Anchors Aweigh
Relocation can be a delicate matter. It can become a tour de force when over one million exhibits have to be moved to a new museum. This would be an almost impossible task without ICT.
Blue shipping cases as tall as a man stand around in the corridor, you can hear the creaking sound of a battery-powered screwdriver and there’s a strong smell of wood. The scene? A beautiful white villa on Elbchaussee, one Hamburg’s most famous, elegant avenues. This is the home of the world’s largest private collection of maritime treasures. In his 72 years of life, former Springer publishing boss Peter Tamm has collected more than one million exhibits, such as model ships, paintings, postcards and blueprints. The whole collection is now to be re-housed in the new International Maritime Museum in Hamburg’s Harbor City development. Right on the banks of the Elbe river.
Consistent information
The exhibits are still being packed for the move. “We have been working on this project since May 2007”, explains Sven Fischer, project manager at logistics company Schenker, which is organizing the move. The latest RFID-based logistics technology is used to ensure that nothing gets lost and that every exhibit ends up in the right glass case. The software and hardware were ready to go within eight weeks from the award of the contract to T-Systems. All objects and transport crates are given a radio frequency identification transponder measuring 5.4 by 8.5 cm and an Oracle database is used to record the information about the exhibits and their transport status. The exhibits pass through an aluminum gate with four antennae when they are loaded on to the truck. “When an RFID tag comes near the gate, it is supplied with power so that it can transmit its data”, explains Christian Schwöbel, Senior Consultant von T-Systems, describing the automatic, contact-less recording of data. The laptop monitor then displays the number of the transport unit and a list of all the exhibits it contains, which now have “Transport” status. The data is transferred to the database in Frankfurt by UMTS. This means that relevant information can be retrieved by the logistics company.
Flexibility in all situations
The technology can also work in reverse. Fischer explains: “We have another gate like this in the warehouse. When the truck is unloaded, we push the transport crate through here, so that we can be certain that it has left one building and arrived at the other.” Objects that are too big for the gate can also be recorded with handheld devices. Thanks to a mobile phone card, the data can reach the database by GPRS. “The move would have required a lot more work if it weren’t for the RFID system and the software specially designed for the purpose”, says Mr. Fischer, referring to the small team needed to implement the project thanks to automatic data entry.
The RFID chips can still serve a useful purpose even after the move is complete. Because the tags will be left on the exhibits after the move, it will be possible to adapt future audio tours to the individual exhibits. However, a few more trucks will have to shuttle along the Elbe to the new museum premises before this can happen.
The print version of Best Practice contains the full story of the museum relocation, as well as details of other RFID solutions used by Schenker.
