Linköping university
Department of Management and Engineering(IEI) Division of Design and Product Development
TMPM30 30 hp Spring term 2020
LIU-IEI-TEK-A–20/03896—SE
Master Thesis
Autonomous Load carrier
Report
Karthik Kamatham Rakesh Nagaraja Examiner: Johan Ölvander
Supervisor: Johan Persson Supervised at SCANIA by: Eric Falkgrim and Elisabeth Hörnfeldt
Linköping university 581 83 Linköping
Linköpings universitet Department of Management and Engineering Master Thesis in Machine Design Master’s thesis, 30 credits| Master’s programme Spring 2020| LIU-IEI-TEK-A–20/03896—SE
Autonomous Load Carrier
for Scania CV AB
Karthik Kamatham (karka481) Rakesh Nagaraja (rakna614)
Linköping universitet SE-581 83 Linköping, Sverige
Abstract
This report concerns the concept development of an autonomous load carrier which needs to be integrated with the autonomous truck NXT. The main purpose of the thesis is to develop a load carrier which can be used during off peak times with the autonomous truck which reduces the traffic, pollution and congestion in cities.To achieve this a lot of pre- study in terms of research and survey is conducted on the topics which are going to be used during the course of the thesis. The problems which were investigated during the thesis are the problems related to goods loading and unloading from the warehouse to the truck and from the truck to the customer. To bridge the gap between these two processes an autonomous load carrier is the solution. The product development methodology used by Ulrich and Eppinger [1] is used in this thesis. The findings from the pre-study was the need and type of the load carrier needed by the customers. Based on the requirements the concepts for the load carrier is developed and brainstormed. After the brainstorming process a concept is finalised and a system level design of the concept is designed and presented in the thesis. The concept is designed to load and unload roll cages and pallets carrying food products as the goods as it is one of the busy and essential services being transported today. The concept is made to be compact, safe, affordable, strong for it be integrated to the autonomous truck. The dimensions and specifications of the load carrier are approximated based on the study and research.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank our Manager Magdalena Borgbrant, Supervisors Eric Falkgrim and Elisabeth Hörnfeldt from Scania CV AB to have given us the op-portunity to work at Scania as thesis workers. Their support and guidance through-out the course of the thesis has helped us learn a lot abthrough-out Scania’s design methodol-ogy and sustainable transport system. Their timely support and advice has certainly helped us overcome the hurdles and complete the thesis successfully.
We extend our gratitude to Johan Persson, our supervisor at Linköping University, who has mentored us equally throughout the project with his insightful academic and technical suggestions.
We are grateful for the the reviews and suggestions by our examiner Johan Ölvan-der which helped in improving our thesis.
We would also like to thank Gunnar Tornmalm and Linda Meiby from YR department for giving us insights about Autonomous Vehicles and Human Machine Interaction. We extend our thanks to Ulf Ceder for getting us access to ITRL at KTH University.
We would like to thank Camilla Eklöf from HAVI Logistics, Clarence Ström from Ragnsells and Scania Logistics for clearing our questions and showing us around during our visit to their workplaces and we thank all the other customers who answered our questions and gave suggestions which played a major role in the thesis.
We also acknowledge and thank for the constant support and motivation given by our family and friends to make this thesis successful.
Contents
1 Introduction 9 1.1 Background . . . 9 1.2 Company Description . . . 9 1.2.1 History of Scania . . . 10 1.2.2 Volkswagen Group . . . 111.2.3 The Modular System . . . 11
1.2.4 Scania Logistics System . . . 11
1.3 Overview of the area . . . 12
1.4 Problem description . . . 13
1.5 Research Questions and Objective . . . 13
1.6 Focus and Delimitations . . . 14
1.7 Deliverables . . . 15
2 Theoretical Framework 16 2.1 Autonomous Vehicles . . . 16
2.1.1 History of Autonomous Vehicles . . . 16
2.1.2 Autonomous Technology . . . 16
2.1.3 Automated Guided Vehicles . . . 18
2.1.4 Types of AGVs . . . 19
2.2 Warehouse . . . 21
2.2.1 Types of warehouse . . . 22
2.2.2 Future of Warehouse Automation . . . 23
2.3 Types of goods stored in warehouses . . . 23
2.4 Classification of goods subjected to storage . . . 23
2.5 Selection of goods . . . 24
2.5.1 Food Logistics . . . 24
2.5.2 Policies and Legislation in Food Safety and Logistics . . . 25
2.5.3 Role of automation in Food industry . . . 25
2.6 Load carrier . . . 27
2.6.1 Pallets . . . 27
2.6.2 Types of wooden pallets . . . 29
2.6.3 Plastic Containers . . . 29 2.6.4 Roll containers . . . 31 3 Methodology 32 3.1 Design Methodology . . . 33 3.2 Customer Survey . . . 34 3.2.1 HAVI Logistics . . . 34 3.2.2 Ragn-Sells AB . . . 35 3.2.3 Scania Logistics . . . 37
3.2.4 Grånpark Restaurant Scania . . . 37
3.3 Qualitative study . . . 38
4 Load Carrier: Concept Design and Development Process 39
4.1 Product Planning Phase . . . 39
4.1.1 Product data collection . . . 39
4.1.2 Customer needs . . . 40
4.1.3 Target specifications and benchmarking . . . 41
4.2 Concept Development Process . . . 41
4.2.1 Black Box Formulation . . . 41
4.2.2 Problem Decomposition . . . 42
4.2.3 Brainstorming and classification tree . . . 43
4.3 Concept Generation . . . 43
4.4 Concept selection . . . 47
5 System level design 49 5.1 Chassis system . . . 49
5.2 Wheel system . . . 50
5.3 Loading/Unloading System . . . 51
5.3.1 Pallet System . . . 51
5.3.2 Roll Container System . . . 52
5.4 Mechanisms . . . 52
5.4.1 Forklift Mechanism . . . 53
5.4.2 Roll Cage Mechanism . . . 53
5.5 Electronic components and specifications . . . 55
6 Results 57 6.1 Literature Results . . . 57 6.2 Thesis Focus . . . 57 6.3 Interview Results . . . 57 6.4 Design Results . . . 58 7 Discussions 60 8 Conclusions 61 8.1 Research Question Solution . . . 62
9 Scope for Future Work 63 Appendices 66 A Appendix 66 A.1 Concepts . . . 66
A.2 Wheel specifications . . . 66
A.3 Motor specifications . . . 66
A.4 COG calculations . . . 67
List of Figures
1 Autonomous truck . . . 10
2 Scania NXT modules [2] . . . 11
3 Scania Logistics [3] . . . 12
4 Scania NXT module for cargo [2] . . . 13
5 Sixty five years of automotive development[4] . . . 17
6 Levels of Autonomy . . . 18
7 Forklift AGV . . . 19
8 Piggyback AGV . . . 20
9 Specially designed Towing AGV . . . 20
10 Underride AGV . . . 21
11 Heavy Load AGV . . . 21
12 Warehouse channel . . . 22
13 Wooden pallets v/s Plastic pallets . . . 27
14 Pallet Style by Entry points and Decking . . . 29
15 Plastic Container . . . 30
16 Roll Cage . . . 31
17 Illustration of Methodology [1] . . . 33
18 Some inputs from the query . . . 35
19 HAVI Logistics AB . . . 35
20 Some inputs from the query . . . 36
21 Ragn-Sells Electric vehicle in Smart Hub . . . 36
22 Goods flow from the truck to Restaurant . . . 38
23 Benchmarking and Target Specifications . . . 41
24 Black box Model for Load carrier . . . 42
25 Problem decomposition of Load Carrier . . . 42
