Zebra helps U.S. large supermarket chain Wegmans realize meat product traceability
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As meat products increase in the proportion of residents’ consumption, how to ensure their safety has received more and more attention and attention. As far as supermarkets are concerned, realizing the tracking of meat products and delivering fresh meat products to customers safely and quickly is one of the most urgent problems to be solved. Recently, with its advanced radio frequency identification technology (RFID), Zebra Technologies has customized a food traceability solution for the US large supermarket chain Wegmans Food Markets to help it successfully track meat products and serve consumers To escort assured meat products.
Zebra challenges a complex environment
To select the best meat tracking solution, Wegmans conducted a six-week trial. In the test, Wegmans and Zebra both encountered huge challenges: because the cutting boards, knives and equipment used in the pre-processing of meat products are all made of metal, and the production and transportation of meat products have always been in a low temperature and humid environment. This makes it difficult for ordinary labels to complete the identification and traceability tasks during the processing and transportation of meat products. In addition, label materials and adhesives also need to be able to withstand the test of refrigeration and condensing environments. Which label medium to use has become the first problem that Zebra needs to solve. In addition to the environmental constraints of the project itself, Wegmans also has its own unique needs: In order not to change the original operation process, Wegmans hopes that the label size will still remain the same as the text and barcode on the original meat product packaging. 3×5 inches instead of the commonly used 4×6 inches. For this reason, finding RFID smart label media that is consistent with the current label format has also become a difficult problem for Zebra to solve.
Excellent technical strength to easily deal with difficult problems
In order to gain a deeper understanding of customer needs, Zebra first carried out a series of studies on the Wegmans meat production center and distribution center. The study found that the large meat products provided by Wegmans meat suppliers will first be sent to the Wegmans meat production center, where they will be cut and packaged for retail. Every 6 to 12 packaged meat products are placed in a plastic box and then loaded into pallets. After that, the pallets are transported to the meat product distribution center and distributed to various stores. Wegmans hopes to reliably identify plastic boxes and pallets through RFID technology from the time the plastic boxes are packed in the production process until the plastic boxes and pallets are transported from the distribution center to the retail store.
At the same time, Wegmans also carried out a comprehensive facility analysis to determine where the RFID reading point is most suitable; various manufacturers provide a variety of models of RFID readers for consideration; Wegmans is right Various RFID inlays that meet the second-generation standards have been evaluated accordingly, and the scope of consideration is finally limited to eight inlays produced by five manufacturers. Zebra considered all complex environmental factors, including humid and low temperature environment, water-absorbent materials, condensation, label and adhesive materials, label size and operation process, etc., and finally recommended Alien Technology and Omron Electronics to Wegmans Smart label inlays.
Although Wegmans’ goals and complex environment have brought many challenges to the test, Zebra Technologies, relying on its consistent excellence and reliability, with efficient coding, printing, reading and other product and technical features, ensured the smoothness of the test. To improve efficiency and save costs for customers, and win the trust and affirmation of customers. Wegmans EPC project manager Kristen Andersen affirmed Zebra’s professional performance: “The scope of laboratory testing is limited. Experts from Zebra Technologies arrive at the test site to investigate and understand the needs, helping us solve the inlay and labeling problems, and guarantee The experiment went smoothly.”
During the trial, Wegmans used the Zebra R110Xi™ printer/encoder to generate more than 30,000 smart labels. These labels were used in various plastic boxes and pallets in the production facility. Since Zebra printers have been used for encoding and barcode printing before, Wegmans can easily convert the original label format to support RFID by adding a command line, which greatly saves the time and cost required to redevelop a new RFID label format. . Smart labels used on plastic boxes or pallets will be automatically verified by the printer/encoder. If uncoded or defective labels are found, they will be marked as “invalid” to ensure efficient reading of all smart labels.
In this trial, the Zebra printer has once again become the best choice for Wegmans, and Andersen is full of confidence: “The performance of the Zebra printer is excellent. As an old customer of Zebra Technologies, we are very relieved of Zebra’s solutions.”
Wegmans chose VeriSign to design and monitor the trial. VeriSign project manager Tom Zarley pointed out: “The success of a trial depends on the expertise and experience of many people. Taking full advantage of technical experts is important for the smooth progress of the project. Guarantee. The perfect solutions provided by Zebra Technologies and years of industry-leading experience and technology are the key factors to ensure the smooth progress of the test project.”
Win-win with customers to achieve a win-win situation
The combination of Zebra’s carefully selected media and Zebra’s R110Xi printer/encoder in the test resulted in a bar code production pass rate of about 98%. Depending on the reader and specific operating conditions, the reading rate is between 95% and 98%. During the test, Wegmans loaded some readers with new software to update the firmware, which in turn increased the read rate by 2 to 3 percentage points. The firmware of Zebra R110Xi can be updated remotely. Due to its powerful performance, no additional adjustments are required.
This test completed the set goals of Wegmans. What’s more valuable is that the cooperation between Wegmans and Zebra Technologies has further enriched the experience of both parties in the field of RFID, and strengthened the matching of smart label media with the application environment. The importance of. All along, taking the actual needs of customers as the starting point, effectively using technical strength to solve customer problems, helping customers save costs and improve efficiency, and achieve win-win results with customers, are the secrets of Zebra to maintain industry leadership.
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