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Using RFID for Regulatory Compliance. Ernie Redfern, CIO. Who is Blommer Chocolate Company?. Founded in 1939 Four generations in chocolate Family owned and operated Four plants strategically located: Chicago, IL East Greenville, PA Union City, CA Campbellford, Ontario.
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Using RFID for Regulatory Compliance Ernie Redfern, CIO
Who is Blommer Chocolate Company? • Founded in 1939 • Four generations in chocolate • Family owned and operated • Four plants strategically located: • Chicago, IL • East Greenville, PA • Union City, CA • Campbellford, Ontario
Company Overview • Largest Cocoa Bean Processor in North America • Currently - 225,000 Metric Tons (8% of World Crop) • Largest Presser in North America • Supplying to All Major Cocoa Butter and Cocoa Powder Users • Largest Fully Integrated Chocolate & Cocoa Manufacturer in North America supplying: • Confectionery, Baking, Dairy and Pharmaceutical/Cosmetic Industries • Lowest Cost Manufacturer in North America • Sole Focus is Cocoa Business
Bioterrorism Act Title-306 :Establishment and Maintenance of Records • 2002 - Congress passed the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act • June 12, 2002 President Bush signed into law “THE BIO-TERRORISM ACT” (BTA)
HIGHLIGHTS OF BTA III:SUBTITLE-A SECTION-306 • Start of Compliance date December 9, 2005 • Records must be kept for 2 years • Available to FDA in 24 hours • Companies with Multiple Manufacturing locations do not need to have duplicate Records • FDA does not Require Specific type of Forms or Systems to Maintain Records • Tracking of samples, trade show merchandise, give aways.
BTATitle – III : Subtitle-A Section - 306 Who need to be in compliance? • Manufacturers • Processors • Packers • Distributors • Receivers • Holders • Importers
BTATitle – III : Subtitle-A Section - 306 Key Provision of Record Keeping: • Two Years of Records • In process • Immediate Previous Sources • Immediate Subsequent recipients
Why Blommer Chocolate Company Implemented RFID Initiative • Compliance to new regulations within our overall inventory control strategy • Extensive use of outside logistics partners put greater burden on record keeping to meet new requirements • Needed to track when products left our custody (shipment to outside warehouse). • Needed to track when products returned to our custody. • Interplant shipments needed greater tracking • Needed to know when product left our custody for shipment to customers • Tracking Incoming Raw Material • Automatically relieve raw material in batching process • Accurate Inventory Counts
Why Blommer Chocolate Company Implemented RFID Initiative … continued • We were NOT mandated by any customer to implement an RFID strategy in order to integrate with their system • Food industry has no standards (schemas) on data exchange universally adopted • RFID strategy is viewed as a way of cutting costs and augment increased record keeping burden while allowing for future expansion without additional headcount
What We Do Not Track with RFID • Liquid Shipments (tankers) • Silos • Cocoa Beans • Sugar • Raw Material • Liquid form pumped directly to holding tanks
RFID & Shipment to Outside Warehouse • Goal: Eliminate manual tracking of product movement and automatically generation of shipping documents while complying with BTA accountability. • Solutions: • Reserved shipping docks for warehouse shipments and put in RFID tunnels. • Operators open dock, move product into trailers, and close dock – bill of laden automatically prints. • Bar coding of trailer seals helps. • We know when product was loaded and trailer sealed (date and time).
RFID & Shipment to Outside Warehouse(Receipt by Outside Warehouse) • Installed VPN tunnel at outside warehouse. • Installed Access Points at warehouse as extension of Blommer Chocolate’s facility. • Incoming trailers scanned & palettes scanned while being offloaded in real time (date and time annotated automatically). • We know when product returns to our custody and what is in-transit.
RFID & Batch Control (Lot Control) • Goal: Track raw material usage throughout batch cycle to include lot number traceability and rework control • Solutions: • Rework tagged with RFID label • Install RFID Tunnel in Paste/Mixing Room • Provides visibility of product moving to production area. • Provides accurate lot number information associated with raw material. • Alerts operator through visual signal if raw material or rework is not released from QC hold. • Alerts operator through visual signal if wrong raw material is being moved to production area. • Operator annotates raw material/rework quantity usage for each batch through handheld terminals • Integrated rework into batch process as indented bill-of-material
What We Did Right • Set everyone’s expectations. • We were going to go through growing pains. • RFID was not going to be the savior for our inventory problems. • Appointed high level executive sponsor • Incorporated bar code scanning with RFID. • Ensured all our people were trained on new system. • Prototyped system in one plant before implementing in all plants. • Understood complexity of programming that needed to be done for RFID tunnel integration.
What We Did Wrong • Underestimated Printer Issues • Initially did not use motion sensors to turn on/off RFID tunnel • Overestimated RFID equipment (readers and antennas) ability to work in manufacturing environment • Overestimated out vendor’s ability to provide technical support for an RFID solution • “Newness” of technology limits number of “experts” out there • Forced to write some of the integration internally
FDA: Contaminated feed could affect farms nationwidePOSTED: 12:10 a.m. EDT, May 2, 2007–CNN.COM • Contaminated feed found in 38 Indiana chicken farms; more farms likely affected• Feed contains recalled pet food with tainted wheat gluten• No human illnesses have been reported related to tainted poultry feed • Reports of 4,150 dog and cat deaths related to pet food recall
Infrastructure Used - For reference only - not an endorsement • RFID Antennas & Reader • SAMSys • RFID Printers • Printronics • Zebra • Datamax • RFID Label – Printronix RFID SmartTags • Warehouse Management System Software • AGI Worldwide – FinalMove • ERP – Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains • Database - Microsoft SQL Server 2005