Case Study: How Portwell Achieved 99% Material Handling Accuracy with ASUS 5G AIoT

Factories typically rely on significant manpower for labor-intensive tasks such as preparing materials or managing in-factory transportation of goods from one area to another. This involves manually counting materials, loading them onto pallets, and moving them along the production line. Finished products also require manual transporting from the production floor to the warehouse for storage or shipment – resulting in additional costs in time and resources.

However, today’s factories require more flexibility in their processes as they move away from traditional manufacturing models for material management and factory-floor logistics. Additionally, as fewer people enter the manufacturing industry each year, labor shortages are increasingly common. 

The solution? Integrated autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and warehouse control systems (WCS) from ASUS.

Smarter production with a smart factory in Taipei – A case study

Portwell, a manufacturer of industrial embedded systems located in New Taipei City, leverages ASUS’s 5G and AIoT technology to establish seamless two-way communication between its AMRs and WCS to accelerate production processes.

Before transitioning to a 5G AIoT Smart Factory, Portwell’s material management and in-factory transportation required significant manual effort. Warehouse staff needed to prepare and transport materials to the production line twice daily — a process that involved counting, loading onto pallets, and using hydraulic trucks for delivery. Similarly, finished products were manually transported from production to storage or shipment areas, tasks that typically involved 8-10 people across three separate floors in the warehouse and production area. 

However, after the transition to a 5G AIoT Smart Factory, things look much different. Now, using the smart material delivery solution, when a transport task is assigned in Portwell’s factory, the ASUS WCS instantly locates each AMR to assess its operational status. High-speed 5G connectivity ensures this data is instantly relayed to the WCS. Since the implementation of the smart material delivery solution in December 2023, the 5G AIoT Smart Factory system has significantly boosted efficiency.

Integrating any new system in a complex manufacturing environment requires careful planning to navigate technical challenges and every factory has its own unique requirements. Therefore, close collaboration between ASUS and Portwell was essential to ensuring a smooth technology transformation.

To meet Portwell’s specific needs, the ASUS team conducted on-site inspections, designed the WCS to align with existing workflows. The WCS includes individually customized software and hardware designs. The software design focusing on user needs by implemented a user-centric Graphical User Interface (GUI) for ease of use. For the hardware, AMRs handle the transportation of raw materials, semi-finished goods, and finished products. 

ASUS WCS has brought direct benefits, including a 99% material transportation accuracy rate, due to its dedicated 5G low-latency private network. This has led to the reassignment of three material handling employees to higher-value roles in management and engineering – benefiting both employees and the company. Automation of material preparation and transport also enables meticulous tracking of material quantities, routes, and time, enhancing material management efficiency and reducing the risk of misplacement to further support smooth production line operations.

Through the integration of 5G and the smart material delivery solution into Portwell’s production line, ASUS helped reduce handling costs and minimize communication time between personnel. ASUS WCS efficiently schedules tasks and assigns material distribution to AMRs, streamlining the manufacturing process.

ASUS’s smart material delivery solutions offer a smoother workflow and effectively address the challenges facing modern factories. To find out more, please go to: ASUS IoT Global