Lithuanian furniture manufacturer drives logistics with RFID

The firm, which ships more than 10,000 pallets per month to Swedish home furnishing giant IKEA, used RFID system integrator Autepra and Proringas, the Pragma ERP system. The solution adopted uses UPM Raflatac's UHF RFID ShortDipole inlay, which has been designed to deliver stable performance in supply chain management applications. Mikko Nikkanen, business development director for RFID, UPM Raflatac, says that the RFID solution is now being used to track products from packing to loading onto trucks. Finished products at SC Freda's factory are placed on pallets and transported by conveyor to a warehouse, with just one brief stop for packing and attaching the RFID tags, he explains. Making that work is a CAEN RFID reader, located next to the packing point and conveyor, he says. This unit automatically writes a tag ID as products roll past – with that information being automatically processed in the ERP system. Forklifts are then used to transfer pallets from the warehouse conveyor to a storage area, with a CAEN A948 gate reader controlling the truck loading processes. The trucks are equipped with computers and touch screens, which, in turn, communicate loading and unloading orders, as well as information about possible loading mistakes in real time. "This RFID solution has provided us with a new, cost-efficient tool to grow our business," says Virginijus Brundza, production manager at SC Freda. "We've achieved a completely new level of transparency and automation in our manufacturing logistics."