Archive for the ‘Industry Trends’ category

A Case for “Case-Level Serialization”

April 15th, 2010

Can you have traceability without serialization?   I’d say it depends on what granularity you want. For instance, you can’t have case-level traceability without case-level serialization – the application of a unique serial number on each case.

Traceability initiatives want GTIN + Lot Number, but no serial numbers

There are several current industry initiatives for traceability in North America which are, in part, including GS1 bar code requirements.  These recommend incorporating two main components into the bar code: GTIN and the Lot Number.  In at least one initiative, a date code is also required.  Most plans exclude or even discourage the use of serial numbers at the case level.

People involved in setting the standards and consulting with the industries involved have told me that while serialization at the case level would be desirable and will likely be adopted in the future, it’s probably too big a step at this stage.  That’s unfortunate, I think.

I agree that implementing GTINs and Lot Number bar codes is a good step forward, and it’s better than doing nothing.  This will give a level of traceability – to the lot.  But I believe that there are significant benefits to going one step further – to the case.

GS1 case serialization has been around for awhile

Case-level serialization with GS1 bar codes is by no means a new thing.  Meat and poultry companies in Canada were required to supply Canada’s largest grocery retailer with GS1-128 (formerly UCC/EAN-128) bar codes for random (catch) weight cases already back in 1993. Most of these companies implemented serial numbers in the bar codes.  Each case iss individually processed and has a database record applied to it.

Below are scanned samples of serialized case bar code labels from years ago incorporating the following GS1 Applicator Identifiers (AIs):

(01) GTIN

(13) Pack Date  – could instead use (11) Production Date, (15) Best Before Date, or (17) Receive By Date

(3202) Weight in kg to 2 decimal places – could instead use (31xx), where 31 is weight in lbs to xx decimal pts

(21) Serial number – up to 12 digits to stay within the maximum total 48 digits for the entire bar code

With 17 years of experience with case-level serialization using GS1 bar codes, including sitting on the bar code sub-committee for GS1 Canada (formerly ECCC) back in the mid-1990s, I’d like to share a few points about why I believe case-level serialization is a good idea.

Case-level serialization will

  • Help isolate supply chain issues from processing, or production issues.

    • - For instance, a storage-related problem (such as inadequate cooling) would affect only products in that location, not an entire lot.  With just the GTIN and lot number, there would be no way after the fact to determine which affected cases had been in that location.  Using serialized cases with a warehouse management system that supports them will offer you this capability.

  • Give more granular traceability than by the lot:
    - With case serial numbers, you can track every movement, location, and each transformation or co-mingling event performed – for complete, detailed traceability.
  • Enable trace-back to production details: line, time, etc.
    - You will know with precision which items were produced from which production source, and at what time.  You will be able to contain problems to a more precise level.
  • Offer increased flexibility in pallet handling

    • - You will be able to accurately track multiple SKUs and/or lots on a pallet.

    - By scanning just the serialized pallet label,  you will track all the individual cases as well.

  • Support 100% verification of items shipped

    • - You will be able to associate specific cases with customer shipments – i.e. know exactly which cartons were shipped on which order.

    - Due to each and every carton being accounted for, you will be able to identify lost product accurately due to issues such as loss or theft.

  • Prevent duplicate scanning and avoid quantity errors. Without serial numbers at the case level, a person will
    1. not know if a bar code has been scanned already and may accidentally scan the same case twice, causing a quantity error.  With serial numbers, the scanning system will detect that the case was already scanned and either ignore the duplicate scan, or alert the person that the case data was already captured.
    2. either be prompted to type in the quantity of cases of that SKU (leading to potential quantity errors), or be tempted to scan the same bar code several times to match the quantity that is believed to be on the pallet (also a source of errors).  With serial numbered cases you will avoid these problems by forcing the operator to scan each case on a mixed SKU pallet, ensuring better accuracy.
  • Enable detailed aged inventory by location and better stock rotation

    • - You will be able to see in the warehouse management system the specific cases that are approaching expiration, showing the specific locations of those products for easy retrieval.

    - Product age can be more precise than by the lot – for example, by time – so that even within the lot, you will be able to identify older products.  This is helpful particularly with the produce industry due to the perishable nature of its products.

