Product

The problem
For an egg packing centre, food safety and traceability are necessary conditions to be ready for the future. In quality systems, like KAT and Lion Code, traceability is a must. According to the EU-regulation 178/2002 (General Food Law), packing centres have to have a complete traceability system in place.
problematiek
There are two directions in traceability. Based on a unique farmer code on the egg, any consumer can find the originating farm where the eggs have been produced (tracing). Much more difficult is to find out to which specific customers the eggs from a certain farm, house or production date have been delivered to. This is even more complicated because eggs are often graded for stock, because there is no sales-order at the moment of grading. This means that eggs are graded for stock and connected to a specific sales-order later.
problematiek
In case of a recall, taking back certain eggs, it is obvious that the customer does not want to spend time examining every egg, he just needs to know in which carton or on which pallet these eggs have been delivered.
problematiek
In the packing station the cartons and pallets should get a unique code on the labels. With this code it should be easy to find the origin and the destination of the eggs in the carton or pallet. BCS developed Ovotrack as a solution for this. Ovotrack can operate stand-alone, as well as integrated with existing information systems.
The solution
Ovotrack oplossing
At the end of the packing-lanes, label printers will be installed, e.g. one printer per two or four packing-lanes. Every packing lane gets a button. With this button an operator can generate a closing label for carton or pallet. These printers, buttons and the grading machine are connected in a network to a computer, on which OVOTRACK software is installed.
Ovotrack oplossing
In the Ovotrack software the operator can select which sales- or stock order is graded, which lay-out for the closing label should be printed and on which specific printer the label must be printed. Packing-lanes can be grouped, in case an order is graded on more than one lane. Furthermore the operator can prepare the Ovotrack software for the next order by putting the orders in a buffer. In Ovotrack the production and or expiry dates can be selected and changed, if needed.
On the loader side of the egg grading machine the operator should select which eggs are being graded by scanning farmer labels on containers or pallets or by selecting a farm from a list. Of course Ovotrack can also make use of the information from existing systems, if that is the case.
Ovotrack oplossing
When graded eggs that have been graded for stock are delivered to a customer, the expedition people have to register the final customer for these eggs, by scanning the barcode on the closing label. In Ovotrack the supplier-orders and sales-orders are connected, to realize the traceability.
Ovotrack scheme
Ovotrack scheme
Receiving ungraded eggs. Scanning or printing labels for pallets with IP-number, date of lay and stampcode.
Scanning pallet labels with IP-number at the loader. The relevant information will be forwarded to the grading machine. Machine sends back grading results.
Select the product or sales-order for each packing lane. Possibility to change label lay-out or printer settings.
One button box for every 2 packing lanes. With the printers on top of the button boxes labels with unique EPC-codes for outer boxes can be printed after pushing the button.
Printing or labeling prepacks.
Printing or labeling sleeves or prepacks.
With an automatic applicator labels with EPC codes are printed and applied to outer boxes fully automatically.
During manual or automatic palletizing EPC-codes can be scanned and a pallet label can be printed.
Scanning EPC-codes again in order to prepare a customer order.
During loading all labels or pallet labels have to be scanned and connected to the end destination. An SSCC label can be printed here as well.
Interfacing and synchronizing with ERP software or other packing centers.
Final destination known. Graded for a specific sales order and customer. So final destination of eggs is known.
Final destinationyet unknown. Graded for stock. Final customer is not known yet.