🌐 Embarking on a Technological Transformation in Logistics
How QR Codes, Mobile Scanning &
RFID have caused a revolution in logistics.
©Prof ARCHIE DSOUZA
Introduction – Barcodes, the precursor to QR
Codes
The retail sector which includes the
running of supermarkets and hypermarkets is a perilous business. To run their
business effectively and profitably they must stock myriads of products available
in hundreds of brands and package sizes to ensure that no product is ever
stocked out when a customer needs it. To add to their woes, they need to sell their
wares at painfully tiny markups. One of the biggest challenges that all
retailers – tiny, small, medium and large – face is keeping a close track of every
item that they stock. Yes, all of them. They need to ensure that their inventories
are neither too large nor too small. This is critical. However, for most of the
last century, almost every store however big or small had only one way to find
out what was on hand. They had to shut the place down and count every item,
i.e. every single can, bag, box, etc. The process only got complicated with the
profusion on their shelves multiplying and the retail sector growing. This process
was expensive and cumbersome. The job was usually done at least once a year but
at times more often. Till bar codes came into being store managers had to base
many of their decisions on hunches or crude estimates. Grocers knew they
desperately needed something like this long before bar codes and scanners were
invented. Barcodes are the precursors of QR codes. But what preceded them? Probably
punch cards which were first developed for the 1890 U.S. Census. They seemed to
offer some early hope. In 1932 a business student named Wallace Flint wrote a
master’s thesis in which he envisioned a supermarket where customers would
perforate cards to mark their selections. At the checkout counter, they would
insert them into a reader. While this was happening machinery would be activated
to bring their purchases to a designated place on conveyor belts. This would
provide store managements with a record of items being purchased. The challenge
facing store managements was that the card-reading equipment of the day was besides
being bulky, also utterly unwieldy, and far too expensive to be
cost-effective. To add to their woes, the country was in the middle of the
Great Depression. Even if this wasn’t the vase, Flint’s idea would have been
unrealistic for all but the most distant future. Yet, it foreshadowed and
foresaw the future.
While the near-universal implementation
of barcodes is quite recent, the first step in this direction came in 1948. It
started with Bernard Silver, a graduate student, overhearing a conversation in the
halls of Philadelphia’s Drexel Institute of Technology. The president of a food
chain was pleading with one of the deans to undertake research on capturing
product information automatically at checkout. While the dean turned down the
request, Bob Silver mentioned the conversation to his friend Norman Joseph
Woodland. The latter was a twenty-seven-year-old graduate student and teacher
at Drexel, who was fascinated by the issue. He started working on it first using
patterns of ink that would glow under ultraviolet light. The two men built a
device to test the concept and it worked. However, they did encounter some
problems ranging from ink instability to printing costs. Yet, Woodland was
convinced that they had a workable idea. He encashed some stock-market
earnings, quit Drexel, and moved to his grandfather’s Florida apartment to seek
solutions. Several months later his hard work paid off. He came up with the
linear bar code, using elements from two established technologies: movie
soundtracks and Morse code.
This is what he stated in an interview, “I just
extended the dots and dashes downwards and made narrow lines and wide lines out
of them.” He made use of Lee de Forest’s movie sound system from the 1920s to
read the data. De Forest’s invention consisted of a printed pattern with
varying degrees of transparency on the edge of the film. A light shone through
it as the picture ran. This was translated
by a sensitive tube on the other side using the shifts in brightness and
converting them into electric waveforms. These in turn were converted to sound
by loudspeakers. Using this learning Woodland planned to adapt this system by
reflecting light off the wide and narrow lines that he inked on paper. He used
a similar tube to interpret the results. Woodland and Drexel together filed a
patent. The wide and narrow vertical lines were replaced by concentric lines,
enabling the label to be scanned from either direction. They called it the bullseye
code. The patent application was filed in 1949. In 1952 Woodland and Silver designed
and built their bar-code reader, a device that was the size of a desk and had
to be wrapped in black oilcloth to keep out ambient light. This was still a far
cry from the systems that got to be used in the retail sector but was
nevertheless a great start. The two got what they wanted. They had
created a device that could electronically read printed material.