Use the printing step to your advantage

You can take advantage of the label printing step by performing the following functions:

  • Monitor production with a printing system that also offers real-time visibility of what’s printed
  • Tie in your orders and production scheduling with the printing solution
  • Use the printing process to record and build into finished goods inventory
  • Build pallets off the printing process or production line automatically without the need to scan each case, since that data is already captured.

The downsides of case-level serialization are minimal

From a cost perspective, since all cases will be labeled, there does not need to be additional cost to add serialization of cases other than perhaps due to a slightly larger label.

Obviously there needs to be printing and scanning/inventory systems that support case serialization.  But such systems already exist, although they are not altogether common.  Less than 5% of Warehouse Management Systems (WMS), for example, can handle serialized cases.

Data storage is cheap

There’s no need to worry about the amount of data storage required.  And with the extra data comes a wealth of information that can really help a company manage its business better and achieve complete, detailed traceability. Without that data, however, traceability will be limited.

While there are relatively few software solutions for product tracking that can support serialized case tracking, industries can look to meat and poultry solution providers who have successfully implemented solutions with case-level serialization for a number of years.

The good news is that there are also initiatives that are pursuing serialization

Serialization will happen.  There is a lot of development in this area.  For example, the SGTIN (serialized Global Trade Identification Number) will support item level serialization.  RFID will further drive serialization.  It’s my prediction that the industries not currently pursuing the precision of serial numbers at the case level will eventually get on board with it.  It’s just a matter of time.  The forward-thinking companies will adopt it sooner when they understand the benefits to their own organization.

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Got No Reason to Hide

March 26th, 2010

Full disclosure is not something we like to offer just to anyone.  But accountability and transparency can actually be a good thing.

We too often hear stories of companies and individuals whose previously hidden faults or misdemeanours have become exposed for all to see.  You know examples.  I won’t list any here.

Then there are organizations and individuals who are committed to doing things right and well, and have put checks and balances in place to help ensure not only are proper procedures followed, but also to protect against activities that would damage reputations and potentially hurt people.

On a personal note, my wife is a bookkeeper and loves to track whatever we spend.  She uses QuickBooks to enter all of our receipts and at the end of the year, she can tell me how many times I went to Tim Horton’s (coffee for you non-Canadians) or Starbucks and how much money is spent on movies, or whatever.

Some of you might be thinking, “Wow! That’s keeping pretty close tabs on things.”  Maybe you wouldn’t want the same level of transparency.  Here’s my point: if I have nothing to hide, it’s fine with me that every dollar I spend is accounted for and visible to my wife.  And with this approach, the level of trust is very high, which is a good thing in a marriage.

On the business side, I have noticed that not everybody wants everything tracked.  I’ve come across a few interesting situations in which there actually is resistance to complete traceability, and the apparent reason is because certain people in the company want to be able to have a way of hiding things.  Yep, they want to be able to have  buffers that can be applied to cover up mistakes or questionable practices.

Some companies in the food industry are taking steps towards transparency.  For example, Cargill Meat Solutions is putting in video cameras into their slaughter facilities to monitor how they are doing regarding animal handling.  Not only does this build confidence and trust in others, but it also will undoubtedly motivate people internally to ensure that they are doing the right things.

In a similar way, a good traceability and visibility solution can help do the same things.  If everything is above board and as it should be, putting in a solution that tracks every movement of product and every activity related to people performing duties with products will be a system to ensure things are done properly.

I expect that transparency will be a driver to help move traceability forward in the next few years.  This accountability to government, to customers, and to consumers will be in the form of several initiatives that have been in the works for some time.  These include sustainability, corporate social responsibility, food safety, supplier scorecards, environment, country of origin, quality, animal welfare, labour, insurance, and regulatory compliance.

Of course, financial benefit and productivity are important as well.  With the exception of strong visionaries, however, I believe it will take the earlier initiatives to drive traceability, and then companies will begin to realize the huge benefits of implementing it.  And one of the benefits of traceability will be a system of accountability that will give transparency and help prevent the unwanted publicity that comes from secrets being brought to light.

We live in a day when we can’t afford to have secrets.  It doesn’t take long  before a whole lot of people find out about something.  Articles like “Supply chain transparency only answer to hostile campaigns” show the importance of this issue.

