https://www.scnsoft.

com/blog/iot-for-inventory-management

IoT-driven inventory management: insights

for the manufacturers
According to recent research, only 33% of manufacturers use inventory management software,
the rest 67% still relying on either Excel- or paper-based methods. They lose an average of 18
hours per month writing down inventory details on a piece of paper and entering information on
each item into a spreadsheet. But labor-intensiveness is not the only issue - Marketwatch
estimated that 88% of spreadsheets contain errors.

The good news is that with the help of IIoT and RFID, manufacturers can outflank the problems
bound to the manual methods and gain real-time visibility into their inventory. In this article,
we’ll share our IoT development experience to reveal the top points manufacturers need to know
to effectively leverage IIoT and RFID for inventory management.

A smart inventory approach – what’s behind it?

In an inventory management solution based on Industrial IoT and RFID, any individual
inventory item that is to be tracked receives an RFID tag. Each tag has a unique identification
number (ID) that contains encoded digital data about an inventory item, e.g. a model, a batch
number, etc. Tags are scanned by RFID readers. Upon scanning, a reader extracts tags’ IDs and
transmits them to the cloud for processing.

Along with the tags’ IDs, the cloud receives the data about the reader’s location and the time of
the reading. Based on this data, the cloud states the location of the item with the corresponding
ID, visualizes the findings and displays real-time updates about inventory items’ movements to
the solution users, allowing them to monitor the inventory using a smartphone or a laptop from
anywhere, in real time.

Let’s have a closer look at the technologies that enable smart inventory management.

RFID

RFID systems feature three main components: RFID tags, RFID antennas and RFID readers.

RFID tags

An RFID tag has an ID carrying the information about a specific object. It can be attached to any
physical surface, including raw materials, finished goods, packages, crates, pallets, etc. In an
industrial setting, mainly passive tags are used, i.e. those without their own power supply. Such
tags are cheaper but require the power from the reader to be able to transmit data.

RFID antennas

An RFID antenna catches the waves from the reader to supply energy for tags’ operation and
relays the radio signal from the tags to the readers.

RFID readers

An RFID reader, which can be either fixed or handheld, uses radio waves to write to and read
from the tags. It can read from the number of tags over distance. The reader catches the IDs that
are written in tags’ memory banks and transmits them to the cloud, together with the data about
the readers’ locations and the time of readings.

IIoT

The role of IIoT in inventory management boils down to turning the data fetched by RFID
readers into meaningful insights about inventory items’ location, statuses, movements, etc., and
giving users a corresponding output. For example, based on the data about the inventory quantity
and location, machine learning – a component of an IoT-based inventory management solution
architecture – can forecast the amount of raw materials needed for the upcoming production
cycle. The output an IoT system provides can have various forms: it can send an alert to a user if
any individual inventory item is lost, notify of the need to replenish materials, etc.

Moreover, inventory management solutions based on Industrial IoT can be integrated with other
systems, say, ERP – and share data with other enterprise’s departments. For instance, since
inventory value can be a significant portion of a company’s assets, inventory data is crucial for
an accounting department to ensure that a company’s annual reports and tax returns are accurate.

What are the benefits of an IoT-based approach?

By aggregating and analyzing the data coming from RFID readers and making the insights
gained with the analysis available to the inventory managers in real time, IoT-based inventory
management lays a solid foundation for both process and business improvements. The benefits it
offers include:

 Automation of inventory tracking and reporting

With RFID and IIoT, inventory managers don’t need to spend time on manual tracking and
reporting. Each item is tracked and the data about it is recorded to a big data warehouse
automatically. Automated asset tracking and reporting save up to 18 hours of working time per
month and reduces the probability of human error.

 Constant visibility into the inventory items’ quantity, location and movements

An IoT-based inventory management solution gives manufacturers precise visibility into the
flow of raw materials and components, work-in-progress and finished goods by providing real-
time updates about the status, location, and movement of the items, so that inventory managers
see when an individual inventory item enters or leaves a particular location.

 Inventory optimization

The better inventory managers know their stock, the more likely they are to have the right items
in the right place at the right time. With the real-time data about the quantity and the location of
the inventory items, manufacturers can lower the amount of inventory on hand while meeting the
needs of the customers at the end of the supply chain.

 Identifying bottlenecks in the operations

With the real-time data about the location and the quantity of the inventory items, manufacturers
can reveal bottlenecks in the manufacturing process and pinpoint machines with lower utilization
rates. For instance, if part of the inventory tends to pile up in front of a machine, a manufacturer
assumes that the machine is underutilized and needs to be seen to.

 Lead time optimization

By providing inventory managers with the data about the amount of available inventory and
machine learning-driven demand forecasts, solutions based on IIoT allow manufacturers to
reduce lead times. Here is an example: a RFID-based inventory management solution allowed
Zara to take a garment from design through the manufacturing process to a smart warehouse in
just 10 days.

How does an inventory management solution based on IIoT

and RFID work?
To see more clearly how the inventory management based on IIoT and RFID works, let’s
consider an example. Say, among other pharmaceutical equipment, an enterprise produces
single-punch tablet presses. The enterprise owns two geographically dispersed factories: one – to
produce press components, the other – to assemble the final unit.

At the start of the production cycle, the components for, say, die lower punches, get passive
RFID tags. Each tag is granted a unique identification number that contains data about every
part. The list of tags’ IDs is saved to a big data warehouse.

During the manufacturing process, as the tagged components move from station to station and
from shop to shop, the RFID readers scan the tags and relay the IDs, the time of the readings, and
the data about the location of the readers to the cloud.

The cloud analyzes the incoming data and identifies the locations and the statuses of the
components. If any of them is missing, the cloud pinpoints the missing part, sends an alert to a
solution user and sets the status of the item in the inventory management solution to ‘missing’.
As soon as the location of the component is identified, its status is set back to ‘in production’.

When the production of the die lower punches is finished, they are shipped to the other facility
for assembling. They are packed in packages and crates, put on pallets and placed in vehicles, the
vehicles are scanned with a handheld RFID reader before they depart. The employees at the
assembly affiliate see that the parts have left the production affiliate. Once the parts arrive at the
assembly facility, the vehicles are scanned with handheld readers one more time to make sure no
items are lost.

