DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RFID-BASED TRACING AND TRACKING SYSTEM IMPROVING EFFICIENCY AND WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT SUPPLY CHAIN IN THE FOOD INDUSTRY
Abstract
Traceability protocol has a major role in the food supply chain industry. This tracking system has become a key place below the necessary list. EPC global and RFID standards are embracing technologies that gather new scopes to improve the system performance related to traceability. This study suggests the design, analysis, and development of EPC global and RFID techniques. The additional elements, involving the management system as well as transactions of electronic encourage the protocol of the traditional system. The suggested system was increased and implemented in the supply chain management of rice. The collaboration among electronic transactions and network standards protocol can enhance the roles in the operations of RFID. On the other hand, this study has presented the constraints between this technology and barcode scanners. In support of this, the entire study forecasted presenting the mitigation process of tracing and tracking related to supply chain management.
Keywords: Traceability system, EPC global, RFID, Food supply chain
Table of Contents
Introduction
Supply chain management is involved in materials flow, finances and information. Companies are insistent on the tracing and tracking of products and elements in their supply chains as it can develop the supply chain’s efficiency and visibility. Trace and tracking in the supply chain need item detection. Moreover, it needs to capture the exact time sphere of moving any items through the process of supply chain management. “Radio frequency identification” is a technology that enables object detection through radio waves. It totally happens automatically. RFID technology can be helpful in detecting the inventory simultaneously and easily. This facility has activated RFID technology to be launched into several application fields [1]. This important technology is used for industrial purposes and it has a significant and key role in improving the trace and tracking system widely. This study intends to show the design and development of RFID-based tracking also tracing systems for supply chain management in the food industry.
The traceability system in the supply chain of the food industry has become a necessary part. In addition, the definition about the traceability of food was first served in 1994 by ISO 8402:1994. Apart from that, the given definition of the traceability food system is magnified by the “Codex ALimentaruious Commission and the European Union”. Food traceability is a trace capability to track the food flow, and food manufacturing ingredients by all steps of distribution and production. It has been seen that information technology has a major role to improve tracking and traceability protocols [2]. RFID systems have adopted a huge amount of accuracy and tracking speed and RFID tracking power is more than an ambiguous barcode scanner. Moreover, in a nutshell, a piece of important information is involved here. In addition, the RFID system is able to track the data automatically and this supports the industry to inspect the real-time visibility of products. Furthermore, this study sheds light on displaying the all stages of this tracking system by providing relevant data. In addition, this paper forecasts some limitations during the time of collecting the data related to this context.
Problem statement
Some problems may occur related to tracking and visibility during the time of packaging the items. Industries can face different types such as inventory details loss of issues regarding communication about moving items, In order to fix this problem; companies need to adopt innovative technology. Companies can assess tracing-related issues through RFID technology respectively. Along with industries that can able efficiently be conscious about moving inventory from one place to another place. Therefore, these problems occur most in the area of supply chain management, and to meet the problem solution of inventory tracking problems, this study demonstrates this entire paper by supporting the RFID technology.
Methods and materials
In this paper, this study mainly demonstrates the RFID implementation in supply chain management of the food industry this research has selected the rice industry and it is also accounted under the list of the food industry.
A supply chain of rice
Thailand is a key rice exporter all over the world, and there are different aspects of rice exported from this zone. In addition, these are jasmine white rice, and brown rice, glutinous rice. The rice supply chain management begins with rice cultivation on the farm with the farmer, after the method of cultivation, the growth of grains, is called paddy. The manufacturer plants the paddy, along with covers by planted rice [3]. Lastly of these steps, rice bags are shipped to the retailer or distributor. According to the real supply chain, the system of RFID may be installed in the manufacturer, retailer or distributor.
Figure 1: A simple rice supply chain by RFID adoption
According to figure 1, it has been presented that radio frequency identification technology is used in the rice supply chain. Moreover, in this study, this paper presented all steps in several ways such as rice supplier, cooperator of rice, and distributor. Moreover, in form of the figure, it has been seen that the supply chain management is divided here into three parts.
