Gillette Sharpens Its Edge

At the Fort Devens facility, a subcontractor puts Venus razors into packages and then into cases. The cases are stacked on a pallet, which is then transferred to the adjacent distribution center. There the pallet may be loaded onto a truck bound for a retailer’s store or distribution center, or its cases may be removed and stacked on other pallets to fill orders requiring less an entire pallet’s worth of the same product. (The facility also has a United Parcel Service conveyor for parcel deliveries and a special pack area where items used in special promotions can be boxed.)


At the facility’s first station—the case-packing machine within the packaging area—workers apply the Class 1 EPC tags manually to the cases (the tags are embedded in self-adhesive labels). This year, Gillette will switch to an automatic labeling machine, and eventually, the EPC tags will be incorporated into the corrugated boxes, which will eliminate the cost of applying labels. Once labeled, the case is put on a conveyor. A reader with antennas set up on either side of the conveyor writes an EPC number to the tag. As the case continues down the conveyor, another reader reads the tag to confirm that the serial number was written correctly. If it was, the EPC is stored in a central database. Gillette can now track that specific case until it leaves the company’s hands.

When the case arrives at the second station within the packaging area, it’s retrieved and hand-stacked on a pallet, which holds 60 cases. Cases are arranged on the pallet so that the EPC tags on the edges of the cases face outward and can therefore be read. When the pallet is fully loaded, it is transferred down a long conveyor to the distribution center.

The tags on the pallet are read as they move down this corridor. The subcontractor that does the stacking of pallets gets paid for each completed pallet. The EPC system now lets Gillette record automatically—with 100 percent accuracy and no manual intervention—how many pallets were completed and when they were transferred to the distribution center, so the company can pay its subcontractor.

A forklift operator picks up the pallet and either stores it temporarily or takes it to a pick area, where cases are removed and put on other pallets to be shipped out. Each forklift has an EPC reader so it can read tags on the pallet it is carrying. If the pallet is stored in the facility, the reader also reads an RFID tag at the location, so the company knows where the pallet is in the facility.

If a retailer orders a pallet with an assortment of different razors, the pallet is assembled in the pick area. A forklift retrieves the assembled pallet and drives through a tunnel lined with antennas connected to an EPC reader. Software confirms that the type and quantity of products on the pallet matches those ordered. Antennas mounted on a thin steel column at each dock door scan the pallets and confirm that the right pallet is being put on the right truck.

On Sept. 19, 2003, at 12:48 am, Gillette read the first EPC tag. In the first 10 weeks of the trial, the company tagged more than 100,000 cases. All of the tags were written to and read correctly. The company originally expected to put a separate tag on each pallet, but it found that once the pallet is loaded and software aggregates all the EPC numbers on the cases or boxes associated with the pallet, the company can read any tag on any case and identify the pallet.

As changes are made to the implementation plan to account for real-world conditions or to improve the system, they are documented so they can be applied in other facilities down the line. “Our objective is to learn about all the applications, process improvements and IT requirements [for an EPC system],” says Cantwell. “Just by having the technology installed and having our line managers working with the technology, we’ve seen a significant increase in the number of business benefits and applications we’ve been able to identify versus the early theoretical business models we drew up.”