DFA RFID-Enables Its Cheese-Processing Plants

When the cheese products are packed in crates, a line operator accesses a PC, logs into the system via the Web-based interface, inputs details about the product being packed and presses the "start" prompt. At that point, says Josh Drake, DFA's RFID analyst, the applicator begins applying Alien Technology Squiggle EPC Gen 2 UHF tags to each case, each with a unique EPC number linked with the product information inputted by the line operator.

As the crates continue down the assembly line, each crate's label is read. A green light indicates the read as being good, while a red light means the crate must be sent back down the assembly line past the reader for a second read attempt or a new tag. When all the crates have been tagged and read, the operator presses the "stop run" prompt.

Toby Rush

At present, the cooperative has two RFID-enabled production lines in Plymouth, as well as another in Zumbrota. By the end of this year, Rush says, DFA expects to have six RFID-enabled lines in Plymouth.

Once the crates have been tagged, the company loads them onto pallets. At the Zumbrota plant, the system generates tags that are attached to the pallets manually; at the Plymouth plant, however, no pallet tags are in use. Once palletized, cases are either loaded into refrigerated storage to await shipping orders from Wal-Mart, or are directly loaded onto trucks (if the order has already come in).

The data—each pallet's and crate's EPC number and the product stored inside each crate, as well as the date, time and location of the read—is managed by the OAT Tag@source software system, enabling DFA to track its products by logging on to OATSystem's intranet. The solution also includes OATaxiom's analytics package to identify emerging trends and potential ROI opportunities. However, as of this week, that system has not yet been installed. "We expect to be able to track promotions, and also track the movement of our product through Wal-Mart's distribution chain," Tiede says, explaining DFA's plans to use OATaxiom.

In June, the cooperative switched from Gen 1 to Gen 2 tags. That transition signaled the only downtime the RFID system has had, Drake says. "We've been very pleased with the performance of Gen 2," he states, adding that the percentage of successful read attempts has been extremely high. "We were already in the upper 90s, and now it's very rare to have a miss."