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Pfefferkorn Spedition Uses RFID and Video to Track Shipments
The receiver captures the tag ID numbers of handheld scanners in the vicinity and sends those numbers, together with the exact time each transmission was received, via an Ethernet connection to a Web-based server. AeroScout Engine software allows the system to calculate, through triangulation, the exact location of the handheld bar-code scanner, and to associate that location with specific cameras. Pfefferkorn has 89 such cameras deployed around the warehouse.
Based on this location data, the DIVIS CargoVIS software identifies which video images document package-processing activity and should, therefore, be saved by Pfefferkorn, as opposed to discardable video images taken when there was no activity in the warehouse. The software also associates the bar-code numbers of the parcels scanned with the handheld device's location at any specific time, so that a future search of that parcel's bar code would immediately provide the locations and times of its movement throughout the warehouse.
"The software has zones that each camera view covers, in terms of coordinates on a map," says Volker Wittchow, DIVIS' director of sales and marketing, "[Once] a scanner's location is known, then the set of cameras is selected whose viewing zones overlap that location coordinate, provided by AeroScout, and then DIVIS knows which camera view images to keep."
According to Wittchow, workers scan a package's bar code a total of three times as it travels through the warehouse—first, as it is unloaded from the truck; then during a "hall check" after it is moved into the warehouse; and finally, as the package is loaded onto another outgoing truck. Pfefferkorn began installing the system in November 2006, Berzins says. He estimates that within a year, the company will install the system in more warehouses throughout Germany.
To date, approximately 500,000 packages have passed through the warehouse using the AeroScout/DIVIS system. "It's been working well," says Berzins. Pfefferkorn can now locate video footage of a package after it has passed through the warehouse, by pulling up the package's bar-code number. The system then provides the location and time of its movement throughout the warehouse. Not only can Pfefferkorn use this data to review the handling of a specific package, or to confirm the time and date it passed through the warehouse, the shipping company can also find a package that needs to be rerouted before it leaves the warehouse.
Based on this location data, the DIVIS CargoVIS software identifies which video images document package-processing activity and should, therefore, be saved by Pfefferkorn, as opposed to discardable video images taken when there was no activity in the warehouse. The software also associates the bar-code numbers of the parcels scanned with the handheld device's location at any specific time, so that a future search of that parcel's bar code would immediately provide the locations and times of its movement throughout the warehouse.
"The software has zones that each camera view covers, in terms of coordinates on a map," says Volker Wittchow, DIVIS' director of sales and marketing, "[Once] a scanner's location is known, then the set of cameras is selected whose viewing zones overlap that location coordinate, provided by AeroScout, and then DIVIS knows which camera view images to keep."
To date, approximately 500,000 packages have passed through the warehouse using the AeroScout/DIVIS system. "It's been working well," says Berzins. Pfefferkorn can now locate video footage of a package after it has passed through the warehouse, by pulling up the package's bar-code number. The system then provides the location and time of its movement throughout the warehouse. Not only can Pfefferkorn use this data to review the handling of a specific package, or to confirm the time and date it passed through the warehouse, the shipping company can also find a package that needs to be rerouted before it leaves the warehouse.