As soon as the single-punch tablet presses are assembled, each press receives another tag (the
tags from press components can be either kept or removed, depending on the cost-effectiveness
of the required operations). As the presses move from department to department, say, from
assembly to quality check, the readers installed in the doorways scan the tags attached to the
presses to relay the data to the cloud and identify presses’ precise location. The presses are
tracked all the way till the moment they are shipped to a warehouse.

In the warehouse, the reader scans the tags and in case the cloud detects a missing unit, it sends
an alert to an operator. If the IoT-based inventory management solution doesn’t report any
missing units, the pallets are forklifted and unloaded.

As a result, manufacturers track the inventory from the day the individual components were
manufactured to the day the assembled unit arrives at a warehouse and then departs from it to
reach end-customers.

Are there any challenges and limitations?

As our IoT development experience proves, the use of RFID technologies can be limited by the
following factors:

 Since RFID tags can be attached to the items that are still in progress, manufacturers have
to ensure that the tags do not influence the manufacturing process.
 Although RFID readers can scan through most of non-metallic materials, they still may
have troubles scanning through liquid and metal. If you try to scan through a tank of
water or a metal sheet, tag readings may be inaccurate.
 Tag prices range from 5 cents to $10 per item. The price of RFID readers can go to as
much as $3,000 to $20,000 per item, installation and configuration included. Therefore,
the cost of the products should be high enough for the tags and readers to pay off.

The outcomes
An IoT-based inventory management and asset tracking solution offers constant visibility into
the inventory by providing real-time information fetched by RFID tags. It helps to track the
precise location of raw materials, work-in-progress and finished goods. As a result,
manufacturers can balance the amount of on-hand inventory, increase the utilization of machines,
reduce lead time, and thus, avoid hidden costs bound to the less effective manual methods.

IoT Services
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By Boris Shiklo
Sep 9, 2018
Internet of Things , CIO Blog
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About the Author: Boris Shiklo

Boris Shiklo, CTO at ScienceSoft, is responsible for the company’s long-term technological
vision and innovation strategies. Under his supervision, the company’s development team has
successfully fulfilled complex projects of over 80,000 man-hours in Healthcare, Banking &
Finance, Retail, Telecommunications, Public Sector and other domains. Boris Shiklo has a solid
background in IT consulting, software development, project management and strategic planning.

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IoT architecture: building blocks and how they work

IoT architecture: building blocks and how

they work

Can you imagine a huge variety of smart devices under the centralized control from one “brain”?
To a certain extent, it’s possible with the evolvement of the Internet of Things - the network of
physical objects with sensors and actuators, software and network connectivity that enable these
objects to gather and transmit data and fulfil users’ tasks.

The effectiveness and applicability of such a system directly correlates with the quality of its
building blocks and the way they interact, and there are various approaches to IoT architecture.
With wide experience in IoT development across various industries, we’ve worked out our original
IoT architecture concept.

Basic elements of IoT architecture

Our approach to IoT architecture is reflected in the IoT architecture diagram which shows the
building blocks of an IoT system and how they are connected to collect, store and process data.
Things. A “thing” is an object equipped with sensors that gather data which will be transferred
over a network and actuators that allow things to act (for example, to switch on or off the light,
to open or close a door, to increase or decrease engine rotation speed and more). This concept
includes fridges, street lamps, buildings, vehicles, production machinery, rehabilitation equipment
and everything else imaginable. Sensors are not in all cases physically attached to the things:
sensors may need to monitor, for example, what happens in the closest environment to a thing.

Gateways. Data goes from things to the cloud and vice versa through the gateways. A gateway
provides connectivity between things and the cloud part of the IoT solution, enables data
preprocessing and filtering before moving it to the cloud (to reduce the volume of data for detailed
processing and storing) and transmits control commands going from the cloud to things. Things
then execute commands using their actuators.

Cloud gateway facilitates data compression and secure data transmission between field gateways
and cloud IoT servers. It also ensures compatibility with various protocols and communicates with
field gateways using different protocols depending on what protocol is supported by gateways.

Streaming data processor ensures effective transition of input data to a data lake and control
applications. No data can be occasionally lost or corrupted.

Data lake. A data lake is used for storing the data generated by connected devices in its natural
format. Big data comes in "batches" or in “streams”. When the data is needed for meaningful
insights it’s extracted from a data lake and loaded to a big data warehouse.

Big data warehouse. Filtered and preprocessed data needed for meaningful insights is extracted
from a data lake to a big data warehouse. A big data warehouse contains only cleaned, structured
and matched data (compared to a data lake which contains all sorts of data generated by sensors).
Also, data warehouse stores context information about things and sensors (for example, where
sensors are installed) and the commands control applications send to things.

Data analytics. Data analysts can use data from the big data warehouse to find trends and gain
actionable insights. When analyzed (and in many cases – visualized in schemes, diagrams,
infographics) big data show, for example, the performance of devices, help identify inefficiencies
and work out the ways to improve an IoT system (make it more reliable, more customer-oriented).
Also, the correlations and patterns found manually can further contribute to creating algorithms
for control applications.

Machine learning and the models ML generates. With machine learning, there is an opportunity
to create more precise and more efficient models for control applications. Models are regularly
updated (for example, once in a week or once in a month) based on the historical data accumulated
in a big data warehouse. When the applicability and efficiency of new models are tested and
approved by data analysts, new models are used by control applications.

Control applications send automatic commands and alerts to actuators, for example:
  Windows of a smart home can receive an automatic command to open or close depending
on the forecasts taken from the weather service.
 When sensors show that the soil is dry, watering systems get an automatic command to
water plants.
 Sensors help monitor the state of industrial equipment, and in case of a pre-failure situation,
an IoT system generates and sends automatic notifications to field engineers.

The commands sent by control apps to actuators can be also additionally stored in a big data
warehouse. This may help investigate problematic cases (for example, a control app sends
commands, but they are not performed by actuators – then connectivity, gateways and actuators
need to be checked). On the other side, storing commands from control apps may contribute to
security, as an IoT system can identify that some commands are too strange or come in too big
amounts which may evidence security breaches (as well as other problems which need
investigation and corrective measures).

