|
Plukon introduces RF scanning
The chicken and turkey processing company Plukon from The Netherlands has taken a step ahead in terms of inventory control by introducing RF scanning. By doing so, Plukon also meets the requirement of the market to provide an advanced tracking and tracing system for its products.
Plukon knows everything about chicken and turkey, but the question how large the inventory really was and where the products exactly were, was very hard to answer indeed. Not surprisingly, bearing in mind that Plukon processes 170.000 crates with filets, chickenwings, drumsticks or other chicken or turkey products on a weekly basis. A proper registration system was hence necessary and “a paper driven solution just did not meet the requirements”, according to Ray Mennink, IT Manager.
Managing Overcodes
Comprehensive Tracking and Tracing in the food processing industry is currently a hot item. When Plukon has finished implementing all aspects of the registration coming spring, complete traceability of the lifecycle of the chickens and turkeys has been achieved, even including the food that they consumed. Not only a “nice to have feature”, but currently a pure necessity, since large customers like Albert Heijn just require it nowadays. Another trigger to implement the system was the introduction of the Euro; Plukon had to introduce double pricing, which required a large investment and change in their current systems anyway.
Obviously, Plukon benefits well from the improvements in their (logistic) systems. Fresh chicken and turkey are perishables, and delivered products that do not fall within the time frame set are considered as “overcoded”. Luckily, these products can then still proceed as a deep frozen variant, but this requires additional handling and energy, resulting in a monthly loss of 90.000 up to 130.000 Euro.
Registering Crates is crucial
The route of the barcoded chicken and turkey starts off at the production as well as at the goods reception of third parties (other Plukon companies).
The products are generally stored per seven packages in either a black (Dutch) or brown (German) crate. On these crates, barcodes are attached that are printed by Markpoint Printers. The code represents the article, the number of packages in the crate, the slaughterdate, the source code and a unique number. In the near future, also the lotnumber will be added.
Crates of third parties are delivered on pallets and are identified automatically by four Datalogic fixed mount scanners with oscillating mirrors. The information is printed on a palletlabel and attached to the pallets. Obviously, all relevant data are directly processed in the CSB computer system (ERP for fresh meat). Crates from Plukon’s own production follow a similar route. All data transfer is executed wireless by a 11 Mbps Radio Frequency Spread Spectrum System of LXE. The complete system was delivered and implemented by the company CaptureTech in Sassenheim (The Netherlands) and costs around 635.000 Euro.
Putting the link between products and orders backwards in the process
The scanned crates are either put in bulk locations or in an orderpick area. From bulk, the products can also be put back to production in order to process the products further to, for example, complete meals. In the bulk area, also the locations will be barcoded soon in order to link the products to a specific location. Furthermore, Plukon will register the products per area. As soon as a products is moved from one area to the other, a scan is made.
In the orderpick area, the crates are scanned by using a mobile LXE RF computer and further sorted. The routing of the orderpicker is based on the routes (i.e. trucks) that are about the leave. This information is displayed on the wireless handheld computer of the orderpicker. From the orderpick area, the crates are split out over 12 pricing lines by using an ingenuous conveyor system; each pricing line can handle 350 crates per hour. On these lines, the product- and customer label is attached to the individual packages.
“By doing so, the link between the products and orders has been put backwards in the process and we can hence deliver our markets much more flexible”, according to Ray Mennink. “Before, it was decided at production already whether the packaging had to be German or Dutch. We now only decide just before the products are loaded on the trucks. That is how fresh remains really fresh and that’s what it is all about.”
 Top of Page
|