What the Great Teacher said is very true: “What you have whispered behind closed doors will be shouted from the housetops for all to hear!”  It’s better to not have anything to hide and to have the mechanisms in place to ensure the right things are being done.

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The Next Big Food Safety Story . . . Yours?

February 18th, 2010

I never like to see companies being slammed in the news.

I like Kellogg. I like their cereals.

I believe that Kellogg isn’t as bad as this article makes them out to be.

But the reality is that they are getting bad press. Why?

When I hear of a problem, I often think of a kaizen process of asking a series of 5 “Why?”s to get to a deeper level of understanding of the source of a problem.  It could go something like this:

  1. Kellogg is getting bad press. Why?
  2. Atlanta plant inspection found bacterial contamination and sanitation violations. Why?
  3. The plant had “significant deviations” from the manufacturing practices for food manufacturers. Why?
  4. Proper food safety steps were not enforced.  Why?
  5. There’s not a good system in place.  Why???

I don’t know the why of number 5 with Kellogg or even if this is accurate, but here are some possibilities of “Why” that I’ve seen a lot with companies:

  • Our ERP system is supposed to do it (but it doesn’t, because either it can’t, or that module is not yet implemented – and it will take a long time, a lot of money, and IT resources that are forever tied up with other priorities)
  • At the management level, we expected that we  have a system
  • Our people are expected to be accountable with or without a system
  • We haven’t found a good system that works
  • We have a system, but it isn’t being used properly

Whatever the reason, there is certainly a growing awareness and an increasing need for companies to have a working system and to use it.

The system could be a manual process, but a manual system will require very tight observation, discipline, and accountability.

A good electronic solution can make the job of ensuring processes are adequately followed so much easier.  Of course, it could be that such a system is not used properly, but with the right system, quality assurance managers can be alerted when conditions are not met, or parameters are outside critical limits.  If certain HACCP or GMP checklists are not followed according to a prescribed schedule, the right people can be notified by email, text message, or other method.

The technology is here.  The systems are available.  The payback is justifiable.

Without the system, the risk is high – too high.  The media is always out there, hunting for sensational stories.  Don’t let your company be the next big food safety issue news item.

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Traceability and the Hype Cycle

February 16th, 2010

Oh, the fun of hyped-up technologies. Do you remember just a few years ago how big RFID was? Or, more accurately, how big it was going to be? It didn’t roll out as expected. This is a good example of the hype cycle, often called the Gartner Hype Cycle.

Here’s a look at how the cycle works:

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle

A new technology hits the marketplace. The media picks up on it, and suddenly it’s all the rage. Investors jump on the bandwagon, and the crowd gets all excited about it.

But somewhere along the way, reality sets in, and it begins to dawn on people that it will take more work (oh, no – work!) than originally expected to implement what’s needed to make the technology actually work or become widely adopted.

What’s happening with RFID?

I work in the technology field for in-plant productivity, data acquisition and visibility solutions. We have been implementing bar code solutions for over 20 years, and we have done RFID projects since the early 1990s. Prior to that, while I was in university in the late 80s, I worked on a large dairy farm that implemented wearable RFID transponders for cows to monitor and control their lactation cycles and their milking and eating status.

When RFID started to become big news, (I know it’s easy to say now) but it was clear to me with a university physics background that the idea of tagging and reading RFID on cases was going to be difficult and nearly impossible, especially with items like meat that absorb the RF signals, and metal cans that reflect signals.

This diagram from Gartner (http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1124212) illustrates where some technologies are on the hype cycle:

Do you see RFID in the “Trough of Disillusionment”?

As it turns out, there are definitely valid, workable applications for RFID, but they’re different from what many folks thought 5 years ago.

Carlisle Technology, for example, offers RFID solutions for food plants to track carts, tubs, and combos. The solutions can be short-read-range with passive tags, or long-range to do location tracking within a warehouse or cooler. So the technology is still valid, but for the right applications. As time goes on, we’ll see more uses and adoption for RFID along the more gradual upward curve.

Traceability and the growing hype

I have my Google News alerts set to look for Food Safety and Traceability, so I watch what’s going regarding this topic. I think we’re on the early steep rising side of the Hype Cycle when it comes to Traceability. And I’ll tell you why I think this.