Control applications can be either rule-based or machine-learning based. In the first case, control
apps work according to the rules stated by specialists. In the second case, control apps are using
models which are regularly updated (once in a week, once in a month depending on the specifics
of an IoT system) with the historical data stored in a big data warehouse.

Although control apps ensure better automation of an IoT system, there should be always an option
for users to influence the behavior of such applications (for example, in cases of emergency or
when it turns out that an IoT system is badly tuned to perform certain actions).

User applications are a software component of an IoT system which enables the connection of
users to an IoT system and gives the options to monitor and control their smart things (while they
are connected to a network of similar things, for example, homes or cars and controlled by a central
system). With a mobile or web app, users can monitor the state of their things, send commands to
control applications, set the options of automatic behavior (automatic notifications and actions
when certain data comes from sensors).

Device management
To ensure sufficient functioning of IoT devices, it’s far not enough to install them and let things
go their way. There are some procedures required to manage the performance of connected devices
(facilitate the interaction between devices, ensure secure data transmission and more):

 Device identification to establish the identity of the device to be sure that it’s a genuine
device with trusted software transmitting reliable data.
 Configuration and control to tune devices according to the purposes of an IoT system.
Some parameters need to be written once a device is installed (for example, unique device
ID). Other settings might need updates (for example, the time between sending messages
with data).
 Monitoring and diagnostics to ensure smooth and secure performance of every device in
a network and reduce the risk of breakdowns.
  Software updates and maintenance to add functionality, fix bugs, address security
vulnerabilities.

User management
Alongside with device management, it’s important to provide control over the users having access
to an IoT system.

User management involves identifying users, their roles, access levels and ownership in a system.
It includes such options as adding and removing users, managing user settings, controlling access
of various users to certain information, as well as the permission to perform certain operations
within a system, controlling and recording user activities and more.

Security monitoring
Security is one of the top concerns in the internet of things. Connected things produce huge
volumes of data, which need to be securely transmitted and protected from cyber-criminals.
Another side is that the things connected to the Internet can be entry points for villains. What is
more, cyber-criminals can get the access to the “brain” of the whole IoT system and take control
of it.

To prevent such problems, it makes sense to log and analyze the commands sent by control
applications to things, monitor the actions of users and store all these data in the cloud. With such
an approach, it’s possible to address security breaches at the earlies stages and take measures to
reduce their influence on an IoT system (for example, block certain commands coming from
control applications).

Also, it’s possible to identify the patterns of suspicious behavior, store these samples and compare
them with the logs generated by an IoT systems to prevent potential penetrations and minimize
their impact on an IoT system.

IoT architecture in action – intelligent lighting

Let’s see how our IoT architecture elements work together by the example of smart yard lighting
as a part of a smart home – a bright illustration of how an IoT solution simultaneously contributes
to user convenience and energy efficiency. There are various ways a smart lighting system can
function, and we’ll cover basic options.

Basic components

Sensors take data from the environment (for example, daylight, sounds, people’s movements).
Lamps are equipped with the actuators to switch the light on and off. A data lake stores raw data
coming from sensors. A big data warehouse contains the extracted info smart home dwellers’
behavior in various days of the week, energy costs and more.
Manual monitoring and manual control

Users control smart lighting system with a mobile app featuring the map of the yard. With the app
users can see which lights are on and off and send commands to the control applications that further
transmit them to lamp actuators. Such an app can also show which lamps are about to be out of
order.

Data analytics

Analyzing the way users apply smart lighting, their schedules (either provided by users or
identified by the smart system) and other info gathered with sensors, data analysts can make and
update the algorithms for control applications.

Data analytics also helps in assessing the effectiveness of the IoT system and revealing problems
in the way the system works. For example, if a user switches off the light right after a system
automatically switches it on and vice versa, there might be gaps in the algorithms, and it’s
necessary to address them as soon as possible.

Automatic control’s options and pitfalls

The sensors monitoring natural light send the data about the light to the cloud. When the daylight
is not enough (according to previously stated threshold), the control apps send automatic
commands to the actuators to switch on the lamps. The rest of the time the lamps are switched off.

However, a lighting system can be “baffled” by the street illumination, lamps from neighboring
yards and any other sources. Extraneous light captured by sensors can make the smart system
conclude that it’s enough light, and lighting should be switched off. Thus, it makes sense to give
the smart system a better understanding of the factors that influence lighting and accumulate these
data in the cloud.

When sensors monitor motions and sounds, it’s not enough just to switch on the light when
movements or sounds are identified in the yard or switch all the lamps off in the silence.
Movements and sounds can be produced, for example, by pets, and cloud applications should
distinguish between human voices and movements and those of pets. The same is about the noises
coming from the street and neighboring houses and other sounds. To address this issue, it’s
possible to store the examples of various sounds in the cloud and compare them with the sounds
coming from the sensors.

Machine learning

Intelligent lighting can apply models generated by machine learning, for example, to recognize the
patterns of smart home owners’ behavior (leaving home at 8 am, coming back at 7 pm) and
accordingly adjust the time when lights are switched on and off (for example, switch the lamps on
5 minutes before they will be needed).
Analyzing users’ behavior in long-time perspective, a smart system can develop advanced
behavior. For example, when sensors don’t identify typical movements and voices of home
inhabitants, a smart system can “suppose” that smart home dwellers are on a holiday and adjust
the behavior: for example, occasionally switch on the lights to give the impression that the house
is not empty (for security reasons), but do not keep the lights on all the time to reduce energy
consumption.

User management options

To ensure efficient user management, the smart lighting system can be designed for several users
with role distribution: for example, owner, inhabitants, guests. In this case, the user with the title
“owner” will have full control over the system (including changing the patterns of smart light
behavior and monitoring the status of the yard lamps) and priorities in giving commands (when
several users give contradicting commands, an owner’s command will be the one control apps
execute), while other users will have access to a limited number of the system’s functions.
“Inhabitants” will be enabled to switch on and off the lamps with no opportunity to change
settings. “Guests” will be able to switch on and off the light in some parts of the house and have
no access to controlling the lights, for example, near the garage.

Apart from role distribution, it’s essential to consider ownership (as soon as one system can control
over 100 thousand of households, and it’s important that a dweller of a smart home manages the
lighting in his yard, and not the one of a neighbor).

