Beer Keg Tracking Supply Chain Using RFID Technology
Abstract
This contribution deals with the business value of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology in the DRAUGHT BEER KEG TRACKING in their distribution supply chain.
We present a case study of an RFID project at a major producer of DRAUGHT BEER and supplier to a majority of PUBS, HOTELS and BARS, etc in India.
The Project shows that operational efficiency gains through the automation in tracking the Filled BEER KEGS during distribution and the returnable EMPTY KEGS to production.
The KEGS fitted with RFID TAGS helped the customer in tracking the distribution of the KEGS to the various outlets, to track the number of KEGS lying at the OUTLETS and the EMPTY KEGS that is being returned on a daily basis to production. This helped to understand on a real time basis the KEGS inventory at Outlets, KEGS in transit, KEGS at Distribution Centre and EMPTY KEGS available for production.
The RFID data captured helped in the distribution efficiency, the number of BEER FILLED KEGs being delivered to each outlet with date and time stamp and also the number of EMPTY KEGS that was being collected and sent to production.
The customer approached TEAMLIFTSS with a design to develop a RFID based KEG TRACKING SYSTEM in order to understand the inventory of Kegs available at their production plant and with the Distributor and the Outlets and the turnaround time of KEGS
After a thorough study it was decided to implement the System and to understand in depth the Tracking of Keg movement across the supply chain comprising of the above.
The DRAUGHT BEER is produced at most of the Distilling plants throughout India.
The Draught beer supplied in kegs of 20 & 25 liter KEGS were being filled and sent to the Distributor for supply to various Outlets in a particular location. Before implementation of the system, the Management were not in a position to track the number of filled KEGS available at the outlets , their turn around time and returned empty KEGS in transit to production. This inventory being held at the Distributors and Outlet end were hampering the production efficiency at the BEER Filling plants. They did not have any information on the empty KEGS that is being returned to production nor there was no real information on the number of KEGS in transit and that is lying with the Outlet. This was causing unproductive machine time, poor KEGS management turnaround time leading to loss of production and poor planning.
To improve the above, the management decided to adopt a system that can deliver a real time Tracking of the KEGS that is being supplied to the Distributor from the filling plant and in turn to the various Outlets on a daily basis and also closely Monitor the Return of the EMPTY KEGS from the Outlets in order to improve their daily production plan. An RFID based system using Handled Terminals with a Mobile Application was looked into. TEAMLIFTSS was approached to provided the necessary RFID Terminals and Mobile Application Software.
5000 Beer Kegs were RFID tagged with a Special RFID tag, a RFID Tag that could withstand rough handling and that can be easily fixed to the Outer casing of the KEG. The RFID tags were the fixed to the each of the Kegs.
A GPRS based RFID Handheld Terminal was used for the purpose of Tracking the KEGS. A Mobile application was developed and loaded in each of the GPRS based RFID HAND HELD TERMINAL. The FILLED KEGS sent from the PLANT is scanned during the loading and dispatch operations. The Scanned KEGS arrive at the Distributors end and from there it is supplied to the outlets as per the daily order fulfillment. During the delivery at the Outlet, the operator uses the RFID Handheld Terminal by scanning the RFID TAG on the KEG. The System captures the Date & time stamp and the Outlets details and the number of KEGs supplied to the particular outlet. The data captured on a real time basis is updated to a back end server running the Tracking Application.
Each Distributor were provided with 10 Handheld Terminals loaded with the mobile application to track the KEGS during delivery and collection and the data collected saved to a back end database server.
The details of the contents of the KEG, the delivery date, delivery time, number of Kegs, user, vehicle number, the Outlet details, the empty KEG collected ,etc is captured by the system and analyzed in a central repository. The Data collected was integrated with the back End System and the data generated was published through Dashboards to Production and key Management Personnel.