Panasonic is using Bluetooth Low Energy to improve real-time location features in its Logiscend turnkey material flow management software.

Version 3.0 of the software enhances the platform’s location management capabilities, user access controls and data provisioning, and pick and replenishment configurability.

The software expands real-time location features by integrating Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) tags and locators. Users can track and locate any part at any time with a high degree of accuracy, increasing efficiency by providing visibility of bottlenecks and triggering automated workflows based on small changes in the location of assets.

BLE tags and locators can be combined with Panasonic View tags to eliminate paper and provide real time instructions to the manufacturing floor.

With BLE, manufacturers can take advantage of lower total cost of ownership for their IoT systems because of the long battery life performance and lower device pricing due to economies of scale, driven by the widespread adoption of Bluetooth in the commercial market.

“The addition of BLE technology further advances the Logiscend platform’s ability to optimise manufacturing operations by increasing throughput, reducing defects and improving visibility of critical processes,” said George Daddis, vice president at Panasonic. “The integration of BLE technology is the latest example of our focus on incorporating different IoT technologies within the Logiscend platform to support the specific use cases of each manufacturer.”

With Logiscend 3.0 software, additional data segmentation management tools have been added that provide administrators with enhanced control over who has access to what data in the Logiscend system. Segmenting data based on groups and departments means certain information can be viewed and edited only by those with the appropriate credentials.

The software also enhances the configurability of the Logiscend system’s pick and replenishment applications. New features include an external lighted button accessory that indicates where a part needs to be placed to satisfy a replenishment order, reverse colours for pick tags for easier readability, a password requirement to cancel open jobs, and API calls to update replenishment stages on the View tags.

Logiscend Software 3.0 will be available during the fourth quarter of 2021.

Logiscend is a turnkey, material flow management system for complex, discrete manufacturing. It replaces paper-based material flow processes with a digital based offering, creating smart materials. It combines software, wireless RFID and e-paper that helps manufacturers get the right parts to the right place at the right time, cost effectively and efficiently.

The software provides real-time visibility of the material flow on the factory floor and increased flexibility for the plant manager to make changes as needed. Smart materials have two-way communications that broadcast location, status and other information about the material to the software and can receive instructions sent to the e-paper displays to be read by the operator. The system is scalable with a suite of application modules for picking, replenishment, asset tracking, smart container management and work instructions and can be integrated with existing ERP and MES systems.