Instead of a conclusion
In simple terms, our IoT architecture contains the following components:

 Things equipped with sensors to gather data and actuators to perform commands received
from the cloud.
 Gateways for data filtering, preprocessing and moving it to the cloud and vice versa, –
receiving commands from the cloud.
 Cloud gateways to ensure data transition between field gateways and central IoT servers.
 Streaming data processors to distribute the data coming from sensors among relevant IoT
solution’s components.
 Data lake for storing all the data of defined and undefined value.
 Big data warehouse for collecting valuable data.
 Control applications to send commands to actuators.
 Machine learning to generate the models which are then used by control applications.
 User applications to enable users to monitor control their connected things.
 Data analytics for manual data processing.

Our IoT architecture also contains device and user management components to provide stable and
secure functioning of things and control user access issues.

Developing an IoT architecture of a particular solution, it’s also important to focus on consistency
(giving enough attention to every element of IoT architecture and making them work together),
flexibility (opportunity to add new functions and new logic) and integration with enterprise
systems (teaming up new IoT solutions with previously implemented corporate IT solutions such
as ERP, MES, WMS, delivery management systems and more).

IoT Services

From strategy development to support and evolution – we’ll lead your IoT initiative from
“How?” to “Wow!”

Choose service model

By Alex Grizhnevich
Apr 1, 2018
Internet of Things
0 Comments
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About the Author: Alex Grizhnevich

Alex is a process automation and IoT consultant at ScienceSoft, an IT consulting and software
development company headquartered in McKinney, Texas. His 17+ years’ experience in IT and
OT includes programming industrial microcontrollers, developing web and desktop applications,
databases and document management solutions for oil & gas and logistics. Holding the degree in
automation and management of industrial processes, Alex is now focusing on IoT and machine
learning on sensor data.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1110016818301765

Original Article
Warehouse inventory management system
using IoT and open source framework
Author links open overlay panelB. Sai SubrahmanyaTejesh
S.Neeraja
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aej.2018.02.003Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license

Abstract
In general, warehouses are used to store goods or products. In the Warehouses, if the user wants
to locate any product it is very difficult, because user have to do a detailed search manually in all
the available stockrooms this requires a lot of effort. So to avoid this problem the warehouse
inventory management system is very helpful because it maintains the detailed product
information and tells us in which stockroom the product is present. The warehouse inventory
management system is playing a significant aspect in many productions and goods based
methodology. Though there are many wireless communication technologies the RFID suits the
best for the warehouse inventory management system. The tag information is transferred from
the transmitter section to open source hardware via a wireless link with the aid of internet. The
warehouse inventory management system built on the architecture of the Internet of Things is
developed to track the products attached to the tags with product information and their respective
time stamps for further verification. The Raspberry Pi acts as a central server, monitoring all the
information. The total system gives an archetype to correspond the information flow and material
flow. The web page which is built in accordance to provide convenient and an interface to the
user to track the products. The developed system results a very low cost system and works
dynamically compared with the existing present warehouse inventory management systems.

Keywords
IoT
RFID
Warehouse inventory management system
Wi-Fi module
Open source hardware

1. Introduction
Smart systems are playing a major role in industries, home, colleges, and other native
environments. In the smart systems, there is a linear growth in the localization concept, because
localization is playing a crucial role in contemporary life [1]. It is really challenging to locate any
particular object accurately. Localization can be done in two ways Type-1 and Type-2 [2]. IoT is
a vision that permits individuals and things to be associated in a perfect world utilizing any path
or any service [3]. The need or urge for this warehouse inventory management system, it is very
challenging to track, identify products or objects in big industries. To track any product in a
precise span of time it is very difficult.

The section where goods or products are stored is called the Warehouse. The prime goal of the
Warehouse is to control the flow of products or items. The products must be managed cautiously
otherwise it may affect on time, cost [4]. In the globalization of industries, the warehouse
inventory management system has its own significance because of the profits it is persuading.
Warehousing cites to the activities engaging in the storage of products on a huge scale in a
precise way and accomplishing their availability whenever required. The need for a warehouse to
store different types of products or goods to maintain seasonal production, seasonal demand,
quick supply, continuous production, price stabilization [5]. The warehouse inventory
management system is a requisite approach for every warehouse. A computerized warehousing
system provides us less effort, more efficient and stable results are correlated with hand held
manual system. In Warehouse there may be many zones, those zones are also called as
Stockrooms. Depending upon the demand of the products, more products have to be stored. So
Warehouse requires more number of stockrooms. The urge for automating the warehouses
originates from the fact that manual handling systems may lead to human errors which may
affect the warehouse utilization.

Identification mechanism relies on AIDC (Automatic identification and data capture)

technology. The traditional AIDC technology is Barcode technology, which is operated by
optical scanners to read labels. Barcodes are an immense advancement made over normal text
labels because the staff is no longer essential to manually enter data into the system. The RFID
technology replaces the Barcode technology because barcode scanners are high in cost, security
is less. If the label damages the scanner cannot read the data [6]. The RFID tags have more data
capacity storage than Barcode. Based on many researches, The RFID technology sustain to be
significant and efficient in identification system. RFID technology created an impact in the
domain of Warehouses because it eliminates the risks in industries, efficiency is improved,
products can be tracked easily, with the involvement of Electronic product code theft problems
are also eliminated [7].

Internet of Things can be easily employed with RFID, the transfer of signals is based on radio
communication. To reduce the interference by many radio waves, the appropriate RFID system
design must be chosen. IoT nodes are ascendable. The network becomes more sophisticated as
the node rapidly rises [8]. The association of physical and virtual objects through the process of
data acquisition and communication competence. IoT facilitates sensor connection capability for
the expansion of independent services and applications [9]. IoT is classified into three layers they
are the perception layer or context-aware, network layer, Service layer [10]. In the perception
layer, the data from the physical world are perceived and congregated with the usage of WSN,
Sensors, RFID system. In the network layer, it enables transparent data transmission competence.
It facilitates efficient, reliable transmission to the upper layer. The GSM, WSN, GPRS, Ethernet
conveys the data from the perception layer to the upper layer. In the service layer, it includes
data management sublayer and application sublayer. The data management sublayer contributes
to process complex data. The application sublayer facilitates the user with a good user interface
for application such as logistics, agricultural management, product management. The application
sublayer exhibits the routing of data with an ease from the source to destination. Localization,
tracking, positioning are some of the main applications for the RFID and IoT. Fig. 1 brief’s out
the various emerging applications in the scope of IoT. The Warehouse inventory management
system facilitates the user with the flow of products. So this system can be needed wherever
identification of location is needed.

