UPB is one of the largest industrial groups in the Baltic States with an annual turnover of about 150 million euros, 60,000 m² of production area and more than 100 in-house engineers. The company operates in the field of precast steel walls and curtain walls, providing full service from design and production to delivery and construction. UPB's precast production facility in Liepaja, Latvia, produces more than 100 precast elements (walls, stairs, balconies, etc.) per day.

UPB has implemented DENSO's BHT-1600 handheld terminal with Android in the precast production facility, and uses it starting from the manufacturing process to the finished products, which are then loaded onto trucks and delivered to the customer.

DENSO's BHT-1600: the perfect device Working conditions in the precast plant are harsh - manufacturing processes are dusty, and working in the warehouse means that any weather conditions can affect the scanner. UPB uses DENSO BHT-1600 Rugged devices to scan the manufacturing steps and work in the warehouse. The advantages are that they are rugged, splash-proof and drop-proof. UPB can use both Wi-Fi and LTE. The built-in camera can save time when images are needed for audit or inspection tasks. DENSO has also provided device management software that allows UPB to push updates to all devices once applications have been updated.

Quality control is simplified During the manufacturing process, each element goes through several steps. It is important that quality checks are performed after different stages of manufacturing, and that managers have correct information about the manufacturing process to plan ahead for the next steps. DENSO's BHT-1600 series handheld terminals are used on the production floor to mark when a particular manufacturing step is complete and when the item is ready to be loaded. Because the data capture device has an integrated camera, pictures can be taken of the elements after certain manufacturing steps (documenting progress) and immediately forwarded to the ERP system. This reduces the workload for quality assurance specialists.

A large warehouse can quickly become confusing The plant's warehouse is about 10,000 square meters in size and is located outside. Every day, about 1,000 construction elements are stored in it. After completion, the various elements are transferred to the warehouse. Each element has a specific barcode. This is scanned, and thus the storage position of the element is stored and sent to UPB's ERP system. This makes it easy to locate each part when needed.

It takes time to load a wall onto a truck The weight of each element is several tons, so loading it onto the truck takes time. However, even more time is needed if the wrong element is loaded onto the wrong truck. With DENSO's BHT-1600, the loading lists are downloaded from the ERP system. To verify that the loading was done properly, each element is scanned individually. Once the loading process is complete, images are taken with the BHT-1600 and uploaded to the ERP system. These serve as evidence in an emergency if something happened to the load during transport to the customer.

User software development All of the Android software used on the BHT-1600 was developed by an internal UPB IT department, which implemented this system at the production facility. In total, UPB developed three Android apps: One for quality assurance and two for warehouse management. In addition, some modifications were made to the ERP programming interface by UPB's web developers.

For UBP, implementing the BHT-1600 means less paperwork for warehouse staff, and fewer errors that can happen when transferring items from the warehouse to the trucks. The easy upload of images to the ERP system also saves time, and the element's manufacturing information is updated immediately.