Tracient Technologies’ Handheld HF Readers Used to Monitor Task Completion Times in Glasshouses

PR Log (Press Release) – Aug 23, 2009 – d'Vineripe Pty Ltd who grow glasshouse tomatoes in South Australia. A key performance indicator for d'Vineripe is how long workers take to complete tasks so the company needs to accurately identify each worker, the row/area they are working on and what task they are performing.

d'Vineripe has engaged Australian systems integrator FieldAtWork to provide an RFID solution in which workers and tomato rows are allocated HF RFID tags with a unique ID number. Tags are also prescribed for each of the 8 tasks and placed on boards adjacent each row. At the beginning of the day, the end of each task and the end of each day the workers use Tracient’s Padl-R HF reader to read their own tag, the row tag and the appropriate task tag. The reads are batch logged and downloaded onto a PC at days end.  The information is analysed within FieldAtWork’s ServiceAtWork software to create time sheet information which is imported into an Excel spreadsheet for analysis.

Anthony Evans, Financial Controller at d’vineripe says the company has been able to identify processes that are inefficient and take appropriate action. “As our company was a start up we have now been able to identify and benchmark our current operational activities within the glasshouse, more cost effectively versus other solutions available within the marketplace” he says.

Anthony believes management of d'Vineripe’s workforce has now become more quantitative in its measures since installing the RFID solution. “We are now able to identify workers who have been underperforming and take the necessary action to ensure they complete their tasks in the required time frames. We intend using this data to develop training programs to increase productivity across the workforce. This system means we can be more targeted in our training programs.” he says.

“We needed an RFID reader to log tag reads that we can download at the end of the day. The Padl-R HF reader has proven ideal for this business case” says Colin Rosen, CEO of FieldAtWork. “At first I wondered how the Padl-R HFs would handle the glasshouse environment with it’s heat, humidity and dirt, but the 24 readers have performed well over 18 months without problems. It’s always a pleasure to work with a quality product and we have been impressed with Tracient’s reader. The SDK was well laid out and thorough, making integration with our ServiceAtWork application a breeze”.

A full case study of the solution is pasted on Tracient’s website at: http://www.tracient.com/document-library.html