Eskimo Cold Chain Logistics provides refrigeration, storage and transportation services for food producers, mainly including frozen chicken and seafood products, which are refrigerated 24 hours a day, covering an area of ​​1,98,000,000 cubic feet. A total of 32,000 pallets are divided into seven layers and 50 different passages ( There are 600 pallets per channel), and about 480 pallets require approximately 20 trucks for storage and storage.
When the food manufacturer delivers the food to the refrigerating company, the food must be stored refrigerated, and another refrigerated truck transports the product 1-2 days later. The two largest customers of Eskimo Cold Chain Logistics have a very tight turnaround time for loading and unloading. When unloading the goods, they are required to reproduce the same type of refrigerated products.
In order to meet the above requirements, Eskimo Cold Chain Logistics uses the Datex warehouse management system to track the position of the pallet based on the positioning of the shelves and channels in the storage area. The logistics company uses a handheld read/write device to scan the barcode on the pallet label and feed the information back to the warehouse management system. If the pallet position moves, the ID on the shelf and the aisle is encoded into the system.
The above work takes 97-98% of the time. By positioning the tray in this way, it is highly probable that a leak will occur. In the event of an error, 2-6 employees are required to rescan all food in the warehouse, a process that takes several days. If not found, the logistics company will fully compensate for food costs and shipping costs.
The accuracy of pallet positioning data is quite high, and Eskimo Cold Chain Logistics has improved on the basis of existing systems. Jamison RFID installed the Motorola FX7400 fixed reader and installed four Motorola AN480 antennas at the entrance of the channel. Ten readers were installed in the summer of 2013, and more than 10 were installed this summer. Each reader connects to the back-end database via a wired network and reads the ID code of the tag. Among them, the label is mounted on the tray and is an ultra-high frequency RFID tag conforming to the EPC Gen 2 standard. The label is 4*6 inches in size and is printed in an Alien inlay by Mid South RFID. Jamison RFID chose Mid South RFID to provide the label because the latter provides a label with good low temperature environmental adaptability and excellent label performance in low temperature environments. Paste RFID tags on the tray
After receiving the goods, Eskimo Cold Chain Logistics first installed RFID tags on its pallets. The ID code and associated customer and product information are entered into Datex's warehouse management system. The tray enters the warehouse after quick freezing, and the RFID reader reads the ID code of the label when passing through the passage intersection. Of course, the staff can scan the barcode printed on the label to record the tray information. When the tray is removed, the reader reads and writes the RFID tag again, and the storage system updates the tray record.
When the tray is lost, the staff can use the barcode scanner to locate, just search for 600 locations. The reason why the company continues to use bar code scanners instead of UHF RFID readers is that the channels are narrow and it is difficult to locate the direction of the RFID signals.
Since the RFID solution was fully implemented four months ago, it has saved the company $100,000 and is expected to save $233,000 a year, mainly due to labor costs and losses due to lost pallets. After the RFID solution is installed, the loss rate of the tray is greatly reduced.