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SUMMARY:Tracking the Coffee Supply Chain with EPC  RFID – A real case - 
 Fredy Joao Valente\, CTO -  COSS Consulting – Brazil
DTSTART:20120724T133000Z
DTEND:20120724T143000Z
UID:TALK38967@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Rengarajan
DESCRIPTION:The main goal of the project was to provide a solution to the 
 problem of storing coffee beans for COPACAFE \, a cooperative company with
  more than 4.000 producers as members. Usually this kind of company aims t
 o aggregate value to its coffee producers by providing sharing services su
 ch as storage\, blending and sales. Such services involve works such as co
 ffee logistics\, transportation\, origin tracing\, coffee classification\,
  storage and coffee blending. Coffee crops vary each year producing beans 
 with different aspects which consequently result in different coffee class
 ification even if they come from the same farm and trees. This means that 
 each batch of received coffee must be classified by using a sample of the 
 beans. Before the RFID project\, all references and identification were do
 ne using handwritten stickers and spreadsheets. The problem however was th
 at once the coffee went to a specific storage location in the warehouse\, 
 its physical location would change because the manipulation of big-bags by
  the forklifts were done also based on written orders and eye verification
 \, causing misplacement of big-bags compromising coffee tracing. In that s
 cenario the execution of simple picking order would take very long because
  of searching\, causing a very expensive and inefficient operation which w
 as compromising the cooperative operation. Also\, checking and weight anno
 tation were done manually\, and the warehouse was not connected to the coo
 perative management system. most RTLS solutions. The solution is also prep
 ared to extend its tracking/tracing capabilities of coffee from the produc
 er to the consumer using GS1 /EPCGlobal standards\, uniquely identifying c
 offee origin in pure arabica brands or origins in coffee blends\, in addit
 ion to its processing history.\n\nThe devised and deployed RFID solution w
 as based on the WelCOSS-RFID platform which uses UHF EPC RFID tags for ide
 ntifying coffee batchs using a strategy of equipping big bags with RFID ta
 gs\, forklifts with RFID readers and mapping the coffee warehouse floor wi
 th RFID tags with a location resolution of 1\,2 metres - which is better t
 han most RTLS solutions. The solution is also prepared to extend its  \ntr
 acking/tracing capabilities of coffee from the producer to the  \nconsumer
  using GS1/EPCGlobal standards\, uniquely identifying coffee  \norigin in 
 pure arabica brands or origins in coffee blends\, in  \naddition to its pr
 ocessing history.\n\nIn this talk\, this real RFID case will be presented 
 along the context of supply chain problems and the opportunities of value 
 gain provided by the RFID technology as well as ROI and payback results th
 at can be achieved with a right strategy. Other RFID projects\, such as th
 e HemoNet\, using the WelCOSS-RFID platform will also be mentioned and pot
 entially discussed during the talk.
LOCATION:Seminar 3\, Institute for Manufacturing\, 17 Charles Babbage Road
 \, Cambridge
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