Nisa-Today's DC Uses RFID to Secure Trailers

After both interrogators have performed their appropriate readings, the system is updated. The computer matches all corresponding information, and the guard at the gate sees both the route plan and a picture of the driver on his screen. If the truck, trailer, driver or seal number is wrong or mismatched, the guard will be alerted. If all information is correct, the guard visually identifies the driver. The barrier goes up, and the driver is allowed to pass.

The whole ID process takes only several seconds, keeping traffic from stalling at the gate and cutting down on wasted fuel.

When a truck pulls up to gatehouse at the Nisa-Today's distribution center, an RFID interrogator reads the truck's and trailer's RFID tags to identify the driver and the load of goods.

When the driver arrives at his first destination, workers unloading the truck can look at the four-digit number noted on the manifest and compare it with the number on the tag. If there's a match, the retailer then knows he is receiving an unopened shipment of goods.

If a driver makes a single delivery, the time of opening of the seal will be stored in the seal's memory, and the driver notes the new four-digit number by hand on the load manifest.

If a driver is making multiple deliveries on a run, he will reseal the load after each drop and write down the new numbers that appear in the lighted display each time the seal is closed. When the empty truck and trailer return to the yard, the interrogator at the gatehouse reads the latest e-seal number. The yard management system verifies the number of drops by examining the number of times the seal was closed and comparing these with the route plan. If three drops were planned and three closures were noted, the barrier raises and a driver can pass. If the number of drops and planned drops do not jibe, the guard then questions the driver.

"This is all about controlling the driver and making sure that he doesn't stop en route and take something out," says Hayward. "It's all about securing the load."

Jeremy Blakey, Re-Vision Logistics' director, has been working on the project since its beginning. He says drivers like the system because it can be used to independently verify their honesty.

"We have had a couple of incidents, and the Crypta seal data enabled us to completely rule out the drivers as having any possible involvement," he said, adding: "You can never stop a determined thief, but you can make it very hard for them to succeed. The level of security that this Unisto system provides is a powerful deterrent. Word has spread via drivers, suppliers, etc., that we would not be an easy target."

When the system was implemented, Unisto faced problems interrogating the e-seals because they are bolted to roller shutter doors that are then blocked by trucks' steel tail lifts. This made it difficult to wake up the seal at a low frequency. Unisto solved the problem by repositioning the antenna at a lower level.

"Our problems were mainly about the antenna and the positioning of the antenna," Hayward says. "It took a lot of development work on the antenna to get it to point in the right direction."