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challenge
There are hundreds of pharmacies in South Korea that sell Hanmi products. Before adopting RFID, it was difficult for this manufacturer to monitor the inventory level of the store well at any given time. In order to know when the replenishment is needed, Hanmi has to rely on the middle-level staff of each pharmacy to perform manual inventory counting. Such labor-intensive processes are not only less frequent, but also less accurate than 100%. Hanmi needs to obtain more accurate and real-time inventory level information in order to improve the circulation situation in its entire supply chain. For this reason, they chose RFID as the solution.
RFID not only solves Hanmi’s circulation challenges, but also responds to compliance with government regulations, enhancing and strengthening the level of medical safety in the entire country. In South Korea, the pharmaceutical industry is facing the problem of illegally producing and selling fake, inferior and counterfeit medicines. Since the country can only recycle about 20% of such illegal pharmaceutical products, the South Korean government recommends the use of RFID to counter this growing danger problem. It is mandatory that 50% of pharmaceutical products use RFID tags before 2015.
As one of Korea’s leading pharmaceutical providers, Hanmi needs to integrate RFID technology in its complex product lines while maintaining a high level of speed and performance for the packaging production line system. Previously, in the entire pharmaceutical supply chain, item-level tags have never been tried on such a large scale before (RFID tags use more than 60 million RFID tags each year). In order to realize this intricate application, Hanmi needed to find RFID tags that could be applied to all of its 500 types of products packaged in different shapes, sizes and materials. Hanmi must also consider the contents of the product, some of which contain liquids and metals, as well as chemicals that usually negatively affect the performance of the RFID system. In the end, Hanmi chose Korea’s leading RFID solution provider LS Industrial Systems (LSIS) and Impinj’s UHF RFID technology to implement the solution.
working principle
In order to ensure a stable supply of large quantities of labels, Hanmi chose LSIS as its comprehensive RFID hardware solution provider. Since 2004, LSIS has established a cooperative relationship with Impinj and introduced to Hanmi Impinj’s excellent RFID technology. Through close cooperation for more than a year, this team has fully realized the application of RFID item-level tags in Hanmi’s supply chain.
Hanmi hopes to provide labels for every single pharmaceutical product it produces with as few label designs as possible, while still maintaining a reliable read and write rate. They chose to use Impinj’s Monza® tag chip in two types of passive second-generation UHF RFID tags: a linear tag, and another Satellite tag designed for Impinj. Both of these designs provide the best read and write rates at an affordable price.
When deciding to use only two label designs, Hanmi faced the challenge of adapting one of these two labels to its many products. Although the Satellite tag is small in size and can fit all items, its read and write range is shorter than that of linear tags that only fit large items. Hanmi and LSIS conducted extensive tests to determine the ideal label for various products.
In order to overcome the difficulties caused by the metal aluminum foil packaging in the carton, Hanmi adopted a patented design to minimize the metal contact surface. A small space is separately isolated in the carton to separate the linear label from the aluminum foil package.
The next measure Hanmi took was to integrate RFID and coding functions into the existing packaging production line, while maintaining system performance at a level of reading 150 to 200 tags per minute. The LSIS Xcode high-speed encoding software LSIS Xcode, a high-performance high-performance reader based on Impinj Speedway® reader, meets the company’s requirements for speed and reliability.
In the carton, the single product passes through a two-stage encoder. In the first paragraph, the single product will be coded using country code, manufacturer code, product code, and serial number. Subsequently, the single product will pass through the second section to check for coding errors. If no errors are found, it passes normally.
A similar production line is also used for plastic medicine bottles. The medicine bottles passing through the packaging production line will be attached with an RFID label, and then a medicine label will be covered on the RFID label, and the label will be encoded. An inspection was set up at the end of the production line to confirm that the read content of the RFID tag matches the content of the medicine bottle.
After the single product is coded, it will be transported from the automated warehouse to the freight department. The freight department manually sorts the products and puts them into cartons, and then sends them to the pharmacy. The cartons are pre-coded using RFID tags, which contain order information. The cartons will then be sent to the delivery verification system, which is a conveyor belt equipped with a reader and Impinj Guardwall antenna. The system will read the labels on each single product and carton. If all the labels match the order information, the carton will pass the verification and continue to enter the batch process.
In the local pharmacy, store employees use LSIS handheld readers equipped with Indy® reader chips to take inventory. Inventory information will be transmitted wirelessly to Hanmi’s central information server. These data provide a visualization of the management of inventory levels and sales levels. Valuable visibility.
In December 2010, Hanmi successfully applied RFID throughout the supply chain.
advantage
The item-level labeling of Hanmi products simplifies the company’s operations, providing better visibility and maximum traceability throughout the pharmaceutical supply chain.
At the warehouse level, Hanmi is able to verify the contents of the box before shipping, thus greatly reducing the error rate of shipping. After the product is delivered to the pharmacy, the RFID solution can significantly improve the store inventory management process, reduce stock outs, and enable sales representatives to spend less time in inventory counting and more time to provide customer service. Hanmi and pharmacies can also keep abreast of the expiration date of products on the management shelf to enhance consumer safety. At the same time, better inventory management visualization and better inventory visibility brought by item-level labels also contribute to the effective return of effective recalled products, which means that these items remain on the shelf for a shorter period of time.
The RFID system also provides statistics and observations of Hanmi’s sales by product, region and season. This greatly improves Hanmi’s ability to predict product demand, allowing it to more efficiently supply materials and replenish inventory when necessary.
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