-automated production process.
The results clearly indicate that RFID-enabled RTLS can provide
more up-to-date, automatically acquired, richer and more detailed
shop floor measurements than traditional measurement tools such
as stopwatches or video analysis. Besides, the material flow data
from a robust RTLS is fairly straightforward to clean, allowing to
detect main events and spot errors. Hence, RTLS can be a valuable
performance evaluation tool that can provide advanced and
reliable metrics for flexible and lean manufacturing.
Acknowledgment
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support for
this research from numerous industrial partners from the vehicle
industry innovation consortium Flanders Drive, funded by the
Flemish Government.
511
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