Delft University of Technology
Faculty Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering Transport Technology / Logistic Engineering
M.A. van Dongen Analysis of the telecoding system for UPS Fechenheim. Masters thesis, Report 97.3.LT.4894, Transport Technology, Logistic Engineering.
Due to the continuing growth of the sort volume during the last 15 years the capacity of the UPS HUB in Wiesbaden is not sufficient anymore. In order to guarantee reliable package delivery a new HUB will be built. This new HUB will be located in Fechenheim.
In conventional HUB's packages are key entered by people standing next to the belt. In Fechenheim however a new system of key entry, Telecoding, will be used. In this system all packages are imaged and people key enter the sort data while seeing the image of the package on their screen. Since UPS has no experience with the Telecoding system and the key entry is an important part of the HUB, the performance of the system should be investigated. For this reason a simulation of the package flow through the Fechenheim HUB is made.
The simulations reveal that the number of packages needing telecoding and the key entry capacity are most important for the systems performance. With the use of actual volume availability figures it is determined that during midnight 39 key entry people and during twilight 33 key entry people are needed based on a key entry capacity of 700 packages per hour. The results are approximately 10% higher than expectations based on deterministic
calculations.
Nevertheless it was found that a number of other factors have a big influence too. Of these factors most important is the size of the hard disk of the scanner. This hard disk is used to store the images of the packages. The storage capacity of the hard disk should be sufficient to store the images of the packages present on 8500 mm. of belt length.
Another important factor is the shape of the distribution of the telecoding time needed per key entry. Simulation shows that a high percentage of 'slow key entries' increases the number of No Data packages. By decreasing the percentage of slow key entries the installation of a system to determine the orientation of the label and of a system that guarantees showing the right label at once could increase the key entry performance with up to 17%. Further simulations reveal the importance of spreading the arrival time and volume of the containers. Starting the sorting process with containers all having the same volume could cause additional peaks and gaps in the telecoding capacity needed. When the arrival of the packages is known in time, these gaps could be used as break time for the telecoding people.
Reports on Logistic Engineering (in Dutch)