26 Classification Tree . . . 43 27 Concept 1 . . . 44 28 Concept 2 . . . 44 29 Concept 3 . . . 45 30 Concept 4 . . . 46 31 Concept 5 . . . 47 32 Concept Screening . . . 48 33 Concept Scoring . . . 48 34 Stability Triangle . . . 49 35 Chassis Skeleton . . . 50 36 Mecanum Wheel . . . 51 37 Pallet loading . . . 51 38 Forklift variants . . . 52
39 Roll Cage carrier . . . 53
40 Rotating and Sliding Mechanism . . . 53
41 Front clamp Mechanism . . . 54
42 Clip Mechanism from beneath . . . 55
43 Camera sensor housing . . . 56
45 Vehicle specifications . . . 58
46 Load Carrier at Work . . . 59
47 Load Carrier closed . . . 59
48 Current Logistics . . . 60 49 Future Logistics . . . 60 50 All concepts . . . 66 51 Wheel specifications . . . 67 52 Motor specifications . . . 67 53 COG calculations . . . 68 54 Rendered Images . . . 68
Nomenclature
Abbreviations and Acronyms
Abbreviation Meaning
LiU Linköping University
ADAS Advance Driver Assistance System AGV Automated guided vehicles
AI Artificial Intelligence
ASRS Automated storage retrieval System CO2 Carbon-dioxide
COG Center of Gravity
ITS Intelligence Transport System R&D Research and development B2b Business to Business B2b Business to Customer
Symbols
Symbol Description Units
V Voltage [−] Ah Nominal Capacity [−] Wh Energy Capacity [−] D Diameter of Wheel [mm] t Time [hr] A Current [A]
1
Introduction
This chapter describes the background of the master thesis and about the company where it is being done. The problem is then described with the research questions and purpose of the thesis. Later, the focus, delimitation’s and the report structure are outlined in this section.
1.1
Background
In the transport system of the future, a large part of the transports will take place with the help of self-driving vehicles that deliver goods between the cities and within the cities[5]. We hypothesise that goods and waste on the way to and from the cus-tomer will be collected in a so-called smart city hub where the goods are unloaded, distributed and loaded with other goods for transport to the final destination (B2b and B2c), so-called last-mile deliveries. In the cities, these cargo-mile deliveries are likely to take place at night, so there will be a need for self-propelled load carriers which will automatically load the goods (food/parcels) into the autonomous vehicles which are intended to operate during the off-peak hours at night which saves time and reduces traffic during peak hours. The introduction of these self-propelled car-riers reduces the manual labour done during the night and the noise caused during that time which is troublesome for people living around. The increasing rise in the driver wage is also one of the problems which can be addressed by developing the self-propelled load carriers. The last mile deliveries from the hubs in the cities can also be automated with self-driven vehicles.
The transport system is gradually changing to an autonomous environment which has the potential to significantly affect the system, society and the environment. However, there are many unanswered questions regarding what the future will look like and the opposing forces. One industry which will be hugely benefitted by the changing system is the freight industry as making the vehicles can reduce their ex-penses in many ways and the traffic congestion caused by the trucks. To obtain the quantitative estimation of the system effects simulation models can be used. By using the simulation system one can simulate how the system is going to be put in use and how it supports the changing transport system in future. The logistics system in the urban environments are already stressed, shippers and carriers are forced to increase the number of vehicles with less capacity to meet the increasing customer require-ments. The changing trends in the automobile industry are also moving towards a more sustainable transport system which is good for the environment. Digitisation is another major tool which has brought changes and is challenging the traditional structures existing today. It will play a major role in the future transport system.
1.2
Company Description
Scania is multi-national cooperation with services in over 100 countries and employs around 45 000 workers all around the world. The company, which was founded in
Södertälje 1891, is a part of TRATON and is today manufacturing trucks, busses and combustion engines for heavy-duty vehicles as well as for marine applications. Their main goal is to always have the customer in focus and to produce sustainable vehicles while eliminating waste and minimizing their global footprint. (Scania CV AB, 2018).
Figure 1: Autonomous truck
1.2.1
History of Scania
Founded in 1891 the company has a long history. It was called Vagnfabriksaktiebo-laget Södertelge (Vabis) at this time. Vabis started by building railway carriages (Ahren and Buhlmann,2015) and built their first truck in 1902. Parallel to this, in 1900, Maskinfabriksaktiebolaget Scania was founded in Malmö. Their first product was bicycles but they soon started producing motor vehicles with their first truck shown in 1902. Nine years later, in 1911, Scania and Vabis merged, creating the new company Scania-Vabis (Scania group) as a result of ever tougher. competition[6]. In 1921 Scania-Vabis went bankrupt. A new company was established that took over the name which concentrated on the business operations of trucks and buses and cease the production of passenger cars. Until the second world war buses were the major business area but now trucks dominate the companys production. Export took off in the 1950s and Brazil was among the first export countries outside the Nordic region.
In 1969 Scania-Vabis merged with Saab and Scania became a division of the Saab-Scania Group. In 1995 the Board of Directors decided to divide the group into two independent companies, Scania AB and Saab AB. Scania became a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company investor. In 1999 the competitor Volvo made an offer to buy Scania. This was however stopped by the European Union competition author-ity in 2000 as they did not approve of the acquisition. The same year Volkswagen became the main shareholder of Scania. In 2006 MAN made an offer to buy Scania but withdrew it early in 2007. A year later, in 2008, Scania became a subsidiary of
Volkswagen and in 2014 Scania became a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Volkswagen group.[6]
1.2.2
Volkswagen Group
The owner of Scania, the Volkswagen group has its headquarters in Wolfsburg and is the largest carmaker in Europe. The Group comprises twelve brands from seven Eu-ropean countries: Volkswagen passenger cars, Audi, SEAT, Skoda, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, Ducati, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Scania and MAN. MAN, like Scania, is a producer of trucks and buses. Volkswagen became the ma-jority owner of MAN in 2011, 11 years after they became mama-jority owners of Scania. A goal for the acquisition was to create synergies between MAN, Scania and Volk-swagen (BBC News,2011).
1.2.3
The Modular System
The new modular system was a concept that began emerging in the late 1960s. The first truck range produced with the modular system was unveiled in 1980. From a limited number of main components, Scania was able to create an almost limitless number of truck variants, adapted to the special needs of the customers. The modular system is still used today and is one of the main cornerstones in the production at Scania.
