The application of Impinj RFID system in manual ice cream manufacturers
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customer:
Izzy’s Ice Cream
A unique handmade ice cream manufacturer, founded in 2000, a single store, located in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA, owner: Jeff Sommer and Lara Hammel.
Impinj products used:
Speedway® reader, Monza® tag chip, Threshold reader antenna
Application effectiveness:
>Improved the comfort of customers in the store
> Reduce customer disappointment
>Realize the automation of customer notifications for saleable products
> Increased sales
Izzy’s Ice Cream
Izzy’s Ice Cream is a handmade ice cream manufacturer located in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA, and is deeply loved by consumers. With many flavors, such as Norwegian style, dinosaur egg and the most popular sea salt caramel flavor, it is no longer the bland ice cream shop we usually see.
In addition to ordinary vanilla ice cream, Izzy’s also uses some interesting ingredients to produce high-quality ice cream, such as baked goods, beer and wine, most of which are sourced locally. In addition, they also launched the innovative “Izzy Scoop?” one-ounce ice cream to give to every customer, encouraging them to try new flavors.
The Izzy’s Flavor Up display provides customers with real-time information on various optional flavors.
challenge
Due to the popularity of Izzy’s products, customers are overwhelmed. In the peak hours of summer, there are always customers in full, and the line is very long. When the customers arrive, the favorite flavors are often sold out. Izzy’s ice cream cabinet has only 32 seats, but 120 different varieties are produced every year because the taste changes very frequently. In peak seasons, employees sometimes cannot accurately update the display boards describing tastes, and the front of the cabinet is unprecedentedly small and sometimes invisible at all, making the problem even more serious. Partner Jeff Sommer said that he can feel that customers have begun to be disappointed; he hasn’t even had a chance to let them taste a scoop of ice cream, and disappointment arises. He tried to solve this problem. He registered the customer’s name and called to notify them when there was a taste they liked. But when the customer came, the ice cream of that flavor was sold out again, which made the customer’s disappointment worse.
Display and notification of sweet ice cream flavors available for sale. After seeing Wal-Mart’s RFID project and the use of RFID by the Shuangcheng Law Firm to track case files, he began to wonder whether the technology could also solve his problems. After a long search, he found an RFID partner in AbeTech who was willing to help. He regarded this work as a technical challenge.
Essentially, the environment in an ice cream display case or display case is a challenge. It was cold and humid inside, and the ice cream bucket and ice cream cabinet were densely covered with metal. The biggest challenge is to find RFID tags and readers that can work stably, which can overcome the potential interference in the environment while reducing the cost to a minimum.
working principle
The first task of AbeTech is to conduct a site visit to better understand the situation on the ground and determine the location of the marker. They ruled out the ice cream bucket first. Not only is it difficult to put labels on frozen buckets, but they are closely arranged in the ice cream cabinet, which increases the possibility of label wear and radio frequency signal attenuation. They finally found a reasonable solution by using ice cream nameplates that can be inserted into the display box. AbeTech has added Confidex Micro Steelwave reusable labels (using Impinj Monza® label chips) on the back of each nameplate to associate labels with flavors to facilitate their work.
The customized nameplate holder can effectively separate the label from the metal surface to ensure accurate reading.
In terms of readers, AbeTech found through investigations that the reading rate and sensitivity of Impinj Speedway® readers are nearly one-third higher than those of other similar brands. Although AbeTech was not yet a partner of Impinj at the time, on-site investigations and further internal testing strengthened the determination to cooperate. At the same time, it was decided to adopt the Impinj reader antenna kit, which proved to be very wise in the end. The space of the ice cream cabinet is very small, which limits the choice of antennas. AbeTech tried different antennas in different locations at the beginning, hoping to meet Izzy’s requirements for appearance and operation. In the end, the best option is still the Impinj Threshold antenna, which was originally developed for border clearance inspection. A local metal technician designed some special brackets to support the antenna above the ice cream cabinet at an angle of about 45 degrees. AbeTech uses 4 Threshold antennas in this application, all of which are connected to a Speedway reader located under the ice cream cabinet, which is also where the freezer compressor is usually placed.
The reader and the “Flavor Up” database are controlled by a computer. In the store, patterns of various flavors will be displayed. Large colored dots with corresponding names represent the various flavors available for sale. They will appear on a TV monitor and be projected onto the wall behind the ice cream cabinet. superior. Similar information will also be displayed on the company website.
Whenever employees replace ice cream buckets, they insert the corresponding nameplate into the metal bracket. The reader (continuously reading the tags) will confirm the new tags and update the database. This information will be immediately uploaded to Facebook, Twitter and email user notifications. In the store, after a delay of one to three minutes, a short animation will begin, and the dots of all flavors will slowly rotate to remind everyone in the queue that their options are changing.
Four Impinj Threshhold antennas suspended in the ice cream cabinet can provide coverage of the reading area.
benefit
Although it cannot be directly quantified, Sommers believes that there are many benefits: the comfort level in the store is improved because the customer’s right to know is guaranteed; the disappointment of customers is reduced; the interaction between the customers in the store is increased, and they can discuss their choices. “Izzy Scoop”, thereby enlivening the atmosphere; as future customer interactions through social media increase, upgrades can be made; and sales have increased.
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