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Social Security Moves Forward With RFID
For orders requiring RFID, print commands for shipping label are sent to a bank of Intermec PM4i smart label printer-encoders. Encoded to the EPC Gen 2 UHF RFID inlay inside the label is the serial shipping container code (SSCC), a serialized number the SSA uses to identify each case it ships, whether labeled with just a printed a bar code label or an RFID inlay.
Warehouse personnel pick and label the cases, placing them on a conveyor system used to move cases to an area of the warehouse where all orders are palletized. If the order is RFID-enabled, the workers power up an Intermec IF4 portal reader installed alongside the conveyor. The reader collects the SSCC from each case's label and sends it to the WMS, which pulls it into a list of SSCCs for that order. A motion sensor determines each time a case enters the reader's interrogation field. If the reader does not successfully read a tag, the system alerts personnel to handle that case as an exception. Once all cases have been read, the WMS generates an SSCC to identify the pallet. That SSCC is associated with the SSCC of every case on the pallet. Personnel can then ensure that the pallet tag has been accurately encoded before the pallet is placed on a truck.
In March of 2005, one of the SSA's major document suppliers began placing pallet tags on its goods. It has continued to so since that time, and Orem says this supplier's shipments have become 100 percent accurate, consistently, since it began using RFID to verify its outbound shipments. For the SSA, the ability to use RFID labels to receive the pallets into its warehouse (rather than reading the bar-code label applied to the pallet) has cut labor. Now that this supplier is consistently sending complete and accurate orders, the SSA has cut its administrative costs, as it no longer needs to reconcile incomplete or inaccurate orders with this supplier.
Orem says the SSA is currently working with a handful of other suppliers that also tag their shipments. As the suppliers' government contracts come up for renewal, the SSA plans to add RFID-tagging requirements to them, just as the Department of Defense (DOD) is doing. "We'll be making case and pallet tagging mandatory," says Orem. Eventually, the SSA headquarters in Woodlawn, as well as four additional SSA warehouses, will be using RFID both to receive and ship all products.
Orem says he hopes to grow the SSA's use of RFID technology by working with all of the vendors from whom the agency purchases such valuable assets as desktop and laptop computers, to place tags on these goods before shipping them to the SSA. Orem envisions that the SSA would read the tags to receive the goods into its asset inventory, then also use the RFID tags to identify the items as they are put through their regular maintenance schedules. For example, IT personnel would use a handheld interrogator to identify a desktop computer requiring service rather than trying to crawl around under a desk to locate the computer's bar code or serial number plate. If the SSA expanded its use of RFID in this way, Orem says, it could save up to 70 percent of the labor costs associated with managing valuable assets.
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Warehouse personnel pick and label the cases, placing them on a conveyor system used to move cases to an area of the warehouse where all orders are palletized. If the order is RFID-enabled, the workers power up an Intermec IF4 portal reader installed alongside the conveyor. The reader collects the SSCC from each case's label and sends it to the WMS, which pulls it into a list of SSCCs for that order. A motion sensor determines each time a case enters the reader's interrogation field. If the reader does not successfully read a tag, the system alerts personnel to handle that case as an exception. Once all cases have been read, the WMS generates an SSCC to identify the pallet. That SSCC is associated with the SSCC of every case on the pallet. Personnel can then ensure that the pallet tag has been accurately encoded before the pallet is placed on a truck.
In March of 2005, one of the SSA's major document suppliers began placing pallet tags on its goods. It has continued to so since that time, and Orem says this supplier's shipments have become 100 percent accurate, consistently, since it began using RFID to verify its outbound shipments. For the SSA, the ability to use RFID labels to receive the pallets into its warehouse (rather than reading the bar-code label applied to the pallet) has cut labor. Now that this supplier is consistently sending complete and accurate orders, the SSA has cut its administrative costs, as it no longer needs to reconcile incomplete or inaccurate orders with this supplier.
Orem says he hopes to grow the SSA's use of RFID technology by working with all of the vendors from whom the agency purchases such valuable assets as desktop and laptop computers, to place tags on these goods before shipping them to the SSA. Orem envisions that the SSA would read the tags to receive the goods into its asset inventory, then also use the RFID tags to identify the items as they are put through their regular maintenance schedules. For example, IT personnel would use a handheld interrogator to identify a desktop computer requiring service rather than trying to crawl around under a desk to locate the computer's bar code or serial number plate. If the SSA expanded its use of RFID in this way, Orem says, it could save up to 70 percent of the labor costs associated with managing valuable assets.