The computers of the day
were primitive and cumbersome to operate, besides being expensive. They could
only perform simple calculations and were huge in size. The idea of installing
thousands of them in supermarkets across the country was just not realistic. An
inexpensive and convenient way to record data had to be designed. Without this,
their idea would be but a curiosity. To add to the situation there were in, was
the existence of a five-hundred-watt bulb. This meant high consumption of
energy and a very inefficient system. Besides this, it was enormous and ugly
with the danger of causing eye damage. What they needed was a source that could
focus a large amount of light into a tiny space, a laser. However, in 1952 the laser
wasn’t invented. So, was, the bar code a technology whose time had not yet come?
The duo though sensed the potential and were persistent. They were granted
their patent in October 1952. Woodland, who was an employee with IBM was able to
persuade the company to hire a consultant to evaluate bar codes. The consultant
saw the potential but said they would require technology that wasn’t nonexistent
and would take at least five years to come into being. By now, the patent was
halfway through its life. The duo in 1962 sold the patent to Philco who, in
turn, sold it to RCA. In 1971 RCA was able to jolt not just the retail sector
but several industries with the barcode. By then, came several advances in
information technology in freight handling many of them pioneered by the US rail
industry. Freight wagons, wherever they are positioned initially become nomads.
They wander all across the length and breadth of the country and often abroad
as well. Where multiple railway companies exist, they may be lent to another
company. Keeping track of them is therefore a challenge, possibly one of the
most complex tasks the industry faces. In the early 1960s, before the
ocean-going container was invented, it attracted the attention of David J.
Collins, an MIT master's graduate. He immediately went to work for the Sylvania
Corporation, which was trying to find military applications for a computer it
had built.
At that time the railroads,
as railways are called in the United States, needed a way to identify cars
automatically and then to handle the information gathered. While Sylvania’s
computer could do the latter, Collins needed a means to retrieve the former. The
obvious approach was some sort of coded label. This seemed to be the easiest
and cheapest option. The labels Collins experimented with, however, were not
bar codes. They used groups of orange and blue stripes made of reflective
material, which were arranged to represent the digits 0 to 9. Each car was
given a four-digit number to identify the railroad that owned it and a
six-digit number to identify the car itself. Readers would flash a beam of coloured
light onto the codes and interpret the reflections. The first test of the
system was conducted in 1961 and by 1967 a nationwide standard for a coding
system was adopted. All that remained was for railroad companies to buy and
install the equipment.
Collins, in the meantime,
foresaw applications for automatic coding far beyond the railroads. In 1967 he
pitched the idea to his bosses at Sylvania.
He suggested a” little
black-and-white-line equivalent for conveyor control and for everything else
that moves.” However, the company refused to fund him. So, Collins quit and
cofounded Computer Identics Corporation. In the meanwhile, carriers started
installing scanners in 1970, and the system worked as expected, but was still too
expensive, despite the fact that computers had become a lot smaller, faster,
and cheaper. They still cost too much to be economical in the quantities
required. Yet, Computer Identics prospered. Its system used lasers, which in
the late 1960s were just becoming affordable. A milliwatt helium-neon laser
beam could easily match the job done by Woodland’s unwieldy five-hundred-watt
bulb. A thin stripe moving over a bar code would be absorbed by the black
stripes and reflected by the white ones, giving scanner sensors a clear on/off
signal. Lasers could read bar codes anywhere from three inches to several feet
away, and they could sweep back and forth like a searchlight hundreds of times
a second, giving the reader many looks at a single code from many different
angles. That would prove to be a great help in deciphering scratched or torn
labels.
Computer Identics quietly
installed its first two systems in 1969. This probably is the first true
barcode system anywhere. General Motors and the General Trading
Company were the two first buyers. The barcodes at that were very simple, bearing
only two digits’ worth of information, which was all that was needed then. It
however proved their efficacy and potential. From manufacturing settings, it
moved to the grocery industry. This was the sector that provided the needed impetus
to push the technology forward. By the early 1970s, the industry was able to
propel itself to full commercial maturity. The technology that Woodland and
Silver had invented and Computer Identics made and sold proved feasible.
RCA attended a 1966 grocery-industry meeting where bar-code
development had been urged, and they took off. At one of their laboratories in
Princeton, New Jersey, the Kroger grocery chain volunteered to be a guinea pig.
