North Sea Company Uses RFID to Catch Fish Crates

Pack and Sea has begun manufacturing new crates to replace old containers that were less uniform and, thus, less stackable with those from other companies that lease similar crates. With the arrival of each new crate, the company attaches an RFID tag by welding its plastic housing onto that container, and then retires the old, un-tagged crate. The firm is currently in the process of tagging several hundred thousand crates at approximately 10 facilities throughout Denmark. It has also installed fixed RFID readers in portals in storage yards and in washing units, and has deployed handheld interrogators to its employees.

With the new system, when a fisherman leases a specific number of crates, Pack and Sea's workers retrieve the containers from the storage area and read the unique ID number encoded to each crate's tag, either with a handheld reader or the fixed interrogator, while driving with a truckload of crates through a portal at the storage yard. The fisherman's account information is entered into Pack and Sea's back-end system and linked with those RFID numbers, and he is then billed accordingly. When the crates are brought back from sea containing fish, the ID numbers encoded to the containers' tags are read by auction or sorting staff members using handheld readers. After each read is accomplished, that crate's status is automatically updated in Pack and Sea's software, thus recording who is currently in possession. If the container's contents are then sold, the tags are read once more, indicating the fish-buying company now responsible for the crates.

When the fish in the crates are processed and the containers are emptied, they are shipped back to Pack and Sea, where a fixed reader at the washer captures the tags' ID numbers once more, and then updates the crates' status as "returned."

Later in 2010, Jensen says, the crate-leasing company intends to launch a pilot program that would provide RFID readers that fishermen could take with them onboard a ship. "We will start pilots with handheld and stationary readers [connected to] weighing devices," he states. Once caught, the fish would be sorted and placed in crates, and the containers would be weighed. At the same time, the interrogator would capture each crate's ID number and link that container with the specific catch and its weight, and the data could then be sent via a satellite connection to the particular auction house to which the fish is to be delivered, thereby alerting it as to what it can expect to receive its shipment.

The process could also be managed with a handheld interrogator, by reading the ID tag as the loaded crate is being weighed, and by using a keypad to manually input such information as the type of fish, the location of the catch and its weight. When the ship delivers the crate, the tag would be read, and the auction house could then link that container with specific data regarding what is contained within (the type of fish and weight, as well as the date, time and location of the catch). Based on the success of those handheld and fixed reader pilots on boats, Pack and Sea hopes to make the system permanently available to fishermen in 2011 or 2012.