With this largest single UHF RFID deployment in the world, Danish Container Centralen - a market leader in container logistics within horticultural logistics in Europe - wants to make it sure that the advantages of the RFID technology is used not only for keeping the container pool they offer always up-to-date but also providing the possibilities for their 20.000 customers optimizing their own logistics even further by reducing the need for manual registrations.

Container Centralen recognizes that this technology is the key to superior and optimized transport and logistics in the future, and has therefore built RFID into some of the more recent product developments. From January 10, 2011, a padlock with a built-in RFID-chip has been mounted on all existing CC Containers. Container Centralen regularly updates the ID tags on the CC Containers to protect the CC Pool System from illegal containers. The current ID tag makes the identification of CC Containers easier and has the added benefit of potential optimization of logistics.

Which have already been the effects of this large RFID roll-out in the horticultural industry?

Not mentioning here the anti-counterfeit issues solved but focusing on the supply chain processes, it has been seen that it is not only the interest among the users of the containers and their suppliers that has been growing, but also the fact that the new solutions for the whole green sector value chain have been appearing for the market.

Mieloo & Alexander Business Integrators, a trusted partner of Nordic ID, providesthe horticultural sector in Holland and Germany with a powerful and efficient solution for asset and goods flow management. This application enables growers, transport companies, wholesalers and retailers to easily register inbound and outbound movements of assets and manage the balance of the asset pools across the supply chain. The ScanGreen applications, developed leverage the verification of containers and trolleys of Container Centralen for both the Nordic ID Morphic UHF RFID and Nordic ID Merlin UHF RFID.

The powerful RFID performance and functionalities of the Nordic ID devices make the ScanGreen solutions versatile and the handling of assets easy. By incorporating e-signatures upon delivery, several processes are integrated saving both time and money. Users are provided with easy insights and clear reports of account balances and on-hand assets.

What comes next in the green sector?

Container´s and their management are clearly the key elements in the supply chain of the horticultural industry. However, the products (flowers, plants, etc.) are packed in buckets and handled and marketed in distribution with container shelves. The need for the tracking system for the shelves has been there already before the container tagging project started. It is obvious, that the use of the tagged shelves would provide a huge change not only at flower auctions but also at growers and wholesalers. The speed and the accuracy of the handling, clear information of the origin and even the known age of products would then just be some of the advantages. Naturally the industry approved, easy-to-use mobile solutions are to be needed.