Figure 2: Scania NXT modules [2]
1.2.4
Scania Logistics System
Scania Logistics is responsible for Scania’s logistics flows globally and is a growing part of its core business. With an in-depth business of 25,000 pallets from more than 1,000 suppliers worldwide and an outgoing flow of 450 vehicles and components to Scania’s customers daily, Scania’s global logistics flows are huge. Scania Logistics works closely with production, understands their needs and at the same time looks externally to see how needs and opportunities can be balanced to find the best
pos-sible solution for the company. The focus is on creating efficient, digitally connected and sustainable flows in a high-performance global logistics network[3].
Figure 3: Scania Logistics [3]
The digitization of Scania’s logistics processes and information flows allows Scania to predict flows, which in turn will enable to prepare its infrastructure for different picks and variations.
Scania’s effective working by moving closely with its partners and using new technologies, standardisation and by eliminating the non-value adding activities is streamlining the workflows for better effectiveness. With a global production and a fully integrated order-to-delivery process linked to logistics centres global network, Scania has so far been one of the leaders in sustainable transport. Sustainability will continue to play a major role in designing our logistics solutions, including alternative fuels and electrification.
1.3
Overview of the area
There has been extensive use of vehicles in the cities to deliver goods by a var-ious number of companies with partially filled loading capacity which affects the emissions, traffic and cost. To overcome these, many hypotheses have been proposed which can be implemented in the future which requires a lot of data collection among the business models while privacy is maintained. Studying the impact of Freight transport is very important for several reasons. The most significant part which is a topic of discussion is the CO2 emissions that come from road freight transport. Lorries, buses and coaches are responsible for about a quarter of CO2 emissions from road transport in the EU and for some 6% of total EU emissions. Despite some improvements in fuel consumption efficiency in recent years, these emissions are still rising, mainly due to increasing road freight traffic. [7] Scania can imme-diately expand its activities in the "off-peak transport" by providing environmental and emissions optimized distribution vehicles with plug-in charging and support for geofencing faced ’Off-peak’ demands for quiet and emission-free deliveries in particu-larly sensitive areas. Scania has also recently announced "Scania NXT-a new highly automated and electric concept vehicle" that facilitates the efficient transport in the city. Scania’s concept vehicles NXT, which among other things assumes that there are good opportunities for mixed loading of goods (food, parcels, waste, cargo etc)
keeping in mind the modularity of the vehicle.
Figure 4: Scania NXT module for cargo [2]
1.4
Problem description
Scania is looking into the future of the transport and logistics systems and the ways to improve the existing problems faced by the company and the customer by com-ing up with new autonomous solutions and movcom-ing towards sustainable solutions in transportation. The research and innovation office at R&D in Scania has taken the initiative to come up with completely autonomous vehicles in the smart hub logistics to reach global sustainability of transportation. Scania has already come up with an autonomous concept vehicle (NXT) which is modular and has three modules (Bus, Cargo and Recycle) of which implementing the NXT vehicle with cargo module into smart cities is what we are looking here in this thesis, but they lack the transporta-tion (loading/unloading) from shelf to shelf in a warehouse and last-mile delivery. By using the advantages of the upcoming trends and increasing the capability of AGVs which reduces the non-value adding time in manufacturing caused by transportation, increase safety decreases energy consumption, Scania is now looking for a concept vehicle design to implement in the gaps to have a complete autonomous system and moving towards a more sustainable transportation.
1.5
Research Questions and Objective
The purpose of the thesis is to investigate the needs of future autonomous trucks and autonomous load carriers and to link these vehicles to tomorrow’s smart hubs in the city and the customers. One other purpose is to investigate the current scenario of logistics and the whole process of the supply chain management. Another important vision of the project is in the development of an efficient and sustainable freight transport system in the city based on modular bases where different parts are possible to scale up to an integrated system over time and space. The job assignment to fulfil the objective of the thesis is as shown below:
• State of the art: Survey of solutions for load carriers and operators currently on the market including trends for the area.
• Needs inventory through interviews and study visits.
• Investigate different scenarios for interaction between future carriers and future autonomous vehicles within the hub and upon delivery to the end customer. • Come up with different concepts and design the concepts of self-propelled load
carriers that can interact with self-propelled vehicles. • Select and finalise a concept and make a prototype.
Looking into the bigger picture of the future transport system a few research questions need to be answered in achieving the goal:
1. How will the interaction be , between the autonomous trucks and autonomous load carriers in the future?
2. What is the role of customers in the future of autonomy?
3. What are the conditions for automation and infrastructure to achieve the goal of automation for the future?
1.6
Focus and Delimitations
The major outcome of the thesis is to have a design of the concept vehicle which overtake the issues facing the current urban logistic system in the warehouse. The main issues which are solved are listed below,
• Loading: The goods from the warehouse are shifted by concept vehicle (Au-tonomous) to the autonomous vehicle (Cargo container).
• Unloading: The goods from the autonomous vehicle is unloaded to city hubs or the customers(supermarkets).
• Off-peak transport: The loading and unloading of the goods in off-peak time without human interaction in the warehouse.
The main focus here is on food products which has to be carried by the au-tonomous load carrier. This has been selected after an proper research on various possible products and narrowing down the possibilities based on the uses and keep-ing the objectives in prospect. Food products is selected as it is one of the majorly transported products everyday all round the world and also one of the main causes of truck traffic in cities. Since it is autonomous vehicle battery power and weight is also one of the constraints. One major limitation is that the concept vehicle should be compact and should have the potential to carry the pallets into the cargo containers from the shelves. One more limitation is the sample size of the data collection done on the current logistics system and the requirements for the future load carriers. the load carrier is designed to carry a maximum load of 1000kgs. Due to the large scope of the questions mentioned above, it is difficult to answer all of them through this
thesis, although a part of that might be solved through our thesis. Since the scope of the thesis is widely spread across various domains, narrowing down the scope to one particular domain of goods or end customer is a major concern in this thesis.
1.7
Deliverables
• Detailed survey report of the current logistics systems and problems. • Motivation of the chosen concept and selection criteria.
• Description of the problem within the chosen concept. • Design the vehicle to overcome the existing problem.
• CAD model of the concept load carrier in the chosen area of interest.
• Answer the relevant research questions asked above regarding the scope of our project.
2
Theoretical Framework
This chapter focuses on the theoretical background required to conduct the thesis work. Some of the information mentioned in this chapter might refer to previous thesis work or papers published on autonomous vehicles. This chapter includes a brief content on Autonomous Guided Vehicles, Warehouse automation and the technology related to the same as well as the implementation within the current concept development process here at Scania.
2.1
Autonomous Vehicles
2.1.1
History of Autonomous Vehicles
Vehicle automation was originally envisioned as early as 1918 (Pendleton et al.,2017), and the first concept of the automated vehicle was exhibited by General Motors in 1939 (Shladover,2018). From 1964 to 2003, several other Research and Develop-ment programs were operational in the US, Europe and Japan under individual and joint initiatives to develop autonomous vehicles. Automated Vehicle research was accelerated through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Grand Challenges Program in the US in 2004. The challenges resulted in Auto-mated vehicles capable of traversing dessert terrain in 2005 and 2007. Since then, R&D continued at a fast pace in both academia and industrial settings.