In the mid-1970s, an industry consortium established an ad hoc committee to look
into bar codes. Guidelines were set for bar-code development. They also created
a symbol-selection subcommittee to help standardize the approach. Many consider
this industry’s Manhattan Project. [see: https://www.energy.gov/manhattan-project]
Alan Haberman who headed the subcommittee as president of First National Stores
said that they showed that it could be done on a massive scale. That cooperation
without antitrust implications was possible for the common good, and that
business didn’t need the government to shove it in the right direction. What
barcodes did was to make life easier for the cashier, not harder. To achieve
this bar codes would need to be readable from almost any angle and at a
distance as well. Mass production would make the labels cheap and easy to
print. To be affordable, automated checkout systems would have to pay for
themselves as fast as possible.
For more on the history of
barcodes read” https://bar-code.com/upc/bar-code-history/
& https://www.theinventors.org/library/inventors/blbar_code.htm.
Also available is a 1970 study by McKinsey & Company. These studies have
shown that the introduction of barcodes has saved the retail industry over USD
150 million a year.
Today, in the realm of logistics and supply chain management, QR
codes represent a significant leap from traditional barcodes. This has heralded
a new era of information exchange and accessibility. These advanced codes,
coupled with the ubiquity of smartphones and tablets, have fundamentally
transformed how we approach tasks such as inventory management, shipment
tracking, and package sorting. Let’s look at their working and how they’ve
transformed logistics.
QR Codes & their Role in Transforming Logistics
QR codes (quick-response
code), invented in 1994, by Japanese company Denso Wave for
labelling automobile parts can be describes as of
two-dimensional matrix barcodes. A typical QR code consists of
black squares arranged in a square grid on a white background. Included in it are
some features called fiducial markers, which can be read by an imaging device,
such as a camera. The image once read is processed using what’s termed as
Reed-Solomon error correction. [see: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~guyb/realworld/reedsolomon/reed_solomon_codes.html
] This enables the image to be appropriately interpreted. The required
data are then extracted from patterns that are present in both the horizontal
and the vertical components of the QR image.
How do QR codes differ from
barcodes? Barcodes are machine-readable optical images that contain information
specific to the labeled item. QR codes, on the other hand, contain data for a
locator, an identifier, and for web-tracking. QR codes use four standardized
modes of encoding to efficiently and effectively store data. These are:
1. Numeric
2. Alphanumeric
3. Byte
or binary, and
4. Kanji,
i.e., Chinese characters
Compared to standard universal
product codes and barcodes, the applications of the QR labeling system are much
more far-reaching. It has gone beyond the automobile industry. Faster reading
of the optical image and greater data-storage capacity are the reasons. They’ve
helped a great deal in applications such as product tracking, item
identification, time tracking, document management, and general marketing. As we’ve seen, QR codes have
been a part of logistics since
their creation in 1994. Like barcodes, since their inception, they have mainly
fulfilled two functions in warehouses, one, to help operators take inventory more quickly and to provide
full traceability.
[Do read: The
importance of traceability in logistics - Mecalux.com] They monitor of all
the products across the various processes they go through along the supply
chain. They do it fast and are very accurate. The
consulting firm Future Marketing Insights states that the global QR code market
was valued at $996.8 million in 2018 and is expected to increase annually by
8.7% up to 2027. They’ve had a great impact on the supply chains. We shall
continue exploring how they’re used. We’ll also be discussing their
characteristics and advantages. [see: https://www.mecalux.com/blog/qr-codes-logistics]
So, what are QR codes?
[see:
Item coding
in the warehouse - Mecalux.com] So, to define the term, QR
or Quick Response codes refer to an item coding system
created to be read extremely quickly, at lightning speed. QR codes store different types of information: numeric codes, text,
webpage links, and even small binary files, with a 3 KB limit. [also see: History of QR Code | QRcode.com |
DENSO WAVE ] Denso Wave is a Japanese company, a subsidiary of the Toyota Group.
Engineers here developed QR codes so they could overcome the limitations of
barcodes. These shortcomings included having operators in their plant to scan many
barcodes and identify a large number of SKUs. This required time and effort. Also,
products in varying sizes and with multiple characteristics were being manufactured
in their plants. They therefore needed smaller codes that adapted to different
sizes of their products. What’s more, with products of varying sizes
and characteristics, they needed smaller codes that adapted to the different
sizes of the goods. The company’s objective was to make inventory
management with barcodes as flexible as possible, at the same time, be able to
read the codes at a very high speed.
This was
achieved through the design of the QR codes. Sizes of QR codes start from as
tiny as 0.9 x 0.9 cm.