Take Fresh Produce, for instance. Some of the produce associations have done a good job of setting up an initiative that will help their industry achieve traceability. See www.producetraceability.org. They’ve clearly outlined the steps that produce pickers/packers need to follow. And it’s a good move. The huge recalls in produce need to be reduced, contained, and eliminated.

Produce Traceability Initiative (PTI) Compliance

There are numerous companies out there (including Carlisle) that are now boasting that they/we have PTI compliant solutions. It’s not always clear what they everybody is offering, but initially, a PTI compliant solution means the tools that will enable produce companies to put bar code labels on each and every case of produce, displaying and encoding the GTIN and Lot number.

This is the easy part. Almost anyone can do that.

Another PTI step in a couple of years will be the ability to read and store the case and pallet bar code labels.

Again, this not a big deal. Several companies have solutions for this. Carlisle Technology’s meat and poultry customers have been doing this for a couple of decades already with case-level serialization and detailed pallet handling.

But what’s not easy, and this is where it separate the men from the boys, so to speak, is providing an integrated solution that enables each organization to positively track and have complete real-time visibility of all items within their enterprise.

The reality is that produce packing houses are more complex than simply receiving products in one door and shipping them out another. Quality checks, inventory management, proper stock rotation and sortation are required. There are mixed lots and grading of products within lots according to parameters such as quality, size, and color. Product can be received from outside suppliers with or without the proper information. Product from their own fields or greenhouses need to be received by recording several attributes. Market pricing affects what gets shipped to whom and when. Grower payment is dependent on the price paid downstream, so there needs to be accurate tracking throughout of where grower-specific product was sold.

This requires not only the right kind of system including equipment and software, but the following of the necessary procedures.

What we’ll see in the next few years, I expect, is that companies will realize that applying labels and scanning bar codes won’t be enough. They will have to work with a solution provider to do the hard work of tracking products accurately at each step in their processes.

Traceability is Not the Goal

I fully expect that traceability itself won’t be the goal; rather, in-plant productivity solutions that incorporate registering every product movement and transformation, along with capturing quality details and doing the appropriate checks at each control point, and then having real-time visibility into the product movements and related activities will be the goal. And in reaching that goal, traceability will come along for the ride and be a by-product of achieving those objectives.

We’ll see the traceability topic continue to rise meteorically, and then reality will set in and something else will be big news. And those of us who have solutions and are committed for the long term will continue past the trough of disillusionment to work on implementing the needed solutions that will provide the benefits (link to benefits) that are surely out there.

Watch or ride the cycle. Then let’s talk about real solutions that really work.

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Traceability Requires Several Key Elements

February 9th, 2010

A couple of years ago, I met with a Food Safety representative of one of our government agencies.  We got talking about traceability, and she asked me what my experience showed regarding the percentage of food companies that have traceability solutions.  I said to her that from what I can see, traceability in the food industry in North America does not exist.  This was interesting to her because, as it turned out, the day prior to this she had sat through a thesis presentation of a master’s student who claimed that 85% of companies she had studied had traceability solutions.  The person I was meeting with commented that she herself leaned towards my findings.

Obviously we have a different view on what traceability means.

My boss was at the Traceability Interoperability Summit last month in Denver, and he reported that one of the presenters had surveyed over 100 companies to see how they were meeting the one-up and one-down traceability requirements as mandated by the Bioterrorism Act of 2002.  My boss asked me what my guess was as to the percentage of companies that were compliant.  I guessed zero, which was exactly what this other company had found.

Without even realizing it, many food processing operations do not have true and complete internal traceability because they fail in one or more of the following required areas:

  1. real-time data entry and access
  2. no data islands
  3. integrated data chain
  4. no gaps

(I don’t remember the source of this list.)

They may have some form of product tracking, but it often doesn’t classify as a traceability solution.  I mean, could they scan the bar code of a finished goods case and be able to pull up within a couple of minutes all the lot numbers and suppliers of each and every ingredient and component in that case, including packaging?  And do they have a system that would enable them to determine all the downstream locations, lot numbers, finished goods, and orders of a specific  ingredient that is found to be suspect?

