RFID Technology Improves Efficiency For Tomato Producers

Around the globe, more companies are beginning to implement RFID technology to their businesses to improve efficiency and reduce downtime. In Australia, d’Vineripe, a tomato producer, has begun to take advantage of RFID technology to better manage staff productivity, ultimately making tomato picking easier and more efficient. With the new RFID system in place, management is able to know what their staff of well over 100 is doing in the greenhouses at any given moment, which tasks have been completed, and how long they took.

And since d’Vineripe has four massive 80,000 square-foot greenhouses, each with thousands of tomato plants, it typically can take anywhere between 50-120 employees to work on the plants every day. The tomato plants need to be checked for pruning, pollinating, de-leafing, pest/disease control, and picking.

Before the installation of the RFID based system, all of the work was managed manually, using clipboards. All employees had to manually sign in and were then assigned tasks. Details of the tasks were written down on paper and d’Vineripe had no way of keeping track what tasks were being completed by a worker within a particular team, or how quickly each task was done, thus they were operating inefficiently.

RFID Technology offers great advantages, and at a low cost. With the ability to track, manage and record accurate employee actions, RFID has allowed d’Vineripe to grow into a more efficient company.

Now, each greenhouse contains 120 rows of tomatoes and with each row requiring up to eight tasks to be completed at different intervals. In order to make this possible, a worker arrives at a workstation at the beginning of their shift and presents their ID badge. The badge contains a 13.56 MHz RFID transponder embedded inside it, and its unique ID number is linked to the individual’s name in the database. As the worker completes their daily tasks, the greenhouse’s station manager reads their RFID tag, linking the individual to their assigned task and row.

By implementing an RFID system, d’Vineripe was able to better manage their workers, thus creating a more organized, efficient company, ultimately saving both time and money. d’Vineripe is a great example of how RFID technology can provide great benefits for any company.

For more RFID information or products, please visit us at www.Adazonusa.com today!