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Send to KindleRingnes taps RFID
It was for this reason that a decade-long interest in RFID recently became a reality for the brewer-distributor.Carlsberg had looked into RFID 10 years ago when management saw the potential for benefits and savings using the technology, but costs were too high to justify implementation, according to Ringnes process development manager Jon Kvande.
"The specific goal of the project was to get a better overview of what containers we have available and where the containers are in the flow," says Kvande. "We had kind of lost control over where they were at each time and when they were coming back to us, including which had containers and which were empty. We now have better control over where our containers are located. If RFID provides a payback, that would be nice. But if it doesn't, we would have at least learned something about the technology."
Benefits in abundance
Ringnes has experienced several benefits with its RFID deployment, including better asset management. For one thing, the company discovered that it did not require as many of the large transport containers as it had thought.
"We don’t want to invest in containers if we don’t need them," says Kvande. "We are able to use fewer containers than we would have if we didn’t have this system."
It has also seen some unexpected labor savings, too. "We are not having people looking throughout the yard for specific containers, whether they are to be loaded or unloaded," Kvande points out.
It also uncovered some surprising production-related advantages. "We now have better control over what kind of returns and on what container they are located," explains Kvande. "We can get those returnable containers into production faster and don't have to halt production."
A next step is to have the RFID software communicate with Ringnes’ other systems, such as for its warehouse and yard management. Kvande hopes that happens in 2010. Further on down the road, he foresees the advantages of pallet-level tagging.
"We have learned a lot," summarizes Kvande. "As we have progressed with this project, we have seen more areas where we could use this technology."
It seems that when it comes to RFID, Ringnes' "glass" is more than half full.
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