ERP Systems Enhanced with RFID Technology in Furniture Industry

RFID technology is being widely used in most areas that are supported by ERP systems. With the help of RFID tags and readers placed at various locations throughout a furniture company, the presence of various objects in the factory can be monitored in real time. Readers receiving information from RFID tags can transmit it directly into the system and create databases or initiate business processes. The basic resources that can be tracked using RFID are human and machine resources as well as warehoused inventories, spare parts, tools, semi-finished and finished products. The only condition that must be met by the tracked object is that it can be tagged. The furniture industry is continuously growing. With factories expanding to tens of thousands of square metres and employing thousands of workers, knowledge of who or what is where at any given time is very important for optimising plant operations. Being able to gain this knowledge in real time is very useful and saves a lot of resources over the long term. Monitoring of resources in an ERP system using RFID technology is very popular nowadays. The improvement of the implemented solution leads to an ever increasing degree of control. However, it is important to maintain it at an optimal level, because otherwise it may unnecessarily disturb employees in their daily duties or generate more work for them without returning a measurable benefit.

Ascertaining Optimum Pyrolysis Conditions for Biochar Production from Maple Sawdust

Sawdust is a bi-product from wood processing industries. In the recent time, pyrolysis of organic waste is an emerging technology where biochar can be produced and used for carbon sequestration. In that respect, the aim of the present work was to ascertaining optimum pyrolysis conditions in producing sawdust biochar (SBC) for the said uses. The raw material was collected from Belad furniture industry because of their specialization in furniture work and large volume availability. The proximate and ultimate analysis of 3.56% moisture, 1.49% ash content, 72.32% carbon and 0.19% surphur confirmed its good candidature for biochar production. The pyrolysis experiment was carried out by using six combination each of temperature (400, 450, 500, 550, 600 and 650°C), nitrogen flow rates (0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5 and 3.0L/mins) and residence times (10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60mins). Analysis of resulted biochar was done according to IBI standard. Results showed that the three factors decrease the yield of biochar at their increasing values. SBC yield being optimum at temperature of 400°C, 10 min residence time and 1.0L/min nitrogen flow rate.

Research on Children’s Customized Furniture Design Based on Group Technology

Recently, solid wood furniture has become the new direction for the development of Chinese furniture industry. In order to realize solid wood customization, the standardization of solid wood parts is a problem for high priority. In this study, a standardized experimental study on children’s solid wood furniture parts was carried out by using group technology. Twenty pieces of children’s solid wood furniture were selected, including 1084 parts in total with 705 solid wood parts. Then, three key structural features of the parts were analyzed based on the processing similarity principle, including the center line of the long side direction of the parts, the shape of the outside surface of the long side direction and the shape of the outside surface of the short side direction. Moreover, these parts were classified according to the principle of process similarity. Accordingly, a children’s solid wood furniture parts family was established, and the distribution of parts in the family was analyzed. In detail, the parts with the dimensional difference within 2 mm were combined, the dimensional value was mainly based on the value of most parts before the combination and part specifications were optimized on the basis of the original specifications or its 1/2 method. The results show that the category of thickness specification reduced by 20, and the number of parts included in one thickness specification increased by 2.2 times on average. Moreover, the category of width specification reduced by 12, and the number of parts included in one width specification increased by 1.47 times on average. This not only greatly improves the degree of standardization of solid wood parts but also provides theoretical and practical basis for the digital design of mass customized children’s solid wood furniture.

Assessing enablers to a circular economy in Indonesian furniture industry using Fuzzy-DEMATEL

The furniture industry is one of the leading sectors and has a positive trend in Indonesia’s industrial sector. However, currently, there is a gap between supply and demand for timber and environmental impacts problem. The circular economy model entered as a restorative or regenerative concept to optimize resources and waste minimization. This research is conducted to assess the factors that drive the implementation of circular economy in the Indonesian furniture industry. The Fuzzy-Dematel was used to find the factors that were contributing to the implementation of the circular economy. As a result, the cause group consists of knowledge of circular economy, government support & legislation, consumer awareness, the business principle for the environment, and scarcity of resources. Furthermore, the effect group consists of resources efficiency, economic (financial), technology availability, environmental safety & management, customer-supplier collaboration, corporate image, consumer demand, increased value products, and cost reduction. In addition, some strategies for the government and industry were proposed for circular economy implementation in the Indonesian furniture industry.