Euro Pool System automates identification and counting of RTIs with RFID

Euro Pool System (EPS) – market leader in reusable standard packagings in the European fresh chain – offers pooling services for all RTIs (Returnable Transport Items) for the fruit and vegetable auctions in Belgium and other countries in the EU. Given the fact that their thin folding crates are not sorted by size on the pallets, the counting and inventory of the various types was a difficult task for EPS. 

EPS looked for a solution to automate these logistic processes and also needed a standard software platform to roll out in several European depots. Aucxis implemented a total package with hardware, middleware and standard software for all depots.

Logistic flow

The dirty crates arrive from the auctions at the depot, where an automatic scanning tunnel with vision recognition reads how many and which type of crates the pallets contain. Next, an RFID label containing all the necessary information about the crates is automatically applied to the pallets. EPS needs 500.000 pieces of these RFID pallet labels each year.

Next, the pallets with dirty crates are transported to the storage halls, where two mobile RFID scanners  – Scan Buddies  – drive around to keep an accurate record of the stock. The Scan Buddies are driven by mobile UHF technology and have to visit a minimum number of predefined detection points per driving route before the inventory is printed.

At the moment when an auction places a call-off order, the number of required pallets of dirty crates are driven to the washing station. After washing, the RFID label of the pallet is scanned again by the RFID reader with antennas, allowing EPS to know how many and which types of crates  are ready for delivery. This stock is also automatically reduced and communicated to the ERP system. 

In addition to the distribution of washed crates to the auctions, the logistical and electronic movements of both dirty and washed crates between the European depots are recorded as well. 

Result

• Sustainable reverse logistics thanks to the reduced number of transports. Per transport, a lot more dirty folding crates arrive than before. Although the pallets in the storage halls each contain folding crates with different sizes, the stock is correctly identified and measured thanks to the Scan Buddies.
   
• Error-free inventory and localisation thanks to the various scanning moments, without any manual intervention by the logistics staff.
   
• Time-savings because the pickers find the desired crates faster in stock.

” Thanks to Aucxis’ RFID system, we always know the stock and area location of the various folding crates, even though they are not sorted by type”, says Thierry Verschooten, Logistics Depot Coordinator at Euro Pool System. “The flow of the pallets is monitored from inbound to outbound to the auctions or to other depots.”