Antti Permala

A Concept for Improving the Security and Efficiency of Multimodal Supply Chains

Multimodal supply chains are characterized by multiple changes of transport modes and vehicles. Hence the risks for theft, untimely delivery and freight quality deterioration increase. There is hence a growing need to manage the security and efficiency of consignments from door to door. This paper describes the results of the Finnish national SCIE (Supply Chain Security and Integrity) project, which had as main objective the development of a holistic framework for the management of the security and efficiency of supply chains. A profound risk analysis was performed to find key vulnerabilities of the service and suitable monitoring technology. The security service was developed to deal with the vast amount of actors in the multimodal supply chain, accurate transport plan data reception and the identification of exceptional situations. The service concept was tested by monitoring and analysing steel product shipments from Finland to Central Europe. Advanced intelligent monitoring devices were attached to the consignments. These devices gathered and transmitted in real-time environmental, transport stress and location information. The paper will give an overview of the framework, service concept and the analysed results of a multimodal shipment from Finland to Italy.

RFID: From Closed Systems to Improving Visibility in the Manufacturing Supply Chain

In many industrial sectors, the use of RFID in closed systems is evolving. To be implemented in global supply chains, all aspects related to RFID need to be standardised. By collecting, processing and distributing information efficiently, organisations should be able to improve the efficiency of their transport logistics processes, lower their operational costs, and improve their portfolio of logistics services. This case study describes the current perspectives, challenges and benefits of RFID applications in manufacturing industry. Automated, remote and wireless identification is a basic element in implementing efficient management systems in the supply chain. The most important identification techniques are barcode and RFID. Barcode is currently the most widely used method for the identification of parcels, but RFID is more suitable for automated identification for many different reasons including better readability and enhanced environmental durability. By reducing manual work and errors, RFID generates cost savings, increased productivity and efficiency of processes. There is a wide range of different RFID technologies that have varying reading ranges, protocols and data contents. There are two different approaches to using RFID tags and numbering the items to be identified. Recent standardisation developments have started to resolve the interoperability problems in the field of RFID identification.

Unveiling the RFID business: a survey of the Finnish RFID sector

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology has been employed in several industrial domains in closed systems, but wide-scale adoption has yet to be achieved. A significant share of RFID deployments is related to access control and payment solutions, although industrial RFID applications (e.g. tracking and product identification) are also gaining ground. At European level, Finnish companies have been at the forefront of RFID adoption. This paper analyses the current state of the Finnish RFID sector, including the business models of RFID providers, the most important customer segments, and the challenges perceived in the providers’ operational environment. Consequently, it should be possible to predict the development of the RFID sector in Europe in the near future.

The European approach to addressing RFID privacy

RFID is being used increasingly in different applications in numerous industries. Many of these applications involve the collection and storing of sensitive data which should be treated accordingly. In the USA, consumer campaigns and the public atmosphere favouring privacy have influenced RFID system design by preventing piloting the solutions which may pose a risk to privacy. However, in Europe the number of RFID applications has increased without significant public attention towards privacy issues. Therefore, the European Commission attempts to highlight the importance of recognising the impacts of RFID applications towards privacy and the need to protect data by launching the Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) framework. In Finland, where RFID use in companies is among the highest in Europe, RFID providers considered their competence in privacy and data protection issues to be quite high and they considered related legislation at least somewhat important to their business. Alternatively, their awareness on the PIA framework was slightly lower.

Decentralized approach to logistics execution monitoring in multi-actor network

To challenge dominant centralized solutions, a reference solution for transport execution monitoring was developed utilizing the messaging framework and the access point infrastructure in multi-actor network. The development required design of new standard, forwarder independent approach to logistics business information exchange, covering all transport modes and all stakeholders. The developed XML-based messaging framework and access point infrastructure enable the implementation of interoperable digital transport solutions at different stages of the transport process (booking, planning, monitoring, and completion). In the monitoring solution, notifications on the departure and arrival of shipments are received via Transport Status messages in real-time. The information transmitted can be manually input or it can come from automated identification solutions utilizing a variety of technologies like barcodes and RFID. The functional viewpoint of the monitoring application consists of two perspectives: the logistics service consumer (LSC) and the logistics service provider (LSP). Accommodating for both roles in one application offers some synergies compared to individual and dedicated solutions. Finally, the solution was tested in a business case to evaluate the benefits and weaknesses of the proposed solution comparing to predominant centralized solutions.