Ringnes, part of the Carlsberg Group and Norway's largest brewery, says that IBM sensor technology has improved visibility into its logistics operations, handling almost half a billion litres of beer and bottled water annually. Jan Inge Bakkane, business process manager at Ringnes, explains that, with 200 trucks on the road, the company had never had a real-time overview of containers, used to transport beverages and empty return bottles. It had to use manual and phone-based processes.
Now, Ringnes is using RFID to automatically track the arrival, departure, loading and unloading of containers at its Oslo facility. The system – which uses IBM's WebSphere Premises Server software along with a web dashboard based on IBM's DB2 AlphaBlox application – captures all data via the plant's 40 loading gates.
Bakkane says that Ringnes can now quickly determine whether a trailer or container is on or off site, how long it was parked at the facility, and when it was loaded, unloaded and driven away. In addition, the brewery can spot and resolve bottlenecks.
"Even small changes in our logistics system can have a positive effect on our bottom line," says Bakkane. "The system we've created with IBM will allow our logistics operations to work smarter, which makes for better customer service."
And he adds that Ringnes is now considering extending the system to its four other locations and integrating it with the company's other logistics systems – as well as using RFID tags on its pallets to track the movement of individual products to retailers.
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