CASE STUDY: RFID Intelligent Packaging
Scope:
In consequence of the amendment of the regulation law of boxes utilization in the market supply, which only includes the use of plastic boxes or disposable cups for transporting food, Lena Ambiente built a Package Washing/Recovery Industrial Unit (CRE), whose aim is to clean all plastic boxes that circulates in the MARL.
Conscious of all the potentialities of RFID technology, Lena Ambiente contacted LogicPulse to develop an RFID based-system that would control all the processes related to the boxes that are in the CRE (washing, stocks, orders, etc.) and it also allows the market inspectors to control the hygiene conditions of the boxes outside the CRE.
RFID portals for automated reading of boxes
The solution:
The solution that we found consists in an integrated system that includes the RFID hardware (tags, readers, antennas, printers), the hardware support, mobile terminals (Pocket PCs) and application software.
Main functionalities of the developed system:
- Controls consumption of water, electricity and detergents;
- Customer’s management. Control of devolutions, packaging purchase and current accounts;
- It generates reports per clients, with a historic of purchases, washing boxes and business volume;
- It generates reports related with the unit performance, in financial or operational terms;
- Automated managements of entrances and exits of packages in the building and in the washing machine;
- Integration of all information related to the boxes/washes sales in the ERP Primavera;
- Production and coding control of the smart plastic boxes.
Application to control the sales of boxes
Results:
The smart box utilization will get significant gains because it allows an extensive automation degree in most cleaning and control processes, within and outside the CRE, which otherwise would not be possible. In the first phase of the project, 3 million boxes with RFID chip are being progressively put in the MARL.
It is also important to say that the implemented system by LogicPulse have a cross scope, in order to influence the whole management and sales/washing control process in the CRE, but also have a vertical scope, in order to influence the upstream processes, in the boxes production, and the downstream processes, like controlling the boxes cleaning from the MARL inspectors. It also allows the market operators to take advantages of this technology, using the chip that already exists in the boxes, and so they can optimize their logistic and distributions processes.
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