Mar 12, 2013Scarmor, a logistics subsidiary of the French hypermarket chain E.Leclerc, has installed a network of RFID readers that works without middleware at 35 dock doors within two warehouses. The company continues to roll out the technology that will be used to track pallets being moved from distribution centers to roughly 58 E.Leclerc retail sites throughout the French province of Brittany.
Scarmor, which supplies goods to a cooperative consisting of independently owned E.Leclerc stores, employed a solution developed by IRIS-RFID, which IRIS calls "holonic" RFID. The holonic concept is similar to the idea behind machine-to-machine communication, in which machines are autonomous and contain all information related to the tasks they need to perform, but are also part of a network of other readers. Compared with standard RFID interrogators, IRIS explains, holonic readers perform much faster, are more stable and reliable (since they don't work on a computer network), and include their own communications abilities.
Once Scarmor fully rolls out the holonic RFID system, the company plans to use it to track approximately 300,000 to 400,000 tagged pallets annually. Tagged pallets will be read at a total of 117 read points, including those at DCs, in truck trailers and at goods-receiving points at retail sites.
"Our RFID readers are not only RFID readers," says Pierre Dupré, IRIS-RFID's president. "They're holonic readers adapted for the logistics environment that can be used to read RFID tags." Dupré and several project partners demonstrated the solution last Friday, at a launch event held at a Scarmor warehouse near Brest, France.
The presenters hailed the solution as one that can bring improved traceability and efficiency to the supply chain across Europe, since it will be affordable for small and midsize companies, due to its decentralized nature—that is, the absence of middleware and related IT infrastructure. The readers themselves are more expensive than standard versions, but require no additional middleware, computer network and network maintenance, according to Dupré. This, he says, makes the system about half as expensive as other dock-door solutions.
By June 2013, IRIS expects to have installed readers at 35 Scarmor DCs' dock doors, in 20 truck trailers and at 45 E.Leclerc retail sites, and the company hopes to sell the solution to other logistics subsidiaries of the E.Leclerc group as well. The E.Leclerc group moves roughly 15 million pallets across France per year, Scarmor reports.
At present, Scarmor sends an electronic data interchange (EDI) file when a pallet is stretch-wrapped and sent from a DC to an E.Leclerc retail point. However, the cooperative does not know for sure if the pallet has actually arrived at the intended store, or if it is the correct pallet.
With the new system, an RFID tag, placed inside an adhesive label and affixed to a pallet's outer layer of plastic stretch wrap, is interrogated while passing under the holonic reader installed on the ceiling at the dock door. When a dock-door reader captures a tag's data, it uploads that information to a bank of cloud-based servers, and then wirelessly communicates directly with the reader installed within the truck trailer. Interrogators deployed at the same site create a proprietary meshed network for diagnostics and task redistribution.
Scarmor currently purchases the adhesive RFID labels that it uses from 3M. The labels include an RFID inlay made with NXP Semiconductors' G2XM RFID chip, which complies with the EPC Gen 2 standard. The company prints handling information and encodes the RFID tags on Zebra Technologies printers. It uses a Zebra RZ400 printer within the warehouse, and a Zebra RP4T model for mobile encoding. If a pallet is removed from a rack for shipping, workers may need to generate an RFID label and encode it on the spot, utilizing the RP4T printer in conjunction with a handheld or forklift-mounted mobile computer.
The reader mounted inside the trailer (on the ceiling, near the trailer's door) is used to confirm that the pallet was placed on the correct vehicle. That reader, which has a battery life of approximately three days, contains GPS, GPRS and Wi-Fi modules, so that it can determine its whereabouts and wirelessly communicate its location, along with the RFID data that it captures. Once the goods arrive at the intended retail point, they are unloaded through a dock door, at which time another IRIS holonic reader interrogates its RFID tag, sending related information to the remote servers.
The information collected via RFID provides Scarmor with a real-time overview of pallets' locations, the ability to track and trace individual pallets, and the certainty that particular pallets have arrived at the intended retail sites, so that stores cannot dispute a delivery's receipt.