1. Download high-res image (376KB)

2. Download full-size image

Fig. 1. Technology roadmap for internet of things.

2. Related work
There are many challenging aspects that warehouse inventory management system must consider
because in the Real world the indoor native habitats are confined by the dimensions of the zone.
Accuracy illustrates us what is the fluctuation from the predicted location to the actual or original
location. Thus the accuracy of the system should be high, within a precise scope. The product
tracking system is built accordingly, it must work accurately even without direct line of sight.
The cost always needs to be taken care, because implementing the system for extensive
consumer applications must not result in high cost. In Real time, the system must deal with the
tracking number of products so cost must be stabilized. Flexibility is an important challenge
because the developed system will be given to distinct tracking items with a slight alteration. The
system should contribute its services to users, but must not disrupt their everyday lives [10]. The
system must be handy and very comfortable for the user to use it, but many existing systems
present the positioning result based on the coordinates of the tracked product [11].

The objects can be identified in both indoor and outdoor environments, the few following
technologies that can be adopted are discussed below. Coming to the point of outdoor
environments the GPS (Global positioning system) is well suited for tracking the objects, but the
GPS system is not suited for tracking or locating the products in the Warehouse environments
because of its decreased accuracy and poor reception of satellite signals in the indoor
environments [12]. The object that to be tracked is constructed on a virtual map based on the
latitudes and longitude position. GPS performance diminishes if assured signal strength is
unbiased with the system being deployed. The Inertia navigation system (INS) is utilized for
locating and tracking of objects, but this system is applicable only in outdoor environments [13],
[14]. Sensors are the devices that detect a signal and tell the system about the received signal.
The INS system is restricted because of their high cost, the system is unreliable and has lower
working range. The Bluetooth has a variable read range and it is capable of ranging in terms of
1 m/10 m/50 m. The cost of the Bluetooth system hikes if more range is required. The main
drawback of the Bluetooth system is it has confined number of 7 slaves [13], [14], [15].

The Infrared system has an efficiency range of 5–10 m. The infrared system is low-priced,
compact, low power consumption. In Real-time warehouse working scenarios they are
susceptible to light sources and also require an acceptable line of sight for the devices to get
communicated. The fundamental of infrared positioning is that the IR modulated infrared beam
of light is analyzed by applying the optical transducer hooked up to the indoor positioning
receiver. In the Ultrasonic system, the distance of the object to be tracked is calculated by using
the echoes. The cost of this system implementation is very high because the Ultrasonic
transceivers must be installed throughout the surroundings. This system may cause health effects,
both the transmitter and receiver section must have a line of sight, it requires a huge setup and
maintenance of the system is very challenging. The GNSS can be working for both outdoor and
indoor environments. It is also similar to Global positioning system as the signals get degraded,
to overcome this problem, it is recommended to use High resistive GNSS [13], [14], [15]. The
active bat is a different Ultrasonic positioning system, they require active bat tags that are mobile
which transmit an ultrasonic pulse to fixed ultrasonic receivers mounted on the ceiling. This
system has health effects, and the maintenance of the system is very high. The locato system is a
radio based positioning system, mostly suitable where enough satellite signals are received. This
system has a transceiver unit called localatile and standalone receiver called as locato. To form a
network, the system requires a minimum of four localities. The drawback of this system is it has
low elevation angles and interference of different signals in the atmospheric layer.

RFID stands for Radio Frequency Identification. Among the wireless communication
technologies like Bluetooth, infrared, ultrasonic, video camera, RFID. The RFID suits to be the
best because it is low cost, robust can be easily integrated into any field of application [15]. Fig.
2 serves as the representation of any basic RFID system. The RFID works on the revelation of
EM signals. The RFID system consists of a tag and reader, depending on our application the
selection of tags can be made [16]. RFID technology is established on the perception of magnetic
coupling, the assumption is that current flowing in one circuit can generate a current flow in
another circuit via a magnetic field developed in the slot between the circuits [17]. The RFID
tags can be easily identified based on the unique identification number by the RFID reader, that
is why the RFID is majorly used in the identification and tracking scheme [18]. The RFID tags
are mainly portioned into three sections they are active tags, passive tags and semi-passive tags
[19]. Among all the above-mentioned tags, the passive tags play a vital role in many applications
because of its low size, low power consumption, low cost, no interference problem, it can work
in harsh environments [20]. The circuit in the passive tag is precisely powered by the carrier
signal from the reader. The passive tags get activated when they pass through the
electromagnetic zone. The Active and Semi-passive tags contain their own battery and they are
larger in size and are difficult to handle. Depending on the type and need the tags are applied in a
specific application [21]. Though there are many applications for RFID, applying RFID for the
warehouse inventory tracking best suits for the application [22]. The RFID has various
applications such as location identification of people, medical assets in trauma centers,
distinguishing between products in warehouses based upon the tags adhered to them [23], [24].
Hence the RFID technology suits best for tracking and positioning objects uniquely.

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Fig. 2. The components of RFID system.

3. 3.Hardware modules used for the system implementation

Fig. 3 represents the block diagram of the implemented system and the elaborated description of
the modules used are discussed below.
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Fig. 3. Block diagram of the experimental setup.

