First Volkswagen, now beer; IBM continues to bring RFID-related innovations to products near and dear to a German’s heart. Ringnes, Norway’s largest brewery and a part of the Carlsberg Group, has announced its deployment of IBM RFID-enabled solutions to improve its logistics operations.
The Ringnes shipping system handles almost half a billion liters of beer and bottled water each year, with as many as 200 trucks on the move at a time. The RFID-enabled system enables real-time visibility throughout the supply chain. The company can track the arrival, departure, loading and unloading of tagged containers.
With the IBM system, which uses IBM’s WebSphere Premises Server software paired with a Web dashboard based on IBM’s DB2 AlphaBlox application, Ringnes can determine the location of a trailer or container, how long it was parked at a brewery facility, when it was loaded or unloaded, and when it left the facility. This level of supply chain visibility enables the company to spot and resolve bottlenecks in the shipping system.
Ringnes first deployed the system at its Oslo plant, where it captures data from all 40 of the facility’s loading gates. The brewery now plans to expand the system to its other four facilities, and to integrate it with other logistics systems already in use. The company is also exploring the use of RFID-tagged pallets to track the distribution of its products to individual retailers. ![[end]](/resources/bullet/rfidnews-4.gif)