Holonic RFID Readers
Holonic readers contain a software architecture that makes the devices autonomous, Dupré says, and enables them to communicate directly with each other. According to Dupré, each IRIS-RFID reader contains two computers and an RFID engine: the Mercury5e model, from Trimble's ThingMagic division.
To communicate, the readers contain a double Wi-Fi interface, an Ethernet port, and GPRS and GSM modules. These multiple types of communication back each other up, the company explains. Two Wi-Fi interfaces are provided so that one can be used to create a meshed network within the warehouse, while the other can communicate with the trailer. What's more, Dupré notes, having two interfaces makes communication more secure, particularly that between the trailers and the dock doors.
The computers inside the reader are programmed with information regarding its location, its assigned tasks, and which tags it is supposed to read, among other things. Likewise, the tag's 512 bits of memory are programmed with information about the pallet's contents and destination, as well as through which dock door it should pass.
"Since the tag knows this information, that's why our readers can interrogate so quickly," Dupré explains.
The reader at the dock door interrogates the pallet's destination off the tag, and then compares that information with its own data, as well as with information on the trailer-based reader, regarding the pallet's destination.
"Our holonic RFID readers can read the tag, process the information, make a decision about the accuracy of the physical movement of the goods, and advise the forklift operator of that decision within 125 milliseconds," Dupré claims. "In standard RFID portal solutions, the reader must first get a response from a central IT system. It can take several seconds, and sometimes it doesn't work at all."
Michel-Édouard Leclerc, the head of E.Leclerc and the son of the chain's founder, attended the launch event, and says he believes the RFID solution will play an important part in the company's growth. "Stock management in real time is an improvement for our company," Leclerc states.
Leclerc is currently working to build E.Leclerc into a multi-channel retailer providing products to consumers in multiple ways. Shoppers can already purchase goods at brick-and-mortar stores, or buy them online for pick-up at so-called "Drive" stores, which are drive-through pickup points. Home delivery of online orders is presently in the planning phases.
Philippe Cousyn, Scarmor's president, describes his firm as a long-time logistics leader, and a company known for its logistics innovations. "This is the first step toward real-time track and trace," Cousyn states. "I want to see this technology extended throughout the supply chain, all the way to the farmer. This solution will optimize transportation for small businesses, and will be the success story of the mobile channel."
Celine Bouder, Scarmor's director of service providers, says her company is rolling out RFID to keep its storeowners competitive.
"Our objective is to make sure that our different stores can stay competitive and have top-quality logistics and prices," Bouder says, adding that beginning in 2014, E.Leclerc plans to use RFID to track select goods at the item level. At that point, producers of DVDs, books and computer games, among other cultural products, plan to tag those items centrally in France. "RFID will help us manage all the returns of cultural items, particularly in our online channel," she states.
Scarmor invested in developing the solution with IRIS-RFID, but does not intend for the holonic readers to be employed strictly in a closed-loop application. In fact, Bouder says, Scarmor welcomes the application's adoption by companies outside the E.Leclerc group.
The readers mounted at the dock door cost roughly €5,000 ($6,500) apiece, including installation. Those in the truck trailers cost about €6,000 ($7,800) each, and include a power pack, a movement detector and more robust hardware, since they are meant to remain installed within a trailer for seven years.
According to IRIS, Scarmor's dock-door RFID equipment deployment is the largest in France, and was Europe's biggest deployment last year.
At the event on Friday, attendees also announced the founding of Breizh RFID Valley (BRV), an association of companies working together to improve transportation within the supply chain, using RFID and other technologies. BRV's founding members pledged to work together to automate the supply chain from field to store, starting in Brittany and then continuing throughout Europe.
Founding members include IRIS-RFID, Scarmor and Logilec, a logistics spinoff of E.Leclerc group. Other members are IER, a French developer and integrator of RFID solutions, which was represented at the event by Maryline Marilly, an area sales manager; Transport Lahaye, a logistics services provider represented by Patrick Lahaye, the CEO of the firm's parent company, Groupe Montmur; and Vehco, a vehicle communications company that has developed a temperature-measurement solution for use inside trucks. Vehco was represented by Serge Lardy, the firm's director for southern Europe.