3.1. RFID system

The Warehouse inventory management system is one of the application of RFID technology,
because RFID can uniquely identify products or goods attached with tags. The RFID reader em-
18 used to read 125 kHz tags. The RFID reader operates at a voltage of 5 V. The Reader has two
fundamental objectives: initially reader to transmit a carrier signal, and the subsequent is to
receive a response from any tags in the proximity of the reader. The RFID reader emits a short
range radio signal which is picked by a RFID tag and the tag is triggered on. The two RFID
readers em-18 is attached at the beginning of the stockroom 1 and stockroom 2 to read the tags.
The RFID em-18 works on UART. The em-18 RFID reader is interfaced to NodeMcu ESP8266
and is programmed by using Arduino IDE. The passive tags are adhered to the products or goods
to uniquely identify them. As soon as the RFID reader scans the tag, then the tag transmits back a
short string of data. The passive tags 125 kHz are more beneficiary over active and semi-passive
tags because of its low cost, low power consumption, no interference effect. The unique ID of
the tag contains 12 bytes of data 0D0021A8D256. The last two digits indicate the checksum
which is the result of XOR operation of first ten bytes. The data scanned by the reader is used to
decode the encoded data in the tag’s IC and the data is sent to the Raspberry Pi 3 central server
via NodeMcu ESP8266.

3.2. ESP8266-01 Wi-Fi module

The ESP8266-01 is a serial device, a low-cost module with full stacks TCP/UDP it gives any
microcontroller the Wi-Fi facility. The Esp8266-01 Wi-Fi module is interfaced with Raspberry
Pi 3. All the Esp8266 are connected to common Wi-Fi Access point and data is transferred
within them with the support of internet. Suppose the data collected from RFID reader attached
at stockroom 2 is collected by NodeMcu and with the help of Wi-Fi module Esp8266-12e
present in it, from the transmitter section the data is sent to the Esp8266-01 that is attached to the
receiving section of the Raspberry Pi 3 and hence the data is arranged in tables in the web server.
3.3. NodeMcu ESP8266-12e Wi-Fi development board

NodeMcu is an open source IOT platform with a deployed ESP8266-12e Wi-Fi module in it. It
supports USB micro port for programming the NodeMcu. The em-18 module is interfaced with
the NodeMcu ESp8266, the data from the em-18 RFID reader is sent to the NodeMcu. It works
on an operating voltage of 5 V, but the ESP8266-12e module requires 3.3 V for that purpose all
the required circuitry for the voltage conversion are held in the NodeMcu board. The NodeMcu
can be programmed with the Arduino IDE and the AT commands can be easily integrated which
makes coding simpler. The NodeMcu can be programmed in two modes that is STA mode, AP
mode. For simplicity, the Nodemcu is programmed in the STA mode.

3.4. Raspberry Pi 3

Here at this Warehouse inventory management System, the Raspberry Pi 3 plays a vital role
because it is the main agent which maintains all the products or goods details in the database.
The data from stockrooms is received in the Raspberry Pi 3 with the help of ESP8266 attached to
it. The user in the search field types the tag number and the tag number is queried from the
database. The Raspberry Pi 3 here also acts as a web server. The Raspberry Pi 3 is programmed
with the Python language. The Raspberry Pi 3 functions at 5 V. Raspbian is the Linux-based
operating system which is running on Raspberry Pi 3.

4. System implementation methodology

The implemented methodology is for efficient production and goods identification in
warehouses. The fundamental need for the warehouse is to store different types of products. The
developed system is used efficiently to monitor the mobility and storage of products. Among the
various mentioned positioning technologies RFID technology seems to be the most desirable
candidate for tracking because of its low cost, robustness, flexibility. RFID can successfully
integrate with the Internet of Things. Fig. 4 exhibits the transmitter node and Fig. 5 exhibits the
receiver node. Hence Figs. 4 and 5 depict the hardware experimental setup of the implemented
system.
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Fig. 4. Transmitting nodes of stockroom 1 and stockroom 2.

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Fig. 5. Receiving node of the implemented system.

Here in the implementation of the Warehouse inventory management system, It comprises of two
stockrooms that are stockroom 1 and stockroom 2. To demonstrate the system, there is a need for
two transmitter sections and one receiver section which acts as a central server. Each RFID tag
has a unique, Identification number, RFID reader has an address. The passive tags are preferred
because they are having less interference effect, maintenance cost is less and flexible because it
can adhere to any physical object in the real world. In this system, passive tags have adhered to
the products or goods. The two transmitter section’s used here resembles stockroom 1 and
stockroom 2. The two transmitter sections are built using RFID reader em-18, NodeMcu
ESP8266 Wi-Fi development module. Every transmitter section has its own RFID Reader em-18
and NodeMcu ESP8266-12e. The data from the transmitter section’s that is from stockroom 1
and stockroom 2 are sent to the Raspberry Pi 3 which is acting as a central server via a wireless
link with the help of ESP8266-01 a very low-cost Wi-Fi module. Every stockroom will be
arranged with the discussed experimental setup. As soon as the RFID reader em-18 scans the
passive RFID tags that are in its range, with the help of NodeMcu ESP8266-12e Wi-Fi
development module the tag details are collected and as the NodeMcu is programmed in the
Station mode so that the NodeMcu ESP8266-12e module can connect to any local/home Wi-Fi.
The NodeMcu ESP8266 has a deployed ESP8266-12e module in it. In the central server receiver
section, the system is developed using ESP8266-01 Wi-Fi module and Raspberry Pi 3. The
ESP8266-12e module on NodeMcu and the ESP8266-01interfaced with Raspberry Pi 3, all the
ESP8266 modules connect to common Wi-Fi access point to communicate the data between
them. The data from the stockrooms is gathered in the Raspberry Pi 3 with the help of an
ESP8266-01 Wi-Fi module.

The Raspberry Pi 3 is programmed in such a manner so that the accumulated information is set
in the format of rows and columns are displayed to the User person with the aid of the user-
friendly web pages. In the web server first, the central person must authorize to enter into the
web page. On the web page, the details like tag number, product description, stockroom number,
location, Time details are stored in the database and displayed to the user in the table format. So
if the user wants to know in which stockroom the specified product is there, the user gently types
the product tag number and the detailed information is fetched from the database and displayed
in the web page with the help of user interface.

Suppose if the user wants to search a tag number 0D0021A8D256, the user gently types the tag
number in the search field all the required information regarding the product and the product
time stamps that is attached to the tag are displayed in the web page by fetching the data from the
web server. The developed Warehouse inventory management system is very efficient, it can
perform dynamic data Updation and Real Time search operations from the database. Thus the
implementation of RFID System of this proposed methodology is not bounded to prototype or
laboratory setup, but can also work efficiently in Real world application. The total
implementation cost of the developed warehouse inventory management system is very low
compared with the present existing models in the marketplace.

