Malaysian Forestry Department Studies RFID

A total of 242 trees were inventoried, 62 of which were felled during the trial, thus resulting in 188 logs being tagged and 81 making it through every control point along the chain of custody. During the project, control points were set up at each location where the wood changed custody, including the points where the original trees were inventoried, harvested and cut into logs, and when the wood arrived at a log yard, left that yard and passed a roadside state forestry station. In a larger project, an export inspection station would be included as a control point.

Helveta's CI World platform was used as a central database to host the data, and reports based on the information gathered were then made available online to stakeholders, thus providing visibility on the flow of wood and wood products moving through the supply chain. Data stored on the Psion Teklogix units was uploaded via a USB connection to an online laptop at the head office, located 30 minutes from the concession. Information could have also have been transmitted through a wireless Wi-Fi interface, or via the mobile network over a GPRS connection.

Reports provided for the project included official forms, such as a pre-harvest inventory and corporate documents. CI World provided checks, analysis and reconciliation of all information captured, and also issued alerts whenever inconsistencies were identified.

According to Dore, there are a number of benefits to using RFID compared with bar codes. These include read-write capabilities that enable a tag to contain the history of the goods being tagged, the ability to enable gantry systems (at high-throughput points, such as processing plants) to identify logs at high speed, and the ability to automatically issue RFID-based documents, such as inventory reports, log-yard reports and removal passes, all of which included the RFID ID number for validation and cross-referencing.

The system, Dore states, can support such activities as the inventory and management of forest resources, as well as research programs like growth plots and statistical national inventory. In addition, it can also manage and control forest titles and other regulatory documents; manage information on the production, transport and exportation of wood products; generate alerts upon detecting incompatibilities; automate the calculation and collection of forest taxes, in order to optimize forest revenues; provide increased transparency to accounts; and identify illegal activities.

"The configuration of the system to meet the requirement took five weeks," Dore says. "The inventory was taken over two days, and the field piloting of the chain of custody was over 10 to 12 days. A statewide project is expected next year as a follow-on, larger-scale deployment before moving on to national deployment of a forest information-management system. Whether the system will use only RFID, only bar codes or a combination remains to be assessed."

The FDPM declined to be interviewed by RFID Journal because the trial is part of a competitive process, and a final recommendation is not due until later next year.