Tech giant Google started its journey towards full AVs in 2009, and by 2017 Google’s Automated Vehicle fleet, WAYMO has completed three million miles driving within four US states. In 2014, TESLA announced that its car will be capable of self-driving about 90% of the time. Today, all TESLA models are equipped with self-driving ca-pability. Bloomberg (2017) provides an inventory of how cities around the globe are preparing for the transition to a world with Automated vehicles. According to this study, 36 cities were hosting Automated Vehicle tests or have committed to doing so in the future; where 18 cities are undertaking long-term surveys of the regulatory planning and governance issues associated with Automated Vehicles. There have been a few pilot concept vehicles (small cart size Automated Vehicles that travel on sidewalks, food delivery Automated vehicles, package delivery vehicles) in some cities that are being tested in isolated places like tech parks, college campuses, ur-ban renewal districts, highways. Therefore, as stated by Bloomberg (2017), while these trials are happening, they are not yet tackling the full challenges of navigating through complex urban environments.[8]
2.1.2
Autonomous Technology
The automotive industry now appears close to substantial change, engendered by autonomous self-driving vehicle technologies. This technology offers the possibility of significant benefits to social welfare: saving lives, reducing crashes, congestion, fuel consumption, and pollution; increasing mobility for the disabled and ultimately improving the land use. This technology has its advantages and disadvantages but
Figure 5: Sixty five years of automotive development[4]
we can say that the former outweighs the latter by many aspects. The several benefits of autonomous vehicles could be:
• Without driving errors (fewer vehicle crashes will result).
• The mobility of the young, the elderly, and the disabled will be increased. • Traffic flow could be more efficient and congestion decreased.
• Vehicle occupants could spend travel time engaged in other activities, so the costs of travel time and congestion are reduced.
• Fuel efficiency can be increased and alternative energy sources facilitated. • Because such vehicles won’t need proximate urban parking, space used for
parking could be repurposed. The few drawbacks could be:
• Because the technology would decrease the cost of driving, congestion might increase, rather than decrease.
• Occupations and economies based on public transit, crash repair, and automo-bile insurance might suffer as the technology makes certain aspects of these occupations obsolete.
Since the first Autonomous Vehicles Readiness Index (AVRI) was published in January 2018, there has been a huge acceleration in investment in AV technology, policy adoption by governments to encourage AVs and media coverage of the topic. In the years to come, a vast number of new Vehicles will be equipped with Intelli-gent Transport Systems (ITS). ITS is based on wireless technology that enables cars to communicate with one another via Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) and with overhead traffic systems through Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I).
The systems are key pieces of the puzzle in a world of autonomous vehicles, as they can take into account the events around them on the roads and process the trajectory, speed and intentions of other vehicles. They obtain information on every-thing from accidents ahead, slippery road conditions and parked cars to the speed of other vehicles and pedestrians, all while processing this information exponentially faster than human drivers. Initially, the V2X systems (Vehicle to everything) will
primarily be used for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), before being developed into fully autonomous driving. This means, for example, that drivers could be assisted with braking before they manage to react to external factors, thus avoiding collisions.[8]
The different levels of autonomy as specified by the SAE is shown below in the figure6,
Figure 6: Levels of Autonomy
2.1.3
Automated Guided Vehicles
The automated Guided vehicle was invented by an American in 1953 when he had an idea of replacing the driver for transporting tractor goods. Scania started imple-menting AGVs at the beginning of the ’80s which were phased out later in the middle of ’90s due to the emergence of new trends. The technology has since developed and modern AGVs have come up with many more advantages than the early ones. In 2012 Amazon, the largest internet-based retailer in the US acquired the AGVs pro-ducer Kiva Systems and deployed 15000 AGVs across 10 of its warehouses intending to reduce delivery lead times and increase customer service levels (D’Andrea,2015). Scania production now wants to modernize their future system of logistics by employing autonomous trucks and load carriers in the warehouses to reduce the repetitive human work to an extent. The other reasons why Scania is looking forward to this are partly since they do not want to fall behind this emerging technology and partly because of Scania’s core priorities; safety/environment, quality, delivery and cost. These are the areas where an autonomous load carrier can be very beneficial.
2.1.4
Types of AGVs
AGVs come in many forms with various attributes and fields of application. There are many definitions of AGVs but what they all have in common is that an AGV is a vehicle that moves material without a human driver. This can be in a production environment, warehouse or any other locations where the material is transported. Below you can see a few types of AGVs described in brief of their functioning be-haviour:
• Forklift AGVs: These types of vehicles load unit is pallets or forklift-compatible containers. There are two variants in this type which are specially designed and Forklift AGVs as automated serial equipment. A Forklift AGV as automated serial equipment has the same qualities as Specially designed forklift AGVs but with the difference that it has space for a human to sit or stand in it and steer it manually as seen from the figure 7. The advantage of the latter is that it can be made out of serially produced vehicles from manufacturers standard ranges. Both the types of AGVs have their advantages and disadvantages depending on the customer and type of application being used to.
(a) Specially designed forklift AGVs (b) A serial produced forklift AGV Figure 7: Forklift AGV
• Piggyback AGVs: These AGVs can carry pallets, boxes or containers from a certain height which has to be maintained throughout the loading and un-loading areas, unlike the forklift AGVs.The advantage of this type of AGV is their lateral load handling. They can drive up to the loading area directly and transfer the load without turning and manoeuvring that the forklift would have to which results in less space requirements and quicker operations.
Figure 8: Piggyback AGV
• The towing AGV: The towing AGV tows several trailers behind it. They also come in two variations one which is specially designed towing AGV without a space for human and the other is towing AGV as automated serial equipment.
Figure 9: Specially designed Towing AGV
• Underride AGV: This AGV goes under a roller cart, pallet or a material wagon and lifts it slightly as seen in the figure below. This type of AGV has many advantages over the other variants as they require less space as the container itself determines the space required almost entirely.
It is also highly manoeuvrable when loading and unloading. It can also be used as a towing AGV when there is hook support for towing the roller cart or trailers.
Figure 10: Underride AGV
• Assembly line, Heavy load AGVs: Assembly line AGVs carry the assembly object on a path where the object is being assembled. These AGVs have simpler navigation system systems than other AGVs and move at a slower pace. On the other hand, the heavy load AGVs are special AGVs designed to handle high weight loads. They are often used in the paper industry to transfer rolls of paper or in steel and automotive industry.
Figure 11: Heavy Load AGV
2.2
Warehouse
The warehouse of the next generation will be subjected to pressure from an increased number of smaller order through the number of the cross fleet. At present the major changes within the warehouse is to improve the customer order which blends to support customer order requests. You can see in the figure 12 the current warehouse
system working types. In this system, we can see the different fleet of channels working to manage the warehouse.The warehouse in the future, planning to have fully automated which reduce the risk and repetitive humans perhaps to increase the safety within.
Figure 12: Warehouse channel
2.2.1
Types of warehouse
At present we have Five major types of warehouse which are leading the current logistics.[9]
• Private Warehouses
These are used for own activities, handled and owned by the manufactures, traders and retailers.
