Beihai Fishery Leasing Company uses RFID to track the movement of tens of thousands of fish boxes
chrispeng [ad_1]
Pack and Sea is a Danish company that specializes in fishing box leasing. It now uses RFID technology to track the location of its plastic fish boxes. Plastic fish boxes are used for loading fish caught at sea, which are later shipped to the market for sale. This system not only helps Pack and Sea reduce the loss and theft of fish crates, but also charges certain fees to the renters who have not returned them.
This system is provided by the Nordic RFID integration company ProSign, using Alien Technology handheld and fixed readers, and Alien EPC Gen 2 passive UHF tags.
The Nordic fishermen lease thousands of fish crates from Pack and Sea. The fish crates are loaded on the boats and go out of the North Sea to fish with the fishermen. The fish crates full of fish are sent to auction houses in Denmark or other European countries. The latter distributes and sells the fish, and returns the boxes to Pack and Sea for cleaning and reuse.
Pack and Sea uses EPC Gen 2 passive UHF tags on tens of thousands of fish boxes
In the past, the company mainly relied on manual tracking of fish crates, using pen and paper to record the number of fish crates of fishermen, auction houses or fish merchants, and the time when the fish crates had to be returned. However, ProSign President Michael Jensen said that in 2009, he and Pack and Sea employees went to various ports in Poland and saw that the discarded Pack and Sea fish boxes were enough to fill two trucks. Pack and Sea loses an average of 5% -10% of boxes each year.
Therefore, Pack and Sea needs a solution that can increase the return rate of fish crates on the one hand, and on the other hand allow the company to accurately charge the renters who lost the fish crates.
Before going to sea, fishermen rented fish boxes from Pack and Sea. Company employees take out the required number of fish boxes from the warehouse and distribute them to the fishermen. The fishermen loaded the fish boxes on the boat and set out to fish. When loading fish in boxes, fishermen have two options: one is to put the fish directly into the box without sorting, and after sending it to the shore, let a special agency sort it; the other is more common, where fishermen will sort the fish according to the type of fish. Size and quality classify them directly on board.
If the fishermen sort directly on the boat, then when the boat returns to the harbour, the box full of fish is sent directly to the auction site. The sold fish are sent to the buyer’s location for processing or exported to other European countries. If the fish is not sorted on the boat, the fish box will go through one more step-from the sorting point to the auction house. Whether on the ship or in the port, the fish crates are stored in the cold storage. When the boxes were emptied, Jensen stated that the processing plant or other parties were responsible for returning the fish boxes to a location in Pack and Sea Denmark, where they were cleaned by high-pressure, high-temperature machines for reuse.
There are several possibilities for the loss of a fish box: it was stolen from a storage area, a fish processing company, dropped from a boat into the sea, or a fisherman sent the fish to a processing point, which kept the fish box. In addition, some damaged fish tanks will appear during processing. Fishermen, factories and exporters pay to rent the boxes. If Pack and Sea realizes that the fish boxes have not been returned, the company will continue to charge the responsible party until the box costs are paid in full.
In 2006, Pack and Sea began to seek a better solution. The company cooperated with ProSign to carry out related pilot projects in 2007 and 2008 to find the best way to label boxes. The fishing industry has very strict requirements for RFID tags. The boxes must be able to withstand temperature fluctuations from minus 20 degrees Celsius (when going to sea or in an ice storage) to 70-80 degrees Celsius (high temperature cleaning). Fish boxes are exposed to water, corrosive salt and vibrations (due to frequent handling of trucks or ships, or collisions with other boxes). Therefore, the company tested a variety of RFID tags and chose the tag that performed best in these environments-the UHF Gen 2 EPC Alien Higgs-3 Squiggle tag, packaged in a protective plastic case.
Pack and Sea has been working to replace old boxes with new fish boxes to distinguish them from similar boxes from other renters. When the new box arrives at Pack and Sea, workers weld the plastic shell of the RFID tag to the box. Pack and Sea is currently labeling tens of thousands of boxes at 10 locations in Denmark. The company also installs RFID readers on warehouse entrances and cleaning machines, and equips staff with handheld readers.
With this new system, when fishermen rent boxes from Pack and Sea, the staff takes out the required number of fish boxes from the warehouse, and uses handheld computers or fixed readers to read the ID codes of each box label. The fisherman’s account information is entered into the Pack and Sea back-end system, corresponding to the RFID number of the rented box, and the corresponding fee is charged. When the box full of fish returns to the ship, the ID code of the tag is read by the auction house or sorting staff using a handheld machine. When each label is read, the status of the box is automatically updated in the Pack and Sea software, thus recording the current owner of the box. Then, if the fish in the fish box is sold to the fish dealer, the label is read again, instructing the fish dealer to be the responsible party for the box.
When the fish is processed, the empty fish box is returned to Pack and Sea, where a fixed reader on the cleaning machine reads the ID code of the tag again, and the status of the upgraded box is “return”.
By the second half of 2010, Jensen stated that Pack and Sea plans to launch a pilot project to provide fishermen with an RFID reader that can be carried on board. “We will carry out a pilot project for handhelds and fixed readers connected to weighing equipment,” he said. The caught fish are stored in boxes, and then the boxes are weighed. At the same time, the reader captures the ID code of each box, correlates the box with its weight, and then sends the data to a specific auction site via a satellite connection.
This process can also be handled by a handheld device. When the box is weighed, the handheld device reads the tag ID code and uses the keyboard to manually enter information, such as the type, location and weight of the fish. When the ship sent the boxes to the auction site, the tags were read again to obtain relevant information. Pack and Sea plans to fully adopt this system in 2011 or 2012.
[ad_2]