1) Real-time data entry and real-time access to information:  Clipboards with paper and pen are still amazingly commonplace.  Manual recording is used for downtime recording, quality/HACCP forms, and other data collection.  Some of this data is never entered into an electronic system but is filed for potential manual retrieval.  Other data is keyed in manually at a later time for the purpose of generating reports and graphs to be posted after the fact.  It’s not uncommon to see posted reports that are months old.

2) No data islands:  Widespread use of tools such as MS Excel spreadsheets, which may do some basic importing of data but operate mostly as off-line tools, shows that data islands exist.  Departmental “silos” keep people from having visibility of other areas of the plant.

3) Integrated data chain: Too often there are multiple vendor systems that are not exchanging data that would enhance their capability.  With the robust and reliable interface methodologies available, gone are the days when interfaces between systems need to be an issue.  Using best of breed systems is the best strategy for overall performance and value as long as the systems are communicating with each other.  For example, an ERP system will not offer complete in-plant product tracking with interfaces to devices (although some actually claim to, the truth is that there is no one system that will do everything for everybody, even within a single company).  But the ERP system’s capabilities will be extended with an appropriate interface with the right in-plant productivity solution.

4) No gaps: (receiving – raw material and ingredient batch control – material issue into processes – work-in-process including rework – transformation – pack-off – inventory – order fulfillment):  Data gaps in the processes prevent complete traceability since there is not a satisfying link from source to destination.

A true internal traceability solution is characterized by these elements.   What’s needed in many food processing plants is an integrated solution that meets these traceability requirements.  Without it, paper abounds, schedules are missed, product gets lost, labour goes wasted, and food safety is at risk.

I’d be interested in knowing what are your thoughts regarding the adoption in the food industry of traceability according to the above requirements.

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Internal, External, and Whole-Chain Traceability

January 26th, 2010

With the increased media publicity of food recalls, consumers are becoming more aware of the importance of food safety and the need for traceability which involves tracing where food products come from and tracking the location or destination of targeted products in the case of a recall.

There are numerous traceability drivers including consumer interest, country of origin concerns, customer demands, food safety issues, brand protection, corporate social responsibility, and government regulations.

In the buzz these days around the concept of traceability, people usually talk about whole-chain traceability which tracks goods through the entire supply chain from source to end user (eg: “farm to fork”, “cradle to grave”).

One component of whole-chain traceability is the tracking of products among trading partners. This external traceability is what the regulations set out by the U.S. (Bioterrorism Act of 2002) and the European Union (1 January 2005, Regulation 178/2002) refer to as “one up/one down” traceability.

Food businesses must be able to provide records of inputs and outputs (i.e. “one-up” and “one-down”) within a reasonable time period. This one-up and one-down rule requires companies to establish and maintain records of the source and destination of products, ingredients, and packaging materials.

Now that these regulations have been in place for some time, the next step being focused on regarding external traceability are standards for interoperability so that trading partners can share information with each other about goods being transferred between their respective organizations.

In most cases, these regulations and discussions assume that internal traceability, the second component of whole-chain traceability, is already in place within companies’ operations. They either don’t mention internal traceability, or they leave individual companies to track products internally. In some cases they make a passing mention of the required linkages from incoming to outgoing products within an organization, but there are no specific requirements related to this aspect.

Many people, including company executives, believe that they have traceability within their organizations.  They have invested considerable money in complex and costly Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and automation systems that are expected to track everything in their company, with traceability as an expected function.

Furthermore, companies have implemented case coding solutions to put bar codes and/or RFID tags onto cases and pallets of finished goods that should be (but may not actually be) scanned by an electronic device.  With these systems in place, it is common for executives to think that they have a good solution for internal traceability.

True internal traceability, however, is quite rare in the North American food industry.  The main reason is that most food companies, including large corporations, simply do not have the systems in place to be able to point to a case of their food products and identify clearly and quickly the specific source or genealogy of the raw materials, ingredients and packaging materials contained in that case by lot number, date received, and supplier. Nor could they take a source material and track it downstream through all stages of production and touch points to order fulfillment.

Whole-chain traceability depends on both external and internal traceability to avoid gaps.  External traceability is currently a hot topic, but without robust internal traceability capabilities, the authenticity of whole-chain traceability is seriously compromised.

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