Complete Traceability
Groupe Jacquet -- part of the Limagrain Agricultural Cooperative, a group of agricultural companies in more than 100 countries -- is a bakery chain with distribution centers and bakeries throughout France and Belgium, shipping more than 70,000 boxes of bread to hundreds of customers a day. Most deliveries, comprised of bread boxes stacked on pallets, are same-day shipments that require fast throughput and a high degree of automation. In July of 2005, Groupe Jacquet launched an initiative to achieve a level of traceability that would fully comply with the European General Food Law, ensure complete shipping accuracy and keep inventory data in all of the group's warehouses constantly up to date. This initiative was called System for Acquisition of Logistic Data, also known as SALD.
NO SIMPLE CHALLENGE
According to Pedro Ferrandiz, Groupe Jacquet logistics manager, "Groupe Jacquet required a fast, automated data capture system -- one that would be able to read all of the items on each pallet with 100 percent accuracy, even when boxes had shifted."
According to Pedro Ferrandiz, Groupe Jacquet logistics manager, "Groupe Jacquet required a fast, automated data capture system -- one that would be able to read all of the items on each pallet with 100 percent accuracy, even when boxes had shifted."
This was no simple challenge -- while some pallets are homogeneous, with a fixed number of products of the same type, most tend to be heterogeneous, comprising a fairly large variety of different products. Ferrandiz and his team set out to achieve an ambitious goal -- to find a solution backed by a comprehensive software system that could:
- Manage data collection from handheld scanners and multiple-asset readers
- Associate captured data with predefined business logic
- Assign pallets to deliveries, compare scanned items with specific customer orders
- Generate SSCC pallet labels and integrate all of this data with ERP systems
Alternative solutions, such as RFID, were considered, but per-tag costs proved prohibitive. Also, the company found that handheld scanning of individual boxes was not practical and that available RFID solutions did not meet their stringent accuracy requirements.
"After taking all of the group's requirements into account -- including accuracy, speed, price and flexibility -- and exploring the products available on the market, we quickly realized ImageID's Visidot was the only solution that could offer us the truly proven traceability we were looking for, as well as low total cost of ownership and relatively fast return on investment," says Ferrandiz. ImageID, the provider of the Visidot solution, develops and markets advanced multiple-asset Automatic Identification and Data Capture (AIDC) solutions.
TRACK AND TRACE
Deployment commenced with the tagging of bakeries' bread boxes with industry- standard Data Matrix (2D) labels and installation of Visidot reader gates and operator stands throughout Groupe Jacquet's distribution centers. These were combined with handheld scanners and adapted to enable close, XML-based integration with the Group Jacquet's ERP systems.
Deployment commenced with the tagging of bakeries' bread boxes with industry- standard Data Matrix (2D) labels and installation of Visidot reader gates and operator stands throughout Groupe Jacquet's distribution centers. These were combined with handheld scanners and adapted to enable close, XML-based integration with the Group Jacquet's ERP systems.
Visidot reader gates deployed at Jacquet's depots, which are capable of capturing very large quantities of tagged containers in a single scan, capture tens of thousands of heterogeneous outbound bread boxladen pallets a day. Locally deployed Visidot Supply Chain Traceability (SCT) servers running Visidot SCT Director software enable depot operators to perform ad-hoc shipping verification and apply corrective measures as required. Once orders and products to be shipped are properly matched and verified, bread pallets are shrink-wrapped and affixed with automatically printed SSCC labels. These are later scanned by handheld scanners just before pallets are loaded onto outgoing trucks.
Local Visidot SCT servers communicate tag information captured from all incoming and outgoing bread box pallets to the bakery chain's headquarters Visidot SCT servers. The Visidot SCT Central software application running on these servers then generates a comprehensive view of Groupe Jacquet's entire supply chain, and enables implementation of a wide range of applications, including image bankbased proof of shipping and proof of product condition archiving. Real-time, user privilege-dependent access to traceability records is provided through any Web-connected station on the group's corporate network.
PROMISE DELIVERED
Since installing the Visidot System throughout its production facilities, Groupe Jacquet has succeeded in maintaining a 100 percent accuracy rate in all customer deliveries. Visidot not only helps the bakery to avoid shipping errors in the first place, but also offers the guidance required to perform corrective actions should something go wrong. "Visidot has lived up to all of our expectations," says Ferrandiz. "At the end of the day, Visidot enables us to maintain complete traceability, while drastically reducing shipping errors and manual labor costs." CG
Since installing the Visidot System throughout its production facilities, Groupe Jacquet has succeeded in maintaining a 100 percent accuracy rate in all customer deliveries. Visidot not only helps the bakery to avoid shipping errors in the first place, but also offers the guidance required to perform corrective actions should something go wrong. "Visidot has lived up to all of our expectations," says Ferrandiz. "At the end of the day, Visidot enables us to maintain complete traceability, while drastically reducing shipping errors and manual labor costs." CG