The architecture of the traceability system
The suggested architecture protocol is controlled by three major specimens and that has been presented in figure 2.
Figure 2: A suggested framework of traceability
Centralized information services
The centralized information services, involving ONS, GEPIR and EPCDS are controlled through a trusted group. ONS contains the connection of the URL to link to the manufacturer’s services. EPCDS contains the links to all company that covers the queried item’s evidence. EPCDS and ONS reveal the full ways the item is supplied by the supply chain. GEIPIR serves the information about the group along with item information.
Distributed data services
The contributed information services are controlled in each company to handle the primary traceability information. There are three service groups, and these are local EPC global network elements, the application software of the enterprise, and the last one is connectors. The network components of EPC global involving ALE and TDS are implemented to detect the EPC information in the company. ALE connector and EPCDS connector were involved to associate the EPC elements with other applications [4]. GEPIR connecter is utilized to interrogate the data that comes from GEPIR. EAS controls the natural business method in the company, and in this paper, various systems of management are major for the manufacturer to contain the resources and raw elements about the product. The transaction control system activates communication among business partners which is key aspects to increasing the traceability of data completeness. The operations of RFID that are associated with the production of rice and items movement are rice bag packaging. EAS can control the system of RFID through an ALE connector and this can collect the data in EPCIS by EPCIS associate.
Electronic transaction
The communication of information in supply chain trading is very necessary, and the EPCIS event contains the connection to the connected e-transaction message that can be implemented to manage the authentication of RFID operation.
Figure 3: link management within rice production through various management protocols.
As per figure 3, it has been seen that the connection between rice production and management section. Moreover, it is also seen here lots of input or output sections are included during the whole process.
Unified EPCIS interface
The process of RFID sequences is stored in EPCIS along with retrieved also. In addition, it is implemented by B2B protocols. The B2B protocol is major as the trace and track in the supply chain are dependent upon RFID by EPCIS. UEI is one of the major elements within the solution that advantages the connection between EPC middleware. Aside from this, the B2Bi gateway and EPCIS and UEI contain the accessing apps and capturing apps [5]. Moreover, the capture application is to cover events of EPC from middleware of RFID stored into EPCIS as EPCIS consequences. The gaining app access system of enterprise to interrogate events of EPCIS via two means served, as an example, subscription and query.
Figure 4: UEI
According to figure 4, it has been seen that the steps are presented in a deep step by step.
Experiment and implementation
There are various gadgets have been proposed to use the infrastructure of RFID and network of EPC global standards depending on the system of traceability. Moreover, the usage tools are mentioned below giving appropriate descriptions.
Rifidi was proposed to simulate the devices of RFID and tags of EPC. Apart from that, Rifidi enables users to assume the virtual RFID readers and makes the RFID tags numbers. This gadget supports all who are showing interest in RFID to inspect the technology without any query. In this operation, “ALIEN 9900 RFID” and “96-bit inlay RFID tags” are implemented here [6]. A logic alloy is software of ALE standard. It helps various RFID readers which belong to the commercial category to work with ALE. The logical Alloy’s function can be controlled through the web services interfaces.
Fosstrack is a source EPCIS controlling software developed in support of Auto-ID labs. This serves as a full EPCIS event manager. Moreover, the applications of enterprise can subscribe to the events of EPCIS through HTTP posts. Simple DNS plus was implemented to control the ONS server. Simple DNS plus enables users to handle NAPTR to play a role in the ONS server and this ONS server is compliant.
Figure 5: EPCDS services list
EPCDS’s implementation
EPCDS has not officially been released; it was demonstrated in this paper. In addition, previous papers have suggested the implementation and design of services of EPCDS and data schema of EPCDS. A centralized prototype of EPCDS was manufactured by helping of PHP along with executing on a server of apache by the “MySQL RDBMS” database.
Traceability system’s implementation
The connectors and protocol of traceability were used through PHP, and the protocol executes in the server of apache by “The MySQL RDBMS” server. The web services aligned interfaces in pull and push modes are activated through “NuSOAP API”.
The traceability query of data
Firstly, the individual inputs the query criteria in the system. Furthermore, the centralized information gathering creates the query of the EPCDS document and dispatches it in EPCDS. In order to authorize the EPC by its company and the query of NAPTAR is dispatched to the ONS. In addition, it also interrogates the EPCIS URL’s company interface and commissions the EPC.
Figure 6: the mechanism of data capture in traceability operation
According to figure 6, it has been shown that the “e-transaction management system” has the main role in the whole process [7]. On the other hand, enterprise application software also played an important role in the operation. It has been seen that the software of an enterprise has various kinds such as this software has taken inputs and outputs both data.
Figure 7: the query mechanism of traceability
According to figure 7, it has been seen that this figure has presented the role of traceability data integrator. Moreover, ONS, GEPIR, EPIC query interfaces are enlisted under the list of major elements. On the other hand, centralized data discovery and distributed data discovery have dual roles in providing the output and input from traceability data integrator.
Results
Simulation outcomes
This study imitated the EPC global and the RFID networks standards depend on the system of traceability within the supply chain of rice. The RFID tags are made through the virtual system of RFID during the method of simulation. In addition, the data of traceability are normally created and stored.
External traceability
The outcome about the traceability of external needs from EPCDS and ONS is presented in figure 8.
Figure 8: specimens of the external traceability outcomes for rice bag
EPCDS returns an EPCIS list of interrogate interfaces that are grabbing the required history of EPC.
Completeness and data accuracy
The management system is controlled in the middle of manufacturer detection of the raw material sources of the products. The RA and DA documents can be implemented to detect the company’s all procedures regarding supply chain management such as shipping and packaging. The user element detection through RFID can normally check and count product consistency[8]. Moreover, the collaboration among EPC global network and e-transaction standards develop RFID information management. The information filtration’s enhancement advantage can cut redundant and duplicate data. In addition, it makes the entire operation more accurate and faster.
Figure 9: the specimen of the traceability information capture messages
According to figure 9, it has been seen that these codes are executed by applying the XML code. Moreover, in form of the figure of dispatch advice code, it has been seen that some elements such as delivery, logistics and shipment are involved [7]. Therefore, it has been proved that these are mainly enlisted under the process of supply chain management. In addition, as a result of it, the RFID traceability system is one of the major inventories that help supply chain management to improve their tracking process accurately.
Carrier design
I have faced some problems such as a lack of data, and time constraints during the collection of data about this innovative technology. Moreover, I have suffered problems regarding insufficient data. In form of this issue, I could not access accurate information related to this important topic. On the other hand, previous data have failed to contain the exact information related to tracing and tracking systems. In constraint, time constraints are one of the major limitations of this project. I have faced a critical time due to insufficient time. On the other hand, I have received huge collaborations from my respected supervisors. They helped me to reach the solution area of problems. Thus, I want to provide the appropriate acknowledgement to all my supporters. In addition, I have collected a wide amount of data related to this topic and that supports me to achieve my project goal.
Conclusion
Traceability protocol is becoming more important for maintaining the product tracing system accurately. Currently, EPIC global and RFID work standards are received as an embracing solution and new innovation. These technologies have suited growing concentrations of researchers and companies. The traditional architecture can be improved by inputting new facilities to cover the traceability and completeness of the information. Apart from this, this paper has presented the role of RFID technology facilities with implementation in rice supply chain management. Moreover, this technology is able to work faster than a barcode scanner. On the other hand, this entire study has forecasted on demonstrating all internal programs through the help of XML code. This technology framework can be enhanced for wide-scale supply networks. In addition, this can be used in different kinds of the supply chain such as food, raw materials so on. Furthermore, according to the overall study, it can be concluded that tracking and tracing systems of inventory can be developed by implementing RFID technology.
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