Daisy Brand Deems RFID a Success

When a truck arrives to pick up a load, the driver can remove pallets to be loaded on his vehicle. The system will let that driver know if he is picking up the right pallet. For example, a pallet containing cases of product with an imminent sell-by date would not be shipped to a far-away retail destination, such as Seattle or New York. The reader at the portal would also alert a driver on his tablet PC if he were loading the wrong pallet for a specific truck.

Since May, Daisy Brand has gone through two "maintenance releases," in which it has adjusted the existing system to improve performance. "There have been challenges," Brown says. "We had to work through things—programmers can't think of everything." For example, there is now an option for forklift drivers in the event a pallet breaks while being loaded (in such a situation, the adjusted system allows Daisy Brand to print a new RFID label).

With the construction of its new manufacturing facility in Arizona, Daisy Brand will be adding an RFID system there for the tagging of pallets. Data from forklift readers and fixed readers at that facility would also be routed into the company's ERP system, allowing staff to access it from the company's Garland headquarters.

Daisy Brand uses Wal-Mart's Retail Link Web site to track the RFID tagged cases it sends to that retailer throughout the supply chain. To date, however, it has done little tracking of its pallets at the retailer's distribution centers. For instance, the company is not tagging cases for any shipments other than those destined for Wal-Mart. "We have great visibility at the retail point," Brown says in regard to Wal-Mart, noting that there is less guarantee of RFID tracking at the distribution center. "The store is where you really need it," he adds, since that is where a company can check if its product has reached a site on time, whether it is still on the shelf and how long it takes to sell.

Daisy Brand is looking at the front end of its operation as well, and is undertaking business case studies about the benefits of capturing RFID data from milk and cream trucks arriving at the manufacturing facility for unloading. Some trucks are already tagged with container RFID tags. If Daisy Brand were to use that data, says Larry Chandler, GlobeRanger's vice president of business development, it could then capture details regarding the kind of milk or cream being delivered, allowing it to prepare itself to receive that product more quickly.

According to Chandler, GlobeRanger has been working on business case studies with Daisy Brand that could be implemented at both the Garland plant and the new Casa Grande facility. Daisy Brand is now purchasing software for the Casa Grande facility, he adds, and will begin testing it with simulated hardware at its temporary warehouse in Arizona for three dock doors and two forklifts. "This gives them a nice way to start staging," Chandler says.