RFID - bakery deliveries

Case Study 2

MFK is a medium-sized bakery delivering their products to Supermarkets, Cafes and hospitality venues.

MFK main products are a range of healthy bread varieties. But a significant part of the business is also pastries and cakes. The main baking building is in front of their own larger building, the distribution warehouse.

MFK has 22 delivery trucks with each truck having a capacity of 400 crates. There are two crate types which differ in shape and size. Bread crates and Pastry crates.

These crates have been purposely designed and manufactured for MFK. Whilst the actual cost of each crate is relatively inexpensive ($125), the contents of each daily delivery run and the return and rotational use of each crate is very valuable to the business. Besides this, the remanufacture of any additional crates only makes economic sense with production runs of 1,000+.

Therefore, there is a business requirement to understand the use of each crate and the exact geographical location on any day.

Misplacing or losing a few crates each week doesn't sound significant. But unaccounted crates leads to unaccounted bakery products, hence unknown billing and quantity reorders. Which all amounts to a poor business!

After consultation to better understand the business and requirements, GeoApsis implemented the following solution:

  • Each crate (approx. 9,000): Small RFID tags permanently attached

  • Trucks: RFID antennae & Readers installed above cargo doors of each truck

  • Trucks: GNSS monitor installed on each truck

  • Bakery Distribution warehouse: RFID antennae & Readers installed at each side of large entrance roller doors

  • Warehouse Management System (WMS) software implemented

  • Hand-held RFID reader for crates in stacked storage

 

GeoApsis provided training on the AI data analytics with the WMS.

RFID - BAKERY DELIVERIES

Case Study 2 - (cont.)

RFID implementation RESULTS:
    Each crate was uniquely monitored for:

  • When the crate left the bakery warehouse

  • Items in each crate

  • When each crate and what items were loaded to each unique truck

  • Crate unloaded location with time and items

  • Empty crates collected: location and time

  • Crate re-entry to bakery warehouse

This provided MFK Bakery with the following actionable Analytics:

  • Daily crate status, summary and stock-take

  • Daily summary of Lost, stolen, forgotten crates

  • Last known location of each individual crate and bakery product

  • MKF customers also appreciated the clear and open accounting and evidence of delivery and took increased responsibility for crate returns

  • Overall marked decrease in crates lost or misplaced

  • Significant Increase in business efficiency

Finally, the financials for our bakery deliveries and efficiencies completely turned around. We now ALWAYS knew the what, where, when and how many. I even recommended GeoApsis to a good friend of mine, to implement RFID technology for his beer keg delivery business.


Annex: After several successful months of the RFID technology operations, MFK reconnected with GeoApsis to assist with the implementation of smart AI camera analytics within the bakehouse.

*Note: Technical details are accurate. Real names have been altered to maintain confidentiality.

Example of Smart AI Camera with RF

 Case Study 3