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“SealTrac“
in the product name given to a custom data solution
developed for Base, Inc.
Base Inc. supplies corn syrup to soft
drink manufacturers and its parent, The Bama Companