Creating a robust supply chain

IN THE Far East, the latest in China’s food scandals is the product recall by the US-based OSI Group – the parent company of China’s Shanghai Husi Food. All products manufactured by the Shanghai unit have been recalled as it had allegedly sold expired chicken and beef. Whilst there have not been reports of consumers falling ill, certain customers have stopped ordering from the supplier. Amongst them is Yum! Brands, the owner of the KFC and Pizza Hut chains. The company has announced that it would cease its business with OSI in China, the US and Australia.

Moving west, regulatory oversight is becoming increasingly demanding. In America, the US Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is proposing requirements for manufacturers of raw ground beef products to keep more records. This includes retailers that grind their own meat and is meant to facilitate the tracking of products to their sources, according to a report by Journal Star in July. 

Call to accountability 

Retailers would need to record the source, supplier and names of all materials used, as stated by Supermarket News in the same month. Ground beef that is sold by retailers is often produced by combining cuts from multiple sources. This can create difficulties when there is a need to identify the source of an illness outbreak. Improved track-and-trace capabilities are therefore aimed at preventing the spread of foodborne illnesses – by allowing FSIS to recall affected products more quickly. 

A system that includes a Dataman 500 is capable of reading any label at any orientation within its 12x12-inch field of view. Only missing or severely damaged codes escape the reader.

Meat producers may pack their products into all kinds of packaging that come in various forms and sizes. To facilitate traceability, a barcode is affixed to each one and contains information pertaining to the respective product. In this manner, the manufacturer can keep track of each item that is moved into refrigerated warehousing for storage and even when it is distributed through the supply chain. 

There are challenges however, when it comes to reading the codes. First, the packages have different shapes and sizes. Second, the labels containing the codes could be placed in different locations on the box. Besides, it is not uncommon for the boxes to become skewed whilst they travel down the production line. All of these factors make it difficult to ensure 100% success when reading the codes. Sometimes scanners are not able to read a label even when it appears to be letter-perfect. 

A particular facility that previously adopted 1-D barcodes faced such problems. After considering a number of different options, it decided to try out the DataMan 500 code readers. Successful read rates immediately improved to 98%. After taking the advice of the system’s engineers, the manufacturer also tested out the use of 2-D Data Matrix codes. With some further tuning of the system, the readers are now able to achieve a 99.99% read rate success. The only packages that cannot be read are those with missing codes or which are severely damaged. 

The readers acquire an image of the entire box and locate the code regardless of the latter’s position and orientation. The code can be printed directly on the box, which allows time to be saved by negating the requirement to manually apply a label to each container. Now that the code can be positioned anywhere on the box, it is possible for the manufacturer to accede customers’ requests to place the code at a specific location. The automated code reader system can automatically record failed images and store them on a server. In this manner, technicians are able to study the images to determine the causes of failed reads. 

Eliminating the fakes

Whilst facilitating traceability and recalls, 1-D and 2-D codes help to keep counterfeit products from entering the supply chain. If the codes are read at each stage of the supply chain every time the product changes hands, the manufacturer can keep track of where and when each transaction took place. Legitimate products should then leave a trail that can be traced back to the point of origin. It means that the location of a consignment of products can be determined at any point in the distribution network. This makes it tougher for counterfeiters to introduce their sub-standard products into the chain. 

Given the importance of enforcing supply chain security, manufacturers of products ranging from bottled beverages to health food, are taking a serious view towards traceability. Many are now adopting 1-D and 2-D codes to help protect consumer health and their own reputations. Besides helping to combat fakes in the chain, barcodes also aid the logistics process for distribution.

Reduced manpower

A producer of snack food with multiple brands ran into difficulties when it used a laser-based barcode scanner to direct boxes to different designated shipping areas. Due to the height of the boxes, it was necessary to position the scanner at a certain angle; and situate it at a considerable distance from the labels. This resulted in read rates that ranged between only 20 and 30%. Such results were clearly unacceptable and the manufacturer had to deploy a full-time employee on each of its three shifts. The operator’s job was to divert the boxes when barcodes could not be read by the laser scanner.  Besides this, the company also had to deal with the consequences of incorrectly filled orders, such as a returned product that could not be resold.

Finding an answer 

The problem was eventually resolved by installing a DataMan 500 image-based reader with a 50mm lens, and mounting it exactly where the laser-based scanner had been. It was then connected to a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC). An external blue light was also installed at a low angle to the box to help illuminate the 12x12 inch area of inspection. The entire process only required about six hours of set-up time. Although the snack food manufacturer currently only needs it for 1-D codes, the reader can also capture 2-D matrix codes. This helps to future-proof the system and makes it easy to transit to 2-D codes – should the need ever arise. 

The system now uses the 1DMax+ algorithm, which incorporates Hotbars technology to manage challenging ID code-reading applications on high-speed lines. It is capable of reading any label at any orientation within its 12x12-inch field of view and read rates are at 100%.  The reader captures an image and utilises a series of algorithms to process it to facilitate reading. An algorithm searches the entire image for the code and identifies the latter’s position and orientation. Other algorithms handle degradations in code quality that arise due to variations in material types and surfaces.

The company no longer needs to hire an employee on each shift to manually divert ‘no-read’ boxes. Effectively, this translates into eliminating the cost of having three full-time employees. As the problem of shipping products to the wrong locations has also been resolved as well, losses incurred by returned products are also not an issue. The total amount of savings achieved as a result of installing the image-based code reader system is around $250,000 each year. 

*Didier Lacroix is senior VP, International Sales & Services, Cognex Inc