Tag: #RAINRFID

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ID-Cotton guarantees cotton quality from the agriculture

RFID solution with Impinj technology aims to eliminate failures in the marking and identification of harvested bales, which guarantees more quality and better price

30 de July de 2020

By Edson Perin

ID-Cotton developed a radiofrequency identification (RFID) solution three years ago for the traceability of cotton, from the harvest to its processing. Flávio Tarasoff, executive director of ID-Cotton, says that it is a product aimed at the annual harvest. “We started with a production unit and today we already have more than 45 using the solutions”.

John Deere harvester in action on cotton crop

Bom Futuro Agro Group, largest Brazilian cotton producer, it was a pioneer in the use of ID-Cotton. Then come the units of the Scheffer, Amaggi, Locks and Cortezia Agro Groups, all from Mato Grosso, which together represent more than 20% of the Brazilian feather production. “For the Brazilian harvest, Conab estimates that the area with cotton should reach 1.7 million hectares in 2020, while production should be relatively stable at 2.82 million tons”, he informs.

Headquartered in Cuiabá (MT), ID-Cotton centralizes in its headquarters office the production, operation, support and sales of the systems. “In addition, this year we established ID-Cotton Agribusiness LLC, in the United States, based in the city of Doral, Florida,” says Tarasoff. “The location is strategic, because it is close to the local port and airport, and will concentrate the manufacture of equipment to distribute on the international market, with the kits already ready. The proximity to Texas is also a facilitator, because there is the largest cotton acreage in the USA ”.

Tarasoff spoke exclusively with Edson Perin, editor of the IoP Journal, about this project. Find out more by watching the interview below (vídeo in Portuguese):

ID-Cotton’s solutions for cotton traceability aim to combat flaws in the marking and identification processes of harvested bales. In addition, they eliminate manual labels, handwritten spreadsheets, “spray painting on canvas and other ancient methods of identifying producer, farm, variety, field, border and contaminants.

The ID-Cotton system facilitates yard management and processing, avoiding contamination of cotton varieties, ensuring the final quality of the product and also the price of the feather cotton sign.

The Impinj partner community represents a wide range of services, geographies, solutions and domain knowledge complementary with a common theme: the search for the best RFID solutions in the category. According to Gaylene Meyer, vice president of marketing and global communication at Impinj, the company continues to build relationships with partners who can best meet the needs of agribusiness for asset tracking, livestock management, supply chain traceability and more.

“We are pleased that ID-Cotton has chosen the Impinj platform for this important agricultural industry project,” says Gaylene. “Its successful deployment is an example of how the Impinj platform allows our partners to connect items to the Internet of Things, improving visibility and increasing efficiency “.

All management before the ID-Cotton RFID system was carried out in the cotton sector through labels and manual processes, such as bar codes. The RFID implantation follows the passive EPC UHF standard, from GS1. “The main benefit is the traceability of production, operational management, storage and increased gain in the classification of the feather, when using all ID-Cotton tools”, he guarantees. The tags in use are equipped with Impinj’s Monza5 and Monza 6 chips, from the moment of harvest until the bales are processed.

“This year we are importing the data that was recorded on the canvas tags for the new RFID tags, which will be added to the cotton lint, which can be used for packaging management, screening of laboratory analyzes, cargo management, loading and unloading and classification plume in the next production chain, which are the spinning mills ”.

In practice, after the cotton harvest, the RFID tags – inserted in the cotton rolls – are read and recognized by means of a tablet with the ID-Cotton system. This information is synchronized with the company’s ERP, which in a second moment automatically reads the loads of these rolls through an RFID portal when transferring the cotton crop, dropping the cotton from the crop and transferring this stock into the processing unit.

“One of the most important factors”, explains Tarasoff, “was the technological change, because before in the harvesting and transportation of cotton, barcode labels were used, which presented several flaws, from lack of reading to registration errors, since the process was done manually ”. The solution developed by ID-Cotton offers integration with management systems (ERP). “By facilitating the marking and identification of bales in the field, the ID-Cotton system has an impact on increasing productivity and reduces the team in the field”.

