Industrial Internet of Things-based Smart Warehouse Management System

Abstract

Warehousing constitutes an important part of spare parts management in the oil and gas industry. During the past years, the introduction of Industry 4.0 has enabled several industries to introduce new technologies to their warehousing activities to optimize processes. Examples from industries such as e-commerce and retail have shown that Industry 4.0 technology implementation can lead to lower costs, decreased warehouse time expenditure, and minimized waste. It is of great interest for the oil and gas industry to investigate the possibilities of smart warehouse management implementation, as spare parts warehousing is a time consuming and expensive activity for the industry. However, as there are several aspects of oil and gas production that are unique to the industry, it is necessary to customize smart warehouse management system implementation to the industry to ensure success.

This research addresses the implementation of a smart warehouse management system in spare parts warehousing in the oil and gas industry. Benefits and challenges of implementation have been established, computer simulations of a typical industry warehousing environment have been developed, and a customized system has been designed for spare parts supply to an oil production installation operated by Equinor in the Barents Sea.

A specific focus is placed on the Industry 4.0-enabled technology Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) to design an ideal spare parts management system. This is done to prove the importance of continuous interconnectivity in spare parts warehousing. Additionally, technologies such as robotics, additive manufacturing, big data, and cloud computing are included in the research.

This research makes the following contributions:

- Researching Industry 4.0 technologies in the very specific setting of spare parts warehousing in the oil and gas industry. - Suggesting technological components of a smart warehouse management system for efficient, sustainable, and cost-effective spare parts warehousing in the oil and gas industry. - Proposing an approach specific to the oil and gas industry, which can be built upon further to advance the field, industrially and academically.