• Public Warehouses
These are handled and owned by public sectors like government bodies and are made available for the public bodies to store for rent, they don’t have financial support for individuals.
• Bonded Storage
It is a building or other secured area in which dutiable goods may be stored, manipulated, or undergo manufacturing operations without payment of duty. It may be managed by the state or by private enterprise.
• Co-operative Warehouses
Co-operative society takes care of these warehouses and lends the space with economical rates to their members only.
• Distribution Centres
These are the centres which can be handled by government or Private sector. These centers act as mid point of two long destination.
2.2.2
Future of Warehouse Automation
Industrial 4.0 has initiated to give way for smart factories, likewise to have the latest technology into the warehouse to be completely automated, one of such technology is AGVs which have a increasing market share in the past few years. These AGVs simply reduces the cost, time and large space of the warehouse to increase the performance in the work cycle. AGVs had started setting the trend of acting as a human in the warehouse because the inventories, item traceability from the different third parties are carried through the well designed and programmed called automated guide vehicles (AGVs). Once the warehouse is automated the loading and unloading of goods get reduced with repetitive human interaction which leads to load or unload the goods to the desired location with safely. Hence expecting the future warehouse to the extent where it is completely programmed and maintained by controllers. [10]
2.3
Types of goods stored in warehouses
These goods are classified based on different categories like Usage, storage and way of Transportation. Hence our main goal of the thesis is Urban transportation (Smart city) we are choosing the classification of goods subjected to storage.[11]
2.4
Classification of goods subjected to storage
Categories of goods that are stored in the warehouse based on the storage are listed below[11],
• Conventional goods
Conventional goods are most common goods which are used on daily basis, these type of goods are subcategorized into many as electronics, spare parts, machine parts, equipment, personal items, vehicle parts, printed materials, sta-tionery, telecommunication equipment, trade fair and exhibition exhibits, bulk and packaged goods, glass, dry and liquid goods, medical supplies, packaged food and chocolate items, cosmetics and personal hygiene products, household and industrial appliances, etc.
• Non-standard sized goods
The name itself suggests the type of goods stored, the goods which are not standard in sizes (varying) like boilers, masts, heaters, presses, locomotives and boats.
• Dangerous goods
The goods which belong to this category includes Explosive materials, Gases , Flammable Liquids, Flammable Solids, Oxidising Substances and Organic Pes-ticides, Toxic and Infectious Substances , Radioactive Materials and Corrosive Materials.
• Special goods
valuable objects, perishable goods, diplomatic and personal luggage, exhibition exhibits, humanitarian aid.
2.5
Selection of goods
As the scope of the thesis is to concentrate on a particular portion of the prob-lems faced in today’s logistics system and develop a concept vehicle to a particular segment of the goods transfer flow, we have decided after many considerations and survey to proceed on the food section of the goods which will be transported from the warehouses to different customers in the city from the warehouses.The reason for selecting food products over other options such as waste/general products or cargo/other goods is the frequency of the trucks that causes traffic in the cities by transportation of food products is more compared to others, as food is one of the important necessity all over the world and needed on a daily basis and by imple-menting the concept we can make the delivery of food products during off peak hours which reduces the traffic and also achieving the objective in the process. The differences of Food supply chain management from other supply chains are the im-portance reflected by factors like food quality, safety, and freshness within a limited time, which make the underlying supply chain more complex and difficult to manage. The complexities are even more in case of perishable products where many factors such as warehouse buffer time and transportation effectiveness have to be considered.
2.5.1
Food Logistics
The food industry plays an important role in providing basics and necessities for supporting various human activities and behaviours. A general food supply chain process consists of production, processing, distribution, consumption and disposal. Out of these processes, the logistics part plays a major role in how the food produced at the farm ends up on our table. The food we eat reaches us via food supply chains through which food moves systematically in domino-like motion from producers to consumers while the money consumers pay for food goes to people who work at var-ious stages along the food supply chain in the reverse direction. All theses processes involve human or natural resources being used to achieve the goal. To ensure food quality and safety resources like trucks, warehouse facilities, transportation should be working for an optimised efficient output.
The food products are the most delicate to handle keeping in mind the special conditions at which they should be maintained during distributions. Therefore, vari-ous details, like temperature, air quality, humidity etc., have to be considered. Food products are most delicate goods on the market, for they are exposed to the risks like inadequate storage, wrong temperature levels, poor air quality, humidity, light and other factors influencing the quality and safety. The examples corroborating this are: with no optimal temperature, bacteria grow uncontrollably, and the light directly influences the quality of a fresh product. Likewise, without proper storage, goods become perishable. Therefore, every storage room has to be equipped with control units which report temperature levels at all times.[12]
2.5.2
Policies and Legislation in Food Safety and
Logis-tics
The policy of food safety has become a special area of interests and regulations for European institutions and members of the European Union due to the importance given. In part, it belongs to other European policies, as well as health and consumer and environment protection and agricultural policy.[12]
Due to the unevenness of legislation’s and assessment procedures in different countries and undefined responsibility along the food supply chain, food processing and distribution, the European Union decided to establish unique legislation for all the member states regarding food safety.
In 2002, the European Parliament and the Council adopted Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 laying down the general principles and requirements of food law (General Food Law Regulation).
The General Food Law Regulation is the foundation of food and feed law. It sets out an overarching and coherent framework for the development of food and feeds legislation both at Union and national levels. To this end, it lays down general principles, requirements and procedures that underpin decision making in matters of food and feed safety, covering all stages of food and feed production and distribution. Quality monitoring systems (QMS) are key to every food industry sector to en-sure safe and quality food for consumers. The most important quality monitoring systems in the industry are Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), International Food Standard (IFS), International Organisation for Standardization (ISO), Safe Quality Food (SQF) and British Retail Consortium (BRC).
HACCP is the acronym of Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point which repre-sents an integrated system of food safety control in all the phases of its production and distribution. It was developed in the USA in the early 1960s as help in food preparation for astronauts and is also one of the first systems for food safety control widely accepted in food processing and delivery (Kilibarda, 2009). It bears great importance for food producers from the point of consumers’ protection because it ensures the production and circulation of sanitary safe foods.[12]
2.5.3
Role of automation in Food industry
Humans are not designed to work in sub-zero temperatures, yet the majority of re-frigerated and frozen food facilities employ manual operations, requiring workers to withstand freezing conditions. This is not only risky for employees but warehouse operations as a whole. With workers needing frequent “warm-up” breaks when work-ing in coolers and/or freezers, the organization is quick to realize the inefficiencies in time, labour and energy usage. To help mitigate these inefficiencies, forward-thinking food companies are turning to warehouse automation to decouple their order fulfil-ment workforce from sub-zero environfulfil-ments.[13]
Technologies, such as a high-density automated storage and retrieval system (ASRS), can pick products in cold environments without the need to stop for breaks, thereby promoting greater efficiencies in warehouse operations and order fulfilment in the cold chain, and safer work conditions for all.