Cotton rolls with RFID tags, after harvesting with John Deere machines

With the bales receiving a unique identification, transport management becomes more agile, as well as the real-time location of each package. “Our technology reduces the time in the yard and the use of the scale,” he says. “Finally, the system saves on personnel, labels and manual processes, guaranteeing real gains in the final value of cotton”. Because it is modular, ID-Cotton serves the major players in agribusiness and can also be used by farmers, cotton units, cooperatives, among others.

The RFID technology from Impinj, a manufacturer of reading equipment and radio frequency identification chips, was chosen by ID-Cotton to be added to the platform developed by the Brazilian company. “We used the equipment in the Speedway Impinj line, with changes in the controller’s firmware and an operating rule developed together with the ID-Cotton team and the Impinj engineering,” reports Tarasoff.

The Impinj platform used throughout the cotton tracking solution contains Impinj Monza chips and tags attached to cotton rolls, Impinj Indy chips with RFID functionality for handheld readers and equipment used in the field and on farms and processing centers for read the rolls. Impinj Speedway readers are used in portals and elsewhere to read the rollers.

The ID-Cotton and Impinj partnership is ready to compete in the international cotton market. Impinj products operate globally and can be used by ID-Cotton as they expand their solution offering. Australian cotton gin operator Southern Cotton had previously announced the use of Impinj products in this sector.

The RFID readings were related to the mass, density, structure of the vehicles that handle the cargo, climatic conditions, rain, serene, humidity, position of the bale in the trailer, variety of trailers with different heights and volumes, angles of attack of the scales and flaws in other manufacturers’ processes. “As it is a completely new technology, there were many challenges, most of which were focused on transportation”, attests Tarasoff.

The differences in tare weight of the truck without the load and the structure of the vehicles, as well as the variety of trailers with different heights and volumes and the position of the cotton bales, were questions analyzed to carry out the readings without fail. “Climatic conditions”, says Tarasoff, “how rain, sun, serene and relative humidity also influence and the system needed to take these variants into account”. To carry out the weighing at the stations, it was necessary to check all the angles of attack of the scales on the roads so that there were no reading errors.

According to Alexandre Carvalho, information technology manager at Bom Futuro Group, the advantages of using ID-COTTON have been many, starting with the gain in reliability in cotton traceability. “Technology has also promoted more agility in the field and in transportation with automation in weighing trucks. All of this generated greater quality of information for decision making ”, he explains. “Now, we intend to expand RFID into the production process, ensuring quality and shipment of cotton bales”.

Another gain was the integration of data collection from John Deere harvesters, within the ERP, as well as all integration of this information with the ID-Cotton System, in a cloud database. “The high productivity in the field, thanks to the agility in data collection, data reliability, more information for coordinated analysis with GPS, humidity, harvester, driver, etc., certainly met expectations”, says the executive.

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Why RFID May Separate Retail’s Winners From the Losers

Online sales are booming with some stores closed and many consumers hesitant to shop in person.Christian Petersen/Getty Images

While the coronavirus pandemic has had a huge impact on retail, in many ways it simply accelerated a number of trends already in place. Add the increasing importance of RFID technology to that list, says MKM Partners.

Analyst Roxanne Meyer writes that she has long argued that radio-frequency identification, which is often used for tracking purposes, is the key technology that separates the leaders in retail from the laggards. In the pandemic era, that thesis is all the more relevant, she argues, as the current environment has only increased the need for as much inventory accuracy as possible.

As we’ve noted before, online sales are booming, and along with that are more returns and demand for contactless shopping options, such as curbside pickup. All of these require real-time inventory accountability, especially if retailers don’t want to disappoint shoppers, who may go elsewhere if orders get delayed or canceled, or employees can’t locate items that are supposed to be in stock.

Meyer notes that some retailers have been quicker than others to use RFID to their advantage. Their names are likely familiar to anyone who has been paying attention to retail stocks lately.

