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The Knox nursery in Florida launched an RFID system last fall. This system was so successful that Knox nursery joint enterprise software and service company BizSpeed promoted this system to other commercial plant growers and wholesalers. The Grower’s Own RFID system is now on the market, and the two companies plan to officially launch an upgraded version with enhanced functions in the third quarter of this year.
Knox nursery cultivates and sells seedlings to wholesalers and retailers, who purchase the seedlings and then plant them until they can be sold to the consumer market. During peak seasons, Knox usually sells more than 30,000 trays of seedlings per week. The nursery uses RFID to identify disposable, seeded plastic trays-most of them are flower seeds and some herbaceous plants,-and then use the same technology to track inventory and the movement of trays in the greenhouse (13 acres) to speed up the growth of seedlings. Delivery speed.
Before the RFID system was adopted, the process of seedling cultivation and shipment preparation was quite cumbersome. In order to offset the loss of seedlings during the cultivation period, Knox and similar nurseries usually plant nearly 20% more seedlings than required by the order, which makes tracking of seedlings more difficult. Due to the short shelf life of seedlings, excess seedlings are often discarded. In addition, the naked eye alone cannot accurately identify the seedling type in any tray. Like some other nurseries, Knox nurseries used barcodes to track pallets in the past, said Eric Claiborne, the company’s information system manager, but the barcode system has proven to be problematic.
“The headaches are one after another,” Claiborne said. “The barcode on each pallet is not affixed to the same place, and it is often stained by soil and water. Some pallets grow plants even covered with the barcode. This reduces The success rate of barcode scanning.”
In 2006, Claiborne contacted Chris Henry, CEO of BizSpeed, and the two companies jointly launched a one-week pilot project to use RFID tags on pallets to track their shipping processes. After the pilot, Claiborne began to gradually install Grower’s Own system, installing Motorola’s XR400 and XR440 fixed RFID readers in multiple locations in the greenhouse. In October 2008, the company fully implemented this system, and all pallets were pasted with RFID tags.
Handheld reader reads seedling tray tags
When a customer places an order for a certain type of seedlings, the tray is taken out for use for the first time. Workers enter the order number and seed category of each pallet, then a Zebra printer and label labeler print it, and paste the label on the edge of the pallet. The label contains Avery Dennison AD-223 EPC Gen 2 RFID inlay.
The order number and a bar serial number are printed on the front of each label. In order to encode the RFID inlay of the label, Knox uses a system specially designed by Knox and BizSpeed to automatically scan the bar serial code and write it into the RFID inlay. And send a confirmation message to Grower’s Own software system (stored by MS SQL server) via Ethernet connection.
The pallet then passes through a seed production conveyor belt. There, a fixed Motorola reader scans the RFID tag on the tray again, indicating that a specific seed has been planted in the tray, and the tray records the “production” status.
During the incubation phase, each tray may be read multiple times. Employees sometimes move pallets in the greenhouse, using roller conveyors to push 42 pallets at a time. When the roller conveyor passes through an RFID channel, all pallet tags are read, and the ID codes of the tags are then transmitted to the back-end system, indicating which pallets are moved into the greenhouse.
Knox employees also use Motorola RFID handhelds with Wi-Fi ports to perform inventory counting and track the storage area of each pallet. Previously, two workers had to spend two days to complete the inventory count. Now it only takes one person two to three hours to complete the inventory count, and the results are more accurate.
When the seedlings are grown to a certain size, Knox ships them to customers. If the order is large, it is usually delivered by truck. The operator first selects the order to be shipped on a touch screen, and then the screen displays all the goods in a certain order. When the seedling passes through a channel, the reader reads and confirms the ID code of each tray. If an employee attempts to pack an incorrect pallet, the system will sound an alarm to remind the shipper to remove the incorrect pallet. When all the ordered goods are packaged, the employee touches the screen and instructs the Grower’s Own system to print a shipping order and send the customer an advance notice of shipping.
Small orders are usually shipped via Federal Express. In this case, the operator selects the size of the order and the box on a touch screen connected to an RFID reader. The touch screen displays the goods required for the order, and the reader captures the ID code of each pallet. When the pallet is loaded into the box, the screen updates the order completion data. If the reader detects an incorrect tray, the system issues an alarm. When the order is loaded, the operator presses the “loading complete” prompt on the screen. The software then enters the Fed Ex website and generates a shipping label, which is printed out along with the packing list and pasted on the box.
Shipping station for Federal Express freight
The Grower’s Own software system collects inventory data so that Knox nursery staff can understand the greenhouse inventory, the quantity of each category, and the delivery time of pallets. Workers can also use it to determine the storage area of the pallet in the greenhouse. However, it is not yet possible to accurately locate the pallet in this area. Therefore, the nursery plans to expand the system, hoping that this system can track the position of each pallet in the greenhouse. BizSpeed is now designing an RFID reader cart that can be pushed through the greenhouse to read all tags. The RFID reader cart is expected to be officially launched in three months
According to Claiborne, Knox has recovered the cost of hardware and software, and the improvement in freight accuracy has become the company’s biggest benefit.
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