How RFID Eases the Burden on the Greenhouse Workforce and Budget

RFID tags allow growers to track their products during picking, packing, and shipping. Photo: WestRock

Greenhouse growers, along with all businesses, are always looking for more efficiency. They look for strategies to streamline processes, reduce input costs, and produce more crops. To track crops throughout the greenhouse and prior to shipping, growers are turning to radio frequency identification (RFID) tags.

Chris Kirk, Director of Digital Strategy for WestRock, describes RFID as passive tags that absorb energy in the 902-928 MHz range. WestRock uses equipment to energize the tags and they report back a unique code, similar to a license plate. The tag is encoded with information about the product on the tray, so it allows growers to track the product. For example, a tray with 12 petunias may have one RFID tag. Growers can store metadata as well, such as propagation dates and target shipment dates.

Kirk says RFID is used for validating inbound inventory. If growers receive inventory from another supplier using RFID tags, growers can track trays and pots. It also allows for streamlined picking, packing, and shipping products. RFID can assist in bulk assignment of greenhouse locations at an individual item level.

“Shipment validation is one key area providing value,” Kirk says of RFID tags. “When you bulk pick items, you may pull a large number of a specific flowering plant for the day’s orders, but you only need to ship 10 to one location, five to another location, and three somewhere else. You can validate the carts you’re building for a specific store location without having to manually count that inventory. You can push a cart through an RFID portal and capture everything that’s on that cart against the shipping order without having to scan each item individually.”

Lloyd Traven, President of Peace Tree Farm, has been working with WestRock to implement RFID tags at his facility in Kintnersville, PA. He plans to switch over to RFID tags early this fall. Traven says in the spring, there are better ways to use his workforce than checking orders prior to shipment. It can be done more efficiently with RFID tags.

“We want to check that order and make sure it’s correct. It took probably 20 man hours in one day of people with clipboards and multiple page invoices,” Traven says. “It may only be six weeks a year we have to do that, but it can be replaced by scanning the RFID tags and knowing it’s there. It can be done in seconds instead of hours.”

He says RFID tags will also be helpful in the inventory process. Instead of counting and recounting, RFID tags do the counting for you. There are even carts to wheel down the aisle in the greenhouse and they read RFID tags on both sides of the aisle.

“We know how many and where it is exactly and it makes it easier to find, count and pull efficiently,” Traven says.

Kirk says there is a key benefit of RFID tags over bar codes. Bar codes have a one-to-one relationship, so there is one trigger pull and one bar code read. As a result, there must be a line of sight to each individual bar code.

“The great thing about RFID is the technology’s ability to capture multiple reads per scan,” Kirk says of improved efficiency. “You can read up to thousands of RFID tags in just one push through the appropriate portal. It reads each tag and provides visibility of product level inventory without actually having line of sight to each individual item. Plants can be in a box, prepackaged and ready to ship, and you can read the eight plants inside your box.”

Traven says Wegman’s is a major customer for Peace Tree Farm. He expects Wegman’s to require RFID tags in the future since they make the delivery process faster and easier. For example, Traven says Peace Tree could send a truck to Wegman’s distribution center, where the truck is unloaded and scanned. With RFID tags, the pallets do not have to be deconstructed to confirm that the shipment is correct. Sometimes drivers wait two to three hours while distribution warehouse employees check the order.

“It saves a ton of time, there’s no question,” Traven says. “You’re paying people $25 to $30 per hour and they’re there for three hours to unload, break down pallets, and cross dock the truck.”

Despite the initial capital outlay, Traven says the RFID system will save money for Peace Tree Farm over time. For example, he says his team may produce 50,000 1-quart pots of lavender, including 8,000 pots of each variety. The sales team may be leery to sell out the lavender, to ensure that every order is filled. There may be 400-500 leftover lavender pots of each variety that were not sold. When each pot costs $4, 500 leftover pots of several varieties make a big difference in the bottom line, he says.

“Job #1 is cutting shrink,” Traven says. “Any amount of shrink you’ve built into your costing program that you can recover is money that goes 100% into the company’s coffers. It’s 100% profit. If we built in 5% loss and we can cut to 4%, that’s a 20% difference in the profit level for that item just for the shrink.”

Traven says when Peace Tree does cuttings and seedlings for other growers, they may have an order for 50 flats but actually produce 54 flats. He wants the software system to identify and track those four extra flats so they can be automatically posted to Ball Seed for sale.

RFID tags will also save on labor. Traven says he respects his workers’ time and wants to limit their schedule to 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. However, in the spring, this is not always possible. A few times in the spring, employees may work 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Traven says RFID tags can speed up the picking and shipping process, and employees can leave earlier. Also, when paying 20 employees $20 per hour, shorter days save money.

Kirk says RFID systems can be scaled to match the growers’ needs. By identifying pain points and minimizing redundant activities, growers can save money and improve efficiency.

Julie Hullett is Managing Editor of Greenhouse Grower. See all author stories here.