With an ASRS, refrigerated and frozen food facilities can also store more prod-uct in the same (and often smaller) building footprint. In many cases, an ASRS can reduce the overall building footprint by as much as 50 per cent and/or enable increased storage capacity of an existing facility by 30 to 50 per cent. By improving better space utilization, there is less area to cool and often fewer refrigeration units are needed. Also, by retrofitting an existing warehouse with an ASRS, food and beverage companies can eliminate the need for new construction and while providing room for growth of inventory.
The efficiency of an ASRS also allows companies to employ more just-in-time (JIT) order fulfilment strategies to bring products out for staging and loading closer to when the trucks arrive. This keeps the product in the proper climate-controlled environment as long as possible, which helps to reduce possible product quality de-generation and spoilage. Truck turn-around at the dock is dramatically improved, which also adds efficiencies to the entire cold chain.
Another key factor is the increase in labour costs. Higher wages for warehouse workers particularly derive from two major causes. One is the establishment of new minimum wages in various states over the next few years. The second cause is the increased demand for warehouse labour due to the booming e-commerce busi-ness. Subsequently, companies are looking for solutions to be more independent from increasing labour costs and an ageing labour force, which makes investing in soft-ware and mechanized solutions and even fully automated soft-warehouses very appealing. Looking forward, companies will continue to have trouble attracting and retaining workers. This is especially true for material handling and supply chain jobs. When you add in the difficult environment of cold/frozen storage jobs, that retention is even harder. Warehouse automation solutions allow companies to get workers out of harsh conditions and reallocate them to more value-added positions. An Automatic Guided Vehicle (AGV), for example, can replace the action of a worker who simply picked up a load from Location A and moved it to Location B all day long. Automa-tion allows companies to focus on having their people add value and not just ‘do stuff.’ Automation solutions for food and beverage may need climate-controlled solu-tions. Depending on the solution, the ROI can range from months to years. An AGV-based solution, for example, can offer payback in as little as one year. AGVs allow for incremental automation and faster ROI automation. Oftentimes, full-blown ‘lights out’ automation aren’t the right solution for a company. An AGV solution can be easily and quickly implemented and deliver a faster ROI. They can operate in deep freeze environments, and also can be adapted for multi-zone climates.[14] In the future, another area where we are seeing more traction for the use of AGVs is in automatic trailer loading and unloading of product. An AGV can drive product into a trailer and load or unload it without human intervention. This can include stacking the product to fill the trailer.
2.6
Load carrier
Load carriers are containers, boxes or pallets which are of immense importance as transport and storage resources in production and logistics. A load carrier is any equipment which makes load movement possible with more ergonomics, cost-effectiveness and safety.
2.6.1
Pallets
Pallets are blocks, used as the carrier base, where the goods are placed on the block which helps in easy transportation from place to place. There are two types of pallets Wooden and Plastic, both have there own pros and cons in the logistic industry. The standard Euro pallet size is 800 x 1200 x 144 mm which must comply with the UIC 435-2 specification approved by the International Union of Railways. [15]
Figure 13: Wooden pallets v/s Plastic pallets
• Wooden Pallets
Wooden pallets can easily repaired and reusable, they weigh in between 15 to 21 kgs while plastic is lighter. Wooden pallets are 3 times less expensive than plastic pallets and at least 10 times more widely used. The weather, external conditions and even spillages can have a damaging effect on wood as it is highly absorbent. The wooden pallet, however, is probably ahead by a nose – on account of its better ecological footprint and its lower cost.[16] • Plastic Pallets
Plastic Pallets are typically used in transporting fresh and frozen foods and pharmaceutical or other products with strict hygienic requirements. Plastic pallets are easy to clean, wash or sterilize. These are 3 times costlier than the wooden pallets but light in weight, the glassy surface makes them smooth
and slippery which affects in storing and shifting the goods, also they are not suitable for the goods more than the weight of 700kgs. If the goods are shipped overseas and no way of exchange of goods then the use of plastics pallets is not an economical business choice, also some of the countries have a regulation of importing the plastics as pallets then this can be also one of the criteria. They be easily cleaned (hot washed, steam cleaned or chemically sanitized) to remove any bacteria. The durability of the plastic pallets is high and there is no need for extra wrapping up the goods for more safety in manual handling case. [17]
2.6.2
Types of wooden pallets
Wooden pallets are mainly classified into three types based on the pallet style by entry points and decking, design and type of material used. Hence the major concentration on the entry point and decking we consider the pallet style types as shown in the figure 14.
1. Two way Entry; As we can see in the figure the entry for the forklift inside the pallet is only two sides.
2. Four-way entry; These have four entries and flexible in the congested area. 3. Open deck pallet; These have gaps in between the deck boards in which makes
the pallet lighter and less expensive. Also, the goods smaller in size can’t be shipped because it might slip through the gaps.
4. Solid Deck pallet; The name itself suggests that it is completely solid with fork gaps,where the single sheet of wood running through the upper and lower side. These are used to transport the smaller goods in which the goods are handled carefully.
5. Double face pallet; These pallets can be used either side, it has stringer on both sides and four entries for forklift. Though it is very heavy, usage of it is minimal.
Figure 14: Pallet Style by Entry points and Decking
[18]
2.6.3
Plastic Containers
Plastic containers are used inside the roll cages for the storage of food and hygienic goods. These are placed one above the other with different goods inside. They are
available in the market with 3 different sizes (22 litres,34 litres and 48 litres) in which the design is more specific and have rigid temperature control all through the storage and transportation. They are low in cost, easy to handle and safe to use. Usage of these containers eliminates the need for single-use packing, improving the environmental impact and respective cost of the cardboard disposal which helps in supply chain management. [19]
Figure 15: Plastic Container
Few advantages of using a plastic container for storage of goods can be seen listed below:
1. Fully vented design allows faster, more consistent cooling to achieve uniform temperature control during storage and transport.
2. Interlocking mechanism helps the container to hold the upper container from both the side when the load is not well distributed.
3. Standard size helps in delivering more number of the container at a time to destination, which increases the load capacity to the truck.
4. Unique design handles of the container help in loading and unloading manually and placed at respective places.
5. Improved product protection and space utilisation
6. Using these container helps in an automated warehouse where the automated conveyor has a specific weight to be place and the surface of the conveyor is not damaged when the container is roughly used.
7. Respective bar codes can be printed upon the containers for the segregation of goods.
2.6.4
Roll containers
Roll containers are half pallet-sized platforms, with four running castors and with a wire cage used to contain goods during transport. They are also known as roll cages or roll pallets. They may be used to transport goods in a lorry between a warehouse and a retail store for instance or within a supermarket to transport goods from the storeroom to the sales floor. The use of roll containers reduces the need for manual handling and may allow goods to be taken straight from the warehouse to the shop floor. They form a valuable part of any moving and handling strategy and can be used with additional equipment such as intermediate shelves, tension belts, special rollers or braking systems.
