Norway pilots RFID pallet tracking for food industry
25 March, 2011
category: RFID
Norsk Lastbærer AS Pool, a Norwegian organization managing nationwide pallet leasing for retailers and manufacturers, is piloting RFID tags for tracking plastic pallets and totes.
The RFID pilot covers two food factories, Maaraud and Finsbråten, and two distribution centers for the Coop retail chain. The pilot utilizes UPM ShortDipole ultra-high frequency EPC Gen2 RFID tags, fixed RFID readers provided by Impinj, and antennas by Intermec.
Plastic pallets are embedded with a UPM ShortDipole tag and loaded with goods destined for either of two RFID-enabled Coop distribution centers. Handheld readers read the tags, encode them, and transmit the shipping details to the company. Data is then stored and made available for web access.
The loaded pallets pass through a reader portal as they are transferred to trucks. The portal reads each pallet’s tags, confirming that the goods are being shipped and forwarding the information to Fosstrak software.