Press Report

Joint project "RFID for small and medium-sized businesses"

(www.rfidatlas.de 10.2007) In the food-, chemical-, pharmaceutical- or building materials industry the introduction of systems for the complete monitoring of cooling chains ranks very high on the agenda of challenges which need to be solved. The driving forces behind this necessity are the avoidance of transport losses, the generation of detailed data for the transport optimisation, highest standards of quality and legal requirements.

Apart from the need for suitable technologies for the recording of shipment and transaction data it is also necessary to implement a uniform platform for the collection, management and processing of the transport data. Thus, all partners of the supply chain could be informed about the transport status in equal measure and in real time.

In addition to the identification of objects RFID was used and tested together with sensor technology as local information memory as well as in combination with GPS and GSM. Temperature-sensitive goods were equipped with RFID-sensor-tags during loading. Thus, it was possible to record information automatically via firmly installed RFID reading stations when the goods passed the entrance or exit of the warehouse and transfer these data via a GSM module via SMS (or GPS) to the central IT-system. Consequently it is for example possible to send temperature deviations to the logistics-server® and trigger an escalation procedure. Furthermore, reading stations were also set up at reloading points in the transport chain in order to ensure here as well a well-structured goods control. It is then also possible to link the information concerning the location with the temperature data and transfer them together.

Due to the continuous transfer of data at the reloading points and at the final destination, temperature graphs can be generated in the central IT-system. Thus, all of the integrated supply chain partners can keep track of the proceedings and temperature graphs. Furthermore it is consequently possible to spot the transgression of an upper or lower temperature limit immediately through an LED-lamp which is built into the RFID-transponder.