Figure 16: Roll Cage
The roll container units can have three or four sides and come with an integral or optional mesh shelf and door unit. The metal roll containers are made of a bright zinc-plated mesh and come with fixed and swivel castors as needed. Additionally, the majority of them can be steam cleaned or pressure washed, making them perfect for use in supermarkets or food preparation areas. There are many types of roll containers in use today, some of them can be seen outlined below:
1. Two-sided roll container: With metal grates on two sides of the cage, these are most suitable for stocking lightweight items that are unlikely to fall. Two-sided cages give you good access to the goods from multiple angles, meaning they’re very flexible for storing and stocking lightweight boxes and goods.
2. Three-sided roll container: Three-sided containers are closed at the back as well as the sides, providing more support against falls and damage to stock. As such, they can be used for heavier items while still providing easy front loading and unloading access.
3. Four-sided roll container: With a closable (and sometimes lockable) front door, these roll containers are ideal for storing goods that need a high level of protec-tion and for moving heavier goods that have a potential to fall. It also allows you to store high-value goods with the ability to lock the door to protect con-tents.
4. Nestable roll container: If saving space in your storage or warehouse area is important, then nestable roll containers could be a great option. These are containers that slot together when not in use, meaning several units can be stored in a small space. You must get nestable containers of the same size and brand to ensure maximum space-saving potential. If you’re looking to improve your storage, moving and handling or stocking options, then a choice of roll containers provides you with a range of possibilities. With different sizes and styles suitable for different purposes, you can create a comprehensive warehouse or storage plan. And with space-saving nestable containers also available, you can improve your storage space options.
5. Demountable roll container: Demountable roll containers come with a storage section that can be removed for more convenient long-term storage.
6. Security roll container: Similar to four-sided roll containers, these have front door access and large load capacity, meaning they are suited to heavy goods and long-term storage. Especially for the goods and products which are small and very important or more prone to damage this type of rolling cage is the best solution to keep them safe and protected. For many explosive chemicals that react with dirt as well, this solution is beneficial as it is very hygienic and don’t let the dirty particles come in and accumulate.
3
Methodology
In this section we will discuss about the methodology used to achieve the objective of the thesis. Description of methodologies and how it is suited for this thesis is explained. Customer survey of various companies is also discussed in this section of the report.
3.1
Design Methodology
To achieve the goal, a structural breakdown of the different scenarios is required with suitable study to the greatest extend. Also to breakdown, there are different ways and suitable ideas to carry out. The method chosen for this thesis report is illustrated as in fig 17 which is based on Ulrich and Eppinger’s Product Development methodology . It consists of 6 phases which are sequential and iterative as shown in the fig 17
Figure 17: Illustration of Methodology [1]
Planning phase includes extensive collection of data related to the product being designed, which needs to be converted into specifications. Interviews with customers or stakeholders , investigation of existing technology or designs ,etc can help gather-ing more data in the initial phase. It also involves literature study ,study of existgather-ing products in the market and bench-marking of them against the needs.The output of the planning phase is the project mission statement, which specifies the target market for the product, business goals, key assumptions, and constraints.[1]
Concept Development phase involves gathering the needs of the market and gen-erating concepts based on the customer needs. After generation of few concepts, brainstorming of concepts is done with a group including the subject matter experts. The product is broken down into smaller subsystems to make the brainstorming ses-sions easier. Classification tree and morphological matrix is done to visualise and assess the feasibility of the ideas. The feasible ideas are then selected to the next step of the product development process. A selection criteria is made to select the best of these concepts in the next phase.The outcomes of this phase are several concepts that are hand selected or modeled in 3D for further considerations. There are times when two or more concepts are combined to a single concept which suits the design considerations.[1]
System level design phase which takes place after the selection of the final concept includes the definition of the product architecture, decomposition of the product
into subsystems and components, and preliminary design of key components. Initial plans for the production system and final assembly are usually defined during this phase as well. The output of this phase usually includes a geometric layout of the product, a functional specification of each of the product’s subsystems, and a pre-liminary process flow diagram for the final assembly process.[1]
Detail design phase involves the complete specification of the geometry, materials, and tolerances of all of the unique parts in the product. This phase is for modelling of the parts in 3D design software keeping in mind the design tolerances for assembly. The output of this phase is the control documentation for the product—the drawings or computer files describing the geometry of each part and its production tooling, the specifications of the purchased parts, and the process plans for the fabrication and assembly of the product.
Testing and Refinement phase involves making a prototype of the product as per the drawing in the previous stage. It is then tested in a suitable testing facility and compared to the target specifications. If the goals are not met the product is im-proved or re-designed by iterating through the previous steps starting from concept generation. Once the product fulfills all the requirements and shows an optimised behaviour it is approved and put into production.
Production ramp-up: In the production ramp-up phase, the product is made us-ing the intended production system. The purpose of the ramp-up is to train the workforce and to work out any remaining problems in the production processes. Products produced during production ramp-up are sometimes supplied to preferred customers and are carefully evaluated to identify any remaining flaws. The transition from production ramp-up to ongoing production is usually gradual. At some point in this transition, the product is launched and becomes available for widespread distribution.[1]
3.2
Customer Survey
The surveys regarding the current logistics problem associated with the warehouse while loading and delivery are the major concern in the thesis, hence the surveys were done keeping the objectives and the problems today. Below you can find the details from different Customer visits and also the inputs from them.
3.2.1
HAVI Logistics
During our visit to HAVI along with our supervisors including the member from HAVI to understand the workflow at the back end of logistics since the concept design based on the issues faced by the customer. A survey was taken to understand the needs of the customers, also the workflow in the warehouse. After inspection on how the goods are loaded and unloaded with respective sections different sections of food were stored based on the temperature requirements in a controlled environment. The goods having less weight are placed in top shelves and goods which is heavier are
placed in bottom shelves for easy placement and safety purpose. Hence according to the system generated schedule with the help of manual labour the respective food items are removed from the shelf to the pallets later into the trucks. Comparing the work productivity concerning time, the major outcome from this visit was knowing that the productivity in off-peak is less due to countable manpower. Therefore the major problem was found in off-peak.19
Figure 18: Some inputs from the query
Figure 19: HAVI Logistics AB
Hence by visiting HAVI, we got a clear picture of how the food goods are delivered to the customer and the problem facing in the warehouse. The last-mile delivery needed human interaction at present also sometime in the future, but not in the warehouse. This visit cleared the dilemma of problem facing in off peak either in the warehouse or in last-mile delivery.
3.2.2
Ragn-Sells AB
It is a company where both the goods and waste are co loaded in the same vehicle 21 to reach sustainability within the main city downtown areas. The goods from the warehouse (Point A) is transported to the smart hub inside the city (point B),
later good are sorted according to the deliveries. They have 7 battery propelled vans (Minivans) in which 2 of them work on both co-loading of goods and waste, and the rest only on waste. The delivering of goods starts in the morning in minivans containing goods and empty bins inside. The route is planned in such a way that the delivery point of goods and the collection points of dry waste will be near or at a common point. This cycle is repetitive and sometime the co-loading might not work because the collecting of the waste will be more in the morning time comparing in the evening. Hence the cycle becomes one way during evening, that is delivering only the goods, also the loading and unloading takes place with the help of labour and productivity is less.