How QR Codes Work: QR labels consist
of quadrangular codes containing small black and white squares, called modules,
like shown here:
They can be termed as advanced forms of traditional barcodes, capable of storing more comprehensive information. They are scanned using smartphones or specialized barcode-scanning devices. Once scanned the information is stored and access to the stored data can be retrieved instantly. The code’s black and white squares are then decoded into binary language in a computer-friendly format. The data can then be linked to various other actions like opening a webpage or revealing inventory details in the supply chain. The Information retrieved from barcodes is not sufficient to manage complex inventories. QR codes provide real-time data necessary for effective decision-making processes.
What’s more, they allow quick retrieval of product information and updates
on stock movement. This is done at high speeds. Through
swift scans and decoding procedures, they serve as gateways to extensive
traceability and visibility within the supply chain framework. However, they have
their limitations which have been dealt with as well with the introduction of
RFID labels. We’ll deal with these at a later stage. Before that
let’s see where QR codes have helped in certain areas. These areas are inventory
management, shipment tracking, and sorting & routing. Let’s look at each of
these:
Inventory Management helps companies
identify what stock they hold and how much. Based on this they can know
what to order and when. Inventory is tracked from purchase to the sale of individual
items. Proper inventory managers can identify and respond to trends to
ensure there’s always enough stock to fulfill customer orders and a proper advance
warning of a shortage. A critical component in just-in-time inventory systems forecasting
and ensuring that products never get stocked out. This is where accuracy and
promptness are crucial. Integrating automated scanning devices ensures that
those in charge of procurement and distribution – two very important components
in supply chain management – are able to accurately predict requirements and
demand. Precise inventory records and real-time updates, supported by QR Codes have
enhanced this ability.
The importance of Shipment tracking &
tracing can never be underestimated. The introduction of scannable codes offers
live updates throughout the supply chain thus revolutionized shipment tracking.
Transparency and accountability for both logistics providers and their clients
is thereby increased. This innovation has significantly boosted the efficiency
and reliability of delivery services.
Sorting and routing have been streamlined
by leveraging barcodes and QR codes. Most distribution centres have automated
sorting systems that direct packages more effectively and at a very high speed. So,
the sorting process is accelerated by quickly identifying the destination of each
package. This improves the speed and reliability of package routing operations.
As we’ve
stated, these technological advancements have led to great advancement in the
logistics sector, one that has stood for and been at the forefront of
efficiency and innovation. While barcodes revolutionized most segments in
logistics, especially inventory management, QR codes took them to a much higher
level. However, we now have a technology that has surpassed even the latter.
Radio
Frequency Identification (RFID) Labels & Tags
An RFID label or tag, in a
language to make the layperson understand, is a label with a transmitter that
sends radio signals from a package enabling a person with access to be able to
know its location in real time. Radio frequency identification can thus be termed as
a form of wireless communication that incorporates the use of
electromagnetic or electrostatic coupling in the radio frequency portion of the
electromagnetic spectrum to uniquely identify an object, animal or person. [see:
https://www.techtarget.com/iotagenda/definition/RFID-radio-frequency-identification]
The Working of RFID Tags & Labels
An RFID system consists
of three components: one; a scanning antenna, two; a transceiver, and
three; a transponder. Combining the scanning antenna and transceiver gives what
is referred to as an RFID reader or interrogator. RFID readers are of two types
– fixed and mobile readers, in other words, attached or portable. It is a network-connected
device that uses radio waves to transmit signals that activate the tag.
Once activated, the tag sends a wave back to the antenna, where it is
translated into data.
The transponder is in the RFID
tag itself. The read range for RFID tags varies based on factors including the
type of tag, type of reader, RFID frequency and interference in the surrounding
environment or from other RFID tags and readers. Tags that have a stronger
power source also have a longer read range.
RFID Tags and Composition & Types
An RFID tag is made of an
integrated circuit (IC), an antenna, and a substrate. An inlay is the part of the
RFID tag that encodes identifying information.
RFID tags are of two main types,
active and passive. An active RFID tag has its own power source, often a
battery while a passive RFID tag receives its power from the reading antenna,
whose electromagnetic wave induces a current in the RFID tag's antenna. Semi-passive
RFID tags also exist. In them, a battery runs the circuitry while communication
is powered by the RFID reader.
