Monroe Americana Tracks Reusable Containers

Because the driver is often in a hurry to attend to the next load, he often leaves with one question still unanswered: Is a container missing, or did it merely lose its RFID tag? This question is resolved in the next step. With the reception process complete, the boxes are piled onto a conveyor belt that moves them to two destacker machines, which take the containers from the pile one by one, and send them on another belt to be used in a new order. Each destacker has its own Alien ALR-9900+ reader, and if finds a non-tagged box , the conveyor stops and ejects that box for relabeling.

In the event that the destacker fails to find any untagged containers despite some ID numbers being missing, the BDEV software then sends that data to Monroe Americana's management system, to refund the end user only for the number of pharmaboxes returned.

The new system has increased efficiency by reducing the need to manually count boxes, Zambrano says, while also decreasing the amount of missing containers. However, he notes, it is too early to quantify the benefits.

The next phase of the project will be used during rush hour (the two times each day in which containers loaded with product are prepared for shipment) at the dock staging of Monroe Americana's plant, when staff members need to quickly differentiate one pile of containers from another prior to loading them onto trucks. If multiple containers are piled near the dock door, an individual can walk among them and use handhelds to read their tag IDs, in order to determine which containers are located where. Another purpose of the handheld reader is to aid truck drivers as they retrieve empty containers at a pharmacy. In this case, drivers could read the tag ID numbers while loading the empty containers onto their trucks, thereby creating a record of what was picked up before they leave the customer's location. In either use case, workers will utilize two CS101 handheld readers from Convergence Systems Limited (CSL), running BDEV software to read the pharmaboxes' tags. Data from the handheld readers can either be sent to the back-end software via a Wi-Fi connection, or be uploaded at a docking station on a PC.

"After consulting with other companies in the (RFID) industry and analyzing their products," Zambrano states, "we decided that BDEV's experience in RFID made this the best solution." Since the system has been in place for two months, he adds, "We are convinced that RFID works perfectly." Based on the reduction in missing containers and the decrease in labor hours spent counting the boxes, he estimates that Monroe Americana will recoup its investment within 18 months.