Figure 20: Some inputs from the query
Figure 21: Ragn-Sells Electric vehicle in Smart Hub
This visit helped us to know how the co-loading of goods and waste is taking place, how to match the system cycle of both goods and waste. Since goods are delivered to shops and collect dry waste from them, there is no necessity for off-peak delivery. They already have an electric van for last-mile delivery with some interaction with a human. We suggested a better idea which involves an autonomous vehicle to deliver the goods at off peak times so that as soon as the work starts in the morning the delivery process can start without wasting time on unloading of goods. This visit
gave us an clear idea of how the smart hubs are working today in the major cities and the advantages and disadvantages of the same.
3.2.3
Scania Logistics
This was a survey within Scania, we visited along with the supervisors to know the actual problems and current scenarios in the logistics flow. One of the guides took us on a tour inside to show the work flown from point A to point B. The goods from the truck is unloaded in two ways,
• Wooden pallets
The heavy goods, where the safety is more important are unloaded manually at the entrance (Door 1) and forklifts carry these pallets to the desired place to store.
• Wooden pallets with Plastic boxes
These are the small spare parts, which are divided in the plastic boxes within the pallets are unloaded (Door 2), later separated through the conveyor and placed in the desired roll cages manually. Once the roll cage is full, the signal is sent to the AGV inside the hub. The AGV’s from the platform moves near the roll cages and pick up to the desired location inside the hub. The AGV suppliers have created the specific mapping inside in which the AGV’s should follow. If the desired location is not empty to place the carried cage, AGV starts beeping and the good can be placed manually to the empty place by the worker nearby. Later the AGV has to be placed in the specific mapping lane with in the warehouse to work autonomously.
Since these AGV’s are still in the testing phase they are not forced to be com-pletely automatic. When we discussed with the guide to know the current issues facing from the AGV’s, we came to know that they are working from point A to B, the items are not being placed in the rack or the shelves, shifting from the roll cages to the larger shelf’s are still handled manually. Also, it is difficult to change the guide lane for AGVs within the ware house for different rack or shelves hence they are handled manually. The major issue is to under-stand the AGV’s behaviours to the worker inside the hub, proper education is needed within operators.
3.2.4
Grånpark Restaurant Scania
It is one of the restaurants within Scania AB. Since our chosen product was food, we decided to have a look around the store room where the food parcels were being unloaded from the respective supplier.
• Customer interaction: The food parcels reaches the restaurant in the morning between 7am-8am, the driver alone unloads the food parcels(Dry and Frozen) from the truck and takes the empty palettes along. The food products were delivered every day and meat was delivered three days a week, depending upon the suppliers the food products are delivered in pallets and the roll cages, as we saw the meat were in pallets and rest on roll cages. This type of delivery is completely based on how the supplier is delivering it.
• User Perspective: To know the exact problem we spoke to the driver, where he said autonomous vehicle for delivery may be used full for long-distance use, because as the supplier has many points to delivery in a line, he has to go in particular to give out the parcel and its time consuming moreover human interaction is necessary, also for a short trip within the hub it is easy to deliver the goods for the driver on his own.
• Case Study: The study gives the problem in loading and the unloading of the goods to the trucks since the roll cages and wooden pallets both are used in the transportation depending on the supplier, the focus is on the how user friendly they are. The roll cages are more users friendly than the pallets to load and unload goods at the desired place as we can see from the figure 22.
Figure 22: Goods flow from the truck to Restaurant
3.3
Qualitative study
To increase the knowledge of AGVs and the competitors the literature survey plays a major role in the methodology. Articles and research papers on AGVs give better ideas on the use with the recent technology used in them.
3.4
Chosen method
Hence by comparing and validating the theory and data collected shows us the need of AGVs and its technology in different places, also with the guideline of people inside Scania who has experiences in various fields help us to generate the concept vehicle. Generating some of the concepts which suit the gap and picking up one as final with the mixture or as whole to have a complete detailed design in CATIA. This detailed design is later modified for prototype, also to have animated video.
4
Load Carrier: Concept Design
and Development Process
This section focuses mainly on the whole design process of the load carrier based on the ideas generated from literature survey and customer survey. The workflow is based on Ulrich and Eppinger’s product development Method Explained in Section 3. This thesis is mainly focused on the first 3 stages of the product development process as shown in the figure 17 which are planning, concept development and system level design processes. The product development process is started with recognising the problem area thoroughly and evaluating the feasible resources and develop concepts which satisfies the problem which is described in the Introduction section of this report.
4.1
Product Planning Phase
This phase contains details of how raw data from different resources are collected and later formulated as customer needs ,categorised and organised into target spec-ifications.
4.1.1
Product data collection
This section contains the details of how the data from different sources were collected and interpreted into customer needs and target specifications. The different sources of information regarding the load carrier were from literature survey and customer visits. The raw data collected from customers are listed below and it includes all the information and the problems faced today with the delivery of goods with the current system. The raw data is then interpreted into needs concerning the scope of the thesis in the next section.
Raw Data collected from different customers:
Data is regarding the load carrier and the current system of goods handling. • Manual pickup and drop of goods into shelves.
• Problem in sorting of packages.
• Use of Electric vehicles to deliver packages and collect waste. • Not using Off Peak transportation for goods delivery.
• Time constraints for each delivery.
• Size of the Load carrier is an important factor. • It should be affordable by the companies. • It should travel along the truck for deliveries.
• Integrity of the vehicle should be considered. • Able to carry both pallets and roll containers. • Misuse of the goods should be avoided.
As this product being developed is not in the market and for future integration with autonomous trucks ,most of the data or customer needs has to interpreted based on the changing trends in autonomous technology and predicting the future of au-tonomous vehicles. The data collection either from literature or customer survey is done to keep the requirements gathered from them as a base for the product devel-opment process.
The detailed report of the literature and customer survey can be found in the Section 3.1. Data was collected from the truck drivers considering a hypothetical situation of autonomous trucks where there is no need of truck drivers regarding the needs of the autonomous load carrier specifications and use. Data was also collected from the customers where the goods should be delivered on the requirements of the load carrier.
4.1.2
Customer needs
The raw data collected is converted into Customer needs based on the inputs from the customers and the scope of the thesis. The needs of the load carrier are given below.
• Loading and Unloading of goods should be automated.
– The food products which needs to delivered to the customer from the warehouse needs to loaded by an autonomous vehicle at the warehouse and unloaded at the customers autonomously.
• Delivery of goods during night time to avoid traffic congestion in cities. • Adaption of sustainable transportation by using fully electric autonomous
ve-hicles.
• The load carrier need to be compact.
– The load carrier needs to be accommodated along with the goods in the truck , so that the loading and unloading can be done by the same load carrier both at the warehouse and at the customer.
• The load carrier needs to be able to place pallets in the shelves when necessary and also carry the roll containers from the warehouse into the truck and from the truck into the customers warehouse.
• Cost of the load carrier is one of the consideration for it to be affordable by the transporting company.
• The load carrier needs to be designed considering the safety constraints such that the goods while being transported need to not be damaged.
