Crates and boxes of household goods are tagged as they move through the transportation chain. |
The trial served as a first test and implementation for the new system, dubbed Global Move Security (GMS). "The trial was to see that the system works, and it does. We had 100 percent read rates for items shipped during the trial," says Donald Robinson, a spokesman for RFID Decisions, the Seattle-based RFID project consulting and project management firm that developed the trial for household goods forwarder American Red Ball International.
During the trial, several families' household goods were shipped and tracked in each direction. According to the companies behind GMS, the network will also work effectively for civilian shipments, but the DOD provided an excellent client to start with. "The DOD has an annual budget of about $3.2 billion when it comes to U.S. domestic and international shipping" says Robinson. "That represents more than half the U.S. market."
The system includes Symbol fixed RFID portals deployed by RFID Global Solution, and handheld interrogators (readers) from data-collection technology provider PSC. As goods are loaded onto a truck at the customer's pick-up location, shipping agents use handheld interrogators to encode each lift van's tag with the crate's ID number, as well as the number given to identify the entire shipment. Those tag details are then uploaded to the Internet-accessible GMS application so shipping parties and customers can access details about the shipment's location. Customers receive an ID number they can use to log on to an Internet site where that information will be displayed.
As shipments originating in the United States move through the transportation chain, the tags are read again using RFID portals located at Red Ball's local agent. They are then read again at Orca Moving Systems a port agent in Lakewood, Wash.; at an RFID portal at port agent Express-Transport Shipping Agency (ETSA) in Bremerhaven, Germany; and with handheld readers operated by shipment forwarder Spedition Weilermann at the final destination. Shipments from Germany to the United States are tracked through the transportation chain by means of the same read points, but in the opposite direction.
The ability to track belongings in transit enables shippers to provide customers with detailed information about their possessions' location, as well as insight into when they will arrive. For the companies involved in the shipping, it also automates the manual process of checking shipments at each stage of the journey.
Handheld interrogators are used to read tags on crates, boxes and other packages. |
orignal Link: http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/2004/1/1/