In every RFID system low-power,
embedded non-volatile memory plays a very important role. An RFID tag typically
holds less than 2,000 KB of data. This includes a unique identifier/serial
number. Tags may be read-only or read-write and data can be added by the reader
or existing data overwritten. Several factors affect the read
range for RFID tags. Variations are based on the type of tag, type of reader, RFID
frequency, and interference in the surrounding environment, even from other
RFID tags and readers. Active RFID tags have a longer read range compared to
passive RFID tags as their power source is stronger. Smart labels are simple
RFID tags that have an RFID tag embedded into an adhesive label and feature a
barcode. They can be used by both RFID and barcode readers. Smart labels can be
printed on-demand using desktop printers. RFID tags require more advanced
equipment.
Types of RFID Systems: RFID
systems come in three main categories, low frequency (LF), high
frequency (HF), and ultra-high frequency (UHF). Also
available is microwave RFID. Frequencies vary greatly by country and region.
Logisticians ought to know what is available in their own as well as customers’
and vendors’ locations. RFID systems range from 30 KHz to
500 KHz. However, typically the frequency is 125 KHz. LF RFID has short
transmission ranges – anywhere from a few inches to less than six feet. High-frequency
RFID systems range from 3 MHz to 30 MHz, with the typical HF
frequency being 13.56 MHz. The standard range is anywhere from a few inches to
several feet. UHF RFID systems range from 300 MHz to 960 MHz,
with the typical frequency of 433 MHz and can generally be read from 25-plus
feet away. Microwave RFID systems run at 2.45 GHz and
can be read from 30-plus feet away. The frequency used will depend on the RFID
application, with actual obtained distances sometimes varying from what is
expected.
Here are some common uses for RFID applications:
·
pet and livestock tracking
·
inventory management and control
·
asset and equipment tracking
·
vehicle tracking
·
customer service and loss control
·
improved visibility and distribution in the
supply chain
·
access control in security situations
·
shipping
RFID versus
Barcodes
Using RFID as an alternative to barcodes is increasing in
use and will replace them in the not-too-distant future. Here are some
important differences between them:
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RFID security and privacy
Security and privacy have been major
concerns that logisticians and other potential users have voiced. Among
the common concerns is that RFID tag data can be read by anyone with a
compatible reader. Tags can often be read much after an item leaves a store or
supply chain. They can also be read without a user's knowledge using
unauthorized readers, and if a tag has a unique serial number, it can be
associated to a consumer. While a privacy concern for individuals, in military
or medical settings this can be a national security concern or life-or-death
matter. One of the features of RFID tags is that they do not have a lot of
computing power. Therefore, they are unable to accommodate encryption. This can
pose as a challenge in their use. One exception to this, however, is specific
to RFID tags used in passports -- basic access control (BAC). Here, the chip
has sufficient computing power to decode an encrypted token from the reader, thus
proving the validity of the reader.
RFID Use in the Future
As trade volumes grow and customer
demands rise, RFID systems will increase is usage. The future will see
an increased use of the Internet of things. [do read this: What
is IoT (Internet of Things) and How Does it Work? | Definition from TechTarget]
Combining IoT with smart sensors and/or GPS [What
is Global Positioning System (GPS)? Definition from SearchMobileComputing
(techtarget.com)] will enable sensor data including temperature, movement, and location to be transmitted with ease. So, RFID tags, reader, and
antenna setup will be combined with powerful IoT edge computing in the reader
to process the data. [see: https://www.ibm.com/topics/edge-computing].
Changes can already be seen. Users will engage with the solution on the edge
level using a touch screen or other human input device. This edge-processed
data will be stored in the cloud. Edge computing will be dealt with in detail
later. We state right now that it enforces the rules set in ERP. In turn, the
user interface will be used to control the process and acquire data downstream.
RFID solutions will provide actionable information that can be utilized at the
shop floor level. Additionally, standard RFID readers, purpose-built or use case-driven readers will be more utilized in solutions.
In the not-too-distant future, edge
computing [see: https://www.ibm.com/topics/edge-computing]
and integrations with other systems
will allow RFID solutions to take a greater role in business operations and
decision-making. In the future, we’ll definitely see a huge role for RFID. It will
be seen as a source for more comprehensive data management. RFID will identify
the items in conjunction with adjacent technologies providing information on
the environment, condition, location, movement, status, and much more. The
future also sees RFID more as an integral part of daily operations. Many decisions
will be made based on findings from data obtained through RFID and adjacent
technologies mentioned. RFID solutions will provide meaningful input for
tactical decision-making at the grassroots. Data will be available there.
Powerful edge computing will result in many new uses for RFID. Data will be
processed on-site, giving users valuable information on a real-time basis.