5. Result and analysis

The product information from the hardware setup arranged at Stockroom 1 and Stockroom 2 is
collected in the Raspberry Pi 3 central server and arranged in the form of rows and columns to
visualize the Tag number, product description, Stockroom Number, Location and the time
stamps of the product on the web page. Instantly as the user scans the specified tag, then all the
information on the tag is updated in the database on the web server and is displayed on the web
page. Fig. 6 represents the tag numbered 0D0021B13AA7 is being read by the RFID reader and
that tag information is transferred to the NodeMcu for processing and Finally sent to the central
server.

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Fig. 6. RFID tags data is reading by the RFID reader.

Fig. 7 depicts the collected data or information from the two stockroom’s and it also provides
users the facility to search specific product by typing its tag number on the web page. The
information on the web page illustrates that the tag numbered 0D0021B13AA7 updated on the
web server symbolizes as product number 4 with a cost of Rs. 400, present in Stockroom
Number 1 and its time stamps.

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Fig. 7. Product information displayed on the web page.

Fig. 8 depicts the detailed information about the product with the attached tag number
0D0021A8D256. If the user wants to know about the detailed information about tag numbered
0D0021A8D256 then with the facility of the search field the user types the tag number
0D0021A8D256 in it. If the tag number matches in the web server then the data is fetched from
the database. So that user can easily find the product details, the stockroom number in which the
product is stored and also the time stamps of the product with the help of search field provided.
The search field is provided for real time search to query data from the database.

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Fig. 8. Tag numbered 0D0021A8D256 displays the specified results of it on the web page with
the search field provided.

6. Conclusion
The developed Warehouse inventory management system is very efficient, it can perform
dynamic data Updation and Real Time search operations from the database with the help of a
web server. Thus the implementation of RFID System of this proposed methodology is not
bounded to prototype or laboratory setup, but can also work efficiently in Real world application.
The total implementation cost of the developed warehouse inventory management system is very
low compared with the present existing models in the marketplace. With the implementation of
user-friendly user interface the users can easily spot the tracked product in the Warehouse
without much effort. In future, this innovation can be used in several areas in different
applications and many enhancements can be done so that it can be made available to all the
sectors.

Acknowledgement
This research was supported by Mr. K. Sripath Roy and ESSN research group at KL University.
I thank the Institute for providing the constant support for this research from the expertise

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 https://radiostud.io/iot-application-kitchen-inventory-management/

Model IoT Application For Tracking Kitchen

Inventory
By Shyam Purkayastha | Internet of Things

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Jun 27

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What goes together better than the Internet and food? But there’s more to this delicious
combination than just posting photos of last night’s meal on Instagram. Continuing our theme
around the “Internet of Things,” we present another possibility from this game-changing
technology. This time, it is a use case on IoT for inventory management. In this blog post, we’re
going to use IBM Bluemix and PubNub to build an application that will transform any dumb
kitchen by enabling automatic inventory tracking. You’ll never run out of bacon again!
Note: This post was originally published in IBM Bluemix Blog.

Also check out the concept design for smart jar to keep tab on your home kitchen stock.
Courtesy, Artifact Design

Project Overview
This application relies on sensing the weight of a kitchen storage container to track food
consumption. This data can provide valuable insights around consumption patterns and help
chefs predict and replenish their inventory just in time. There are three components of this
application:

 Inventory Tracking Server (ITS): Monitors all the kitchen containers and records daily
consumption and replenishment statistics
 IoT hardware: Detects the weight changes in containers and connects them to ITS
 Mobile app: Provides an easy interface to see the current state of inventory and also
offers analytics to view inventory history for the last seven days.

The reference architecture of the entire application is shown below:

Communication between the components of this application is handled by PubNub’s real-time
Data Stream Network.

ITS is a Python-based application server running on Bluemix. In order to keep track of the
inventory records, this application provisions a dashDB instance, which is IBM’s in-house data
warehousing service on the Bluemix cloud. The mobile interface is a Cordova & JavaScript-
based Android app.

The hardware is powered by a combination of Arduino UNO and Mediatek Linkit ONE. For
sensing the weight of kitchen storage containers, two piezoelectric load cells are used.

In order to produce the desired strain for determining the container’s weight, the load cell needs
to be mounted between two flat surfaces (such as plywood) with the help of the two threaded
holes on each side of it. Once mounted, the flat surface can act as a scale for measuring the
weight of a storage container.
Application Use Case for Kitchen Inventory Tracking
For a restaurant or large hotel, tracking kitchen inventory is one of those tasks that are crucial to
their business. It can be quite inefficient and error prone due to human intervention. In such
cases, having such inventory tracking application makes perfect sense. There are three main use
cases for this application:

 Track inventory – Provide automatic, real-time updates about the current availability of
inventory
 Expiration Notification – Notify the user in case of expiration of food
 Analytics – Access historical inventory usage data for better prediction and planning.

Now it’s time to discuss the detailed hardware, software setup and the complete functionality of
this inventory management system.

Kitchen Inventory Management: Project Setup

If you would like to build this application yourself, then you can access the complete source
code on GitHub. All the steps for setting up and building the project’s components are listed in
the README file.

Before building, you need to sign up with IBM Bluemix and PubNub. Visit the Bluemix
registration page and PubNub service page to create your respective accounts. Both services
offer a free tier account to play around with their offerings.
Server Setup
The Inventory Tracking Server (ITS) is written in Python and can be installed as an IBM
Bluemix hosted app. IBM Bluemix provides the computing horsepower for the ITS to monitor
hardware devices and manages automatic inventory tracking. Additionally, you will need to
associate the PubNub service with your Bluemix account for the ITS to work with PubNub.
Refer to these deployment steps to understand how to setup and host a Python application under
Bluemix with PubNub. As noted earlier, the source code for ITS is located under the
kitchen_tracker directory in the GitHub repository.