“The early RFID adopters are athletic apparel companies such as Lululemon athletica (LULU) and Nike (NKE) who benefit from both higher demand for casual clothing, as well as from a more seamless supply chain, which we view as a competitive advantage that will separate them further from the pack over time,” she wrote in a research note.

This dovetails with both companies’ willingness to invest in technology. Nike, as Barron’s has noted, hasn’t only been pushing to increase its online presence and sell directly to consumers, but also investing in innovation. So has Lululemon, which many have also dubbed a long-term retail winner. It isn’t surprising that athletic and athleisure brands, who have seen orders soar during Covid and have long been willing to invest in their businesses on multiple fronts, would be beneficiaries.

Meyer believes that the pandemic has pushed retail to a tipping point, where those that can take advantage of strong RFID investments will reap the benefits. “We expect to have much more to say on this topic into the second half and beyond,” she concludes.

Stay tuned.

By Teresa Rivas June 24, 2020

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A new reality for a post-pandemic world

Mark Timms, CEO of MobiZcan, Impinj’s representative for Latin America and Brazil.

Although focused primarily on the Latin America RAIN RFID and data capture market, I also follow what is happening in RAIN RFID in the North America region. I would like to share my observations on the RAIN RFID space in the United States during this period of uncertainty brought about by the coronavirus.

Like Latin America, many projects have been delayed due to extensive social distancing and economic uncertainty. The general belief is that the American economy will spring back to pre-COVID levels, but it is likely to take two years or more. There is a debate as to whether the recovery will be more “U” or “W” shaped. A “V” shaped recovery is looking increasingly unlikely.

It is also likely that post-COVID, some business models will not look exactly the same as before. With the widespread usage of video conferencing and on-line collaboration there may not be the need to travel as much. With the closure of so many retail stores and the growth of e-commerce, the retail sector, already in transformation, has been forced to accelerate its re-invention. Some experts believe that the large department stores that anchor shopping centers will not survive, at least not in their present form. Other retailers, especially those without a strong e-commerce presence, may go out of business.

Digital transformation is now hot, and although the effects won’t be immediate, I expect RAIN RFID to play a significant role. Many retailers, leading with fashion, had justified item level tagging prior to COVID-19. Omni-channel sales require very high real-time visibility, which only item-level RAIN RFID tagging can provide.

Conveyance and sortation system: esteiras que separam produtos automaticamente em Centros de Distribuição (CD)

The big retail winners in the day of COVID are the large and efficient online retailers, most notably Amazon, and large retailers with groceries and home goods and a strong online presence, especially Walmart and Target. Amazon’s business accelerated so much that it has struggled to deliver on time. Walmart has seen both strong performance in its stores and with its e-commerce site, often using its stores as omni-channel distribution centers. Having earlier announced wide-spread item tagging beginning in the second half of 2020, the COVID crisis hasn’t impacted Walmart’s RFID roll-out plans for this year. The product mixes have changed somewhat since the Coronavirus arrived, but demand for these fortunate retailers remains strong.

Interest in logistics for RAIN RFID is robust and in some cases has accelerated. There are several very significant RAIN projects in logistics that will become visible this year or next, which will help to further fuel investment in this area. Several projects at very well-known companies will become public, causing other companies in their eco-system to consider investing in RAIN infrastructure to reap similar benefits.  Logistics applications are generally dock door transitions and shipment verification (pallet and box level) and conveyance sortation systems (box level). In addition to increasing visibility, RAIN RFID has proven to greatly reduce the manual interventions required with barcodes alone, thereby reducing errors and associated costs.

Healthcare, a potentially huge but slow-moving market for RAIN RFID, is showing interest in tagging of PPE products, which could help accelerate adoption of RFID with consumables in general.

There is much that we don’t know and is difficult to predict. Clearly there will be winners and losers. However it’s becoming clear that at least in some segments, the COVID crisis may actually accelerate RAIN RFID adoption, most notably in e-commerce, omni-channel and logistics.