Reference Frutania GmbH

Tracking the Palette by Using AI Sensor

AI Sensor Brings Order to the Fruit and Vegetable Warehouse

Frutania GmbH supplies fresh fruit and vegetables such as berries, apples, asparagus, and tomatoes to the food retail trade in Germany and Europe. Frutania sources its products from agricultural producers nationwide and throughout Europe. The goods are sorted and prepared for further transportation to the food retail trade in the all-year-cooled warehouse in the Innovationspark Rheinland, so that they are available in the trade the next day. Employees must move and process thousands of pallets with perishable goods daily in a targeted, structured, and systematic manner in the warehouse from delivery to further transportation. To be able to track every pallet at any time, Frutania worked with Telekom MMS experts to find a solution as part of a feasibility study.

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Reference at a Glance

Task

For product freshness, the smooth flow and locatability of pallets have to be ensured.

Solution

In this retro-fit solution, each pallet receives a paper label, which is captured by an industrial camera at a gate between two storage areas on passing forklifts and directly evaluated on an edge device with AI.

Result

The camera reads the labels flawlessly at a driving speed of up to 11 kilometers per hour, allowing for the easy location of the pallets without manual effort and without interrupting the work process.

This project was not only a lot of fun, but also brought us great progress. Now, artificial intelligence can help us improve the warehouse quality of our goods. Andre Moog, Managing Director at Frutania

Benefits for our Customers

Perishable goods do not stay in the warehouse for too long and can be found at any time
Merchandise organization processes are clearer, faster, and easier to manage
Goods location supports optimal warehouse planning

Requirements

Solution

Benefit

Requirements

Fresh Guarantee Through Reliable Product Flow

Producers deliver their harvest daily to Frutania's handling and packaging warehouse, before the company's own logistics company brings the fruit and vegetables to market within 24 hours. The warehouse employees must move an extremely high number of pallets with forklifts in the warehouse each year, from delivery to packaging to shipping. The throughput is necessarily very high due to the rapid spoilage of the goods. To ensure the freshness of its products, Frutania must carefully coordinate the processing of all pallets in the warehouse. This requires a tracking system that makes the location and movement of each pallet visible.

Due to the extremely high amount of moving charges needed daily, the use of intelligent labels such as RFID tags (radio frequency identification) or real-time locating systems (RTLS) would be too expensive and too complicated.

The tracking system should also integrate into the established product flow and connect with the IT landscape, as well as build on the currently used product labeling (label).

Solution

Pallet Tracking With Camera and AI

Due to the local conditions and the established shop floor logistics via express delivery, the Telekom MMS team identified a gate as the ideal monitoring point as part of the feasibility study. Here, a camera can capture each pallet as it passes by and record its movement pattern. To clearly identify the pallet with its load, it needs a coded label that the camera can read. Since smart labels are not an option, the experts are relying on a simple and quickly implementable solution that is linked to the existing system: a barcode and a continuous numbering printed on an A4 sheet. The employees attach it to the pallet, which allows it to be easily replaced or exchanged if needed.

In a simulation and synthesis model, the experts tested how the label must be constructed in order for the camera to read the code smoothly. The artificial data generated in the simulation environment trains an artificial intelligence that continually improves readability. The label consists of a continuous numbering and a barcode, whose size and representation were optimized in the model test. One challenge was to ensure that the camera could read the data at the forklift's cruising speed of seven kilometers per hour, so that the data could be processed by the AI video analysis.

The lighting conditions also needed to be considered for readability. To prevent warehouse employees from being blinded by necessary lighting when passing by, the team used glare-free infrared lighting. The specially configured hardware (edge server) processes the generated image data directly on site and makes it available in real-time in the local IT infrastructure.

Benefit

Stock Optimization and Time Savings

The feasibility study at one of the gates showed that the tracking system works flawlessly and can be scaled to other entrances. The movement data is reliably transferred to the leading merchandise management systems. Since the tracking system makes every pallet locatable at any time, employees no longer have to spend time searching for goods manually. This can result in an optimized warehouse planning. The wrapping processes are significantly accelerated because manual booking in the warehouse areas is no longer necessary. For employees, automation means time savings and easier work. Additionally, valuable new information is generated, such as the fill level of storage areas, which is also useful elsewhere. Frutania thus benefits from the transparency and the resulting guaranteed freshness of all goods.

Our Contact for Your Questions:

Dr. Cornelia Mossal

Corporate Communication

+49 35 1 - 28 20 - 0
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