Hardware Setup
The hardware has two parts:

 Sensor Controller – Driven by Arduino UNO, the sensor controller acts as a localized
aggregator of all storage containers which are under this inventory tracking system. It
interfaces with the load cells to sense their weight and is connected to an HM-10 BLE
module to transmit the weight data over Bluetooth. By using this arrangement of local
aggregation and BLE, there is an added advantage of bringing in new storage containers
under this inventory tracking system with the minimal additional wiring.
 Master Controller – Master controller acts as a gateway for the sensor controller. This is
powered by Linkit ONE board. It has an inbuilt BLE module that probes the sensor
controller every few seconds to get the current weight sensed by the load cells. It also has
inbuilt WiFI interface for connecting with ITS over the internet to send the weight
readings.

The master controller plays a crucial role in stabilizing the weight value of the containers. This is
to avoid sending transient or spurious weight values while, for example, the container is being
refilled gradually.

The schematic diagram of the sensor controller hardware is shown below:

Refer to these build and install steps for configuring the hardware. The source code for hardware
setup is available under the hardware directory (for the sensor controller) and the
linkitble/pubnub_linkit directory (for the master controller), under the GitHub repository.

Calibrate the load cells to avoid errors is weight measurement.

Mobile App Setup

The mobile app is a standard Apache Cordova based Android app. Cordova is an open source,
cross-platform, mobile development framework based on standard web technologies, such as
HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript. Among other features, this app provides the user with a visual
indication of the current container level.
Look at all that bacon!

The source code for the mobile app is under the mobileApp/kitchen directory in the GitHub
repository. Steps for building the app are available here.

PubNub
PubNub acts as the communication middleware for the entire system. It provides a cloud-based
realtime Data Stream Network that supports over 70 SDKs, such that it can enable any device to
communicate with any other device on the Internet. This application uses three of PubNub’s
SDKs for all components to seamlessly communicate with each other. They are:

 Javascript SDK, for the mobile app.

 Python SDK, (Version 3.x) for ITS.
 PubNub REST API, for Linkin ONE Board.
PubNub uses the ubiquitous publish/subscribe mechanism to stream data in real-time, from one
device to another. This is achieved by the use of channels which provide a secure bidirectional
messaging layer between the devices. This application uses several PubNub channels for
enabling communication between the hardware, ITS and mobile app. Refer to this tutorial to
learn more about how to build a small publish/subscribe demo using PubNub.

Note: In this application, we have used PubNub Python SDK version 3.x and Javascript
version 3.x , both of which are being retired on 1st July, 2017. You can continue to use the
source code as long as you install the older 3.x version of the libraries. The newer version is
4.x and it is not compatible with 3.x.

Application Use Cases

There are three main use cases for this application:

 Track the current status of inventory

 Expiration Notification
 Access historical inventory usage data

Before we can start using the mobile app for tracking inventory, we need to perform some
container specific settings and register them with the server. Those setting are:

 Label – A user-defined identifier for the container for easy identification.

 Threshold Value – A threshold value (in kilograms) to indicate a critical level for
container weight.
 Expiry – Since most of the kitchen inventory is consumable food items which have an
expiry date, we can set an expiration value (in months) for the container. This way, the
server can track the expiration date and send a notification to the app when those contents
have expired.
These parameters can be set for every container.

Once submitted, these settings are sent to the ITS application server via a PubNub channel.

Use Case 1: Track current status of inventory

Once the container settings are registered with the ITS, the app can receive current weight
measurements of the containers. Every time a container weight changes, either due to
consumption or replenishment, the application performs the following steps:

 Step 1: The hardware detects the change in weight and publishes a new weight value on
PubNub channel ‘kitchenDevice-resp.’
 Step 2: ITS receives the new weight and daily consumption for the current day.
 Step 3: ITS updates the database to record the daily consumption data.
 Step 4: ITS publishes the new weight on PubNub channel ‘kitchenApp-resp.’
 Step 5: The app receives the new weight value and updates the screen display to reflect
the new weight value and updates the visual level indicator for the container.
Alternate Flow

Step 2 – If the server detects that there has been an increase in the weight, then this means that
the inventory has been replenished on the container. In this case, the ITS performs the following
steps

 Step 2a : ITS resets the expiry calculation to start from the current date.
 Step 2b : ITS stores the start of expiry date in its internal memory.
 Step 2c : Use case continues from step 3.

Use Case 2: Expiration Notifications

This use case is also an alternative flow of the previous use case. If a container has not been
refilled before the expiry date, then the ITS can sense this during step 2 and alert the user
whenever it detects a consumption to warn against expired food.

In this case the sequence of steps from step 2 will be as follows:

 Step 2a: ITS receives the new weight and calculates the expiry validity of the container
and finds that the expiry period has been crossed.
 Step 2b: ITS updates the database to record of the daily consumption data.
 Step 2c: ITS publishes the new weight on PubNub channel kitchenApp-resp and sets the
expiry parameter as zero.
 Step 2d: Use case jumps to step 5.
When the mobile app receives the notification for consumption with the expiry set to zero, it
updates the container icon in a way to alert the user that the inventory being consumed has
expired.
Use Case 3: Access historical inventory usage data
The ITS is supported by a backend data warehousing service powered by IBM DashDB. Daily
inventory data for consumption and replenishment is updated on dashDB database which can
provide some basic analytics on historical inventory usage for the last 7 days.

To display the historical inventory usage, the user has the option to either display a graph or a
table by tapping on the “Graph” or “History” button.

The request is honoured by ITS by sending the consumption and replenishment data in two
separate PubNub channels. The flow of information is as follows:
The mobile analytics look something like this:
Conclusion
This application demonstrates how easily one can leverage IoT to eliminate human intervention
and automate manual processes. For a restaurant or large hotel, this can make a big difference.

A further enhancement of this app would be to automatically place an order with suppliers when
inventory falls below a critical level. The possibilities are endless, and with IBM Bluemix’s state
of the art data warehousing and the 99.999% reliable messaging infrastructure of PubNub,
building such solutions is fast, secure, and highly scalable.

Stay tuned for more demos and application use cases using IBM Bluemix & PubNub Data
Stream Network!
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About the Author

Shyam is the Creator-in-Chief at RadioStudio. He is a technology buff and is passionate about

bringing forth emerging technologies to showcase their true potential to the world. Shyam guides
the team at RadioStudio, a bunch of technoholiks, to imagine, conceptualize and build ideas
around emerging trends in information and communication technologies.

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