From Manual Carts to Intelligent AGVs: Upgrading Pharmaceutical Workshop Handling from "Physical to Mental"
In the pharmaceutical industry, workshop handling seems simple but is a shackle to efficiency. Manual carts, once the mainstay, now show drawbacks as the industry grows.
Pharmaceutical production requires batch management and strict pacing. Logistics delays affect line efficiency. Manual handling relies on heavy labor, with each step needing human operation. A large pharmaceutical firm needed over 100 workers for handling, with labor costs over 30% of total operating costs. Manual efficiency is affected by workers' physical condition, skill, and state. Fatigue leads to slower handling and higher error rates, further impacting production.
Pharmaceuticals are special goods with high cleanliness and sterility requirements. Manual handling brings in pollutants like dust and microbes, increasing contamination risks. It also lacks precision, causing collisions and drops that damage packaging and quality. GMP's strict production and material management requirements are hard to meet due to manual handling's randomness, leading to inaccurate records and tracing difficulties.
Pharmaceutical workshops often involve flammable and explosive materials like alcohol solvents or dust. Traditional forklifts or manual handling can easily cause accidents if mishandled. Manual handling requires workers to move frequently, increasing collision and squeezing risks. Managing a large workforce is tough, needing significant resources for training, supervision, and assessment, with high costs and poor results.
Pharmaceutical firms see the need for change but hesitate when introducing new technologies like intelligent AGVs.
Introducing intelligent AGVs requires capital investment in equipment, system integration, installation, and debugging. For SMEs, this is a significant expense. They worry about not seeing immediate returns or meeting expected ROI. Maintenance costs, including parts replacement and software upgrades, add to the pressure.
Intelligent AGVs are new, and pharmaceutical firms doubt their practicality and stability. They fear failures affecting production schedules, such as navigation errors, insufficient battery life, and compatibility issues with existing equipment and systems, leading to data transmission problems and coordination difficulties.
Introducing intelligent AGVs will reduce traditional handling jobs. Firms worry about employee resistance affecting team stability and morale. Relocating and retraining affected staff for new roles is also a challenge.
Despite concerns, intelligent AGVs' advantages in pharmaceutical workshop handling are clear, becoming key to solving traditional handling problems.
Intelligent AGVs are highly automated, easy to schedule, and safe. They can handle materials 24/7 without human fatigue or work hour limits. Hainan Lingkang Pharmaceutical, for example, reduced sterile transfer time from 1 hour to 15 minutes with AGVs, greatly improving efficiency. AGVs can be dynamically scheduled for multi-unit collaboration, further enhancing handling efficiency.
Intelligent AGVs use advanced navigation and sensors for accurate positioning and autonomous navigation, ensuring stable material handling. They avoid packaging damage and quality issues from manual handling collisions and drops. Full monitoring and data recording facilitate tracing and management, meeting GMP requirements. In warehousing, AGVs accurately move drugs to designated locations, reducing human impact on quality.
Intelligent AGVs have comprehensive safety systems like laser obstacle avoidance, bumper strips, and emergency stop buttons to detect and avoid obstacles, preventing collisions. Their operation reduces human exposure to hazardous environments, lowering accident risks. For workshops with flammable and explosive materials, explosion-proof AGVs provide safety guarantees.
Intelligent AGVs are not just handling tools; they integrate with enterprise information systems like MES and WMS for real-time data exchange and sharing. Analyzing handling data helps optimize production processes, arrange inventory, and improve equipment utilization. For example, AGV handling data can inform warehouse layout and material storage adjustments, reducing handling distance and time.
In intelligent AGV applications, industrial PC are crucial, acting as the "smart brain" for stable operation and intelligent decision-making. USR-EG628 from PUSR, with its excellent performance and innovative design, is an ideal choice for intelligent AGVs.
USR-EG628 features an industrial-grade RK3562J chip with a 4-core 64-bit Cortex-A53 architecture and 1 TOPS AI computing power, quickly processing complex tasks like image recognition and voice judgment. During AGV operation, it analyzes sensor data in real-time for accurate positioning and navigation. Based on AI algorithms, it can also perceive and decide on the handling environment, such as avoiding obstacles and choosing optimal paths.
USR-EG628 has a modular design with flexible main control and IO expansion module combinations, supporting various input/output combinations like digital, analog, serial, and Ethernet. It comes with standard interfaces like RS485/232, CAN, LAN, USB, HDMI, and SIM card slots for quick connection to sensors, instruments, and actuators, enabling efficient linkage with other AGV components. For example, through RS485, it can communicate with the AGV's motor driver and battery management system for real-time device status and parameter acquisition.
Pharmaceutical workshops have complex environments with high stability and reliability requirements for equipment. USR-EG628 adopts industrial-grade design with three-level surge protection, three-level electrostatic protection, and a system watchdog mechanism for continuous stable operation under complex conditions like lightning strikes, power outages, interference, and high temperatures. It supports main and backup network switching and integrates network management capabilities like VPN, firewall, routing, and security isolation, ensuring data transmission security and stability and avoiding AGV control loss or data leakage due to network issues.
USR-EG628 has a built-in WukongEdge edge intelligence platform supporting IEC61131-3 five PLC language designs, providing a local configuration system and OpenPLC platform with functions like point binding, parameter debugging, and remote configuration graphical programming. Pharmaceutical firms can customize functions based on their production needs and process characteristics through secondary development. For example, developing specific handling strategies or deep integration with existing production systems.
From manual carts to intelligent AGVs, pharmaceutical workshop handling is undergoing a "physical to mental" upgrade. Intelligent AGVs offer efficiency, accuracy, safety, and intelligence, solving traditional handling problems and bringing multiple benefits like efficiency improvement, quality assurance, and safety protection. The emergence of industrial PC USR-EG628 further empowers intelligent AGVs to better meet the complex needs of the pharmaceutical industry.
In this digital transformation era, pharmaceutical firms should embrace new technologies, break free from traditional thinking, and accelerate intelligent handling construction. With the help of intelligent AGVs and industrial PCs, they can overcome efficiency bottlenecks, achieve high-quality development, and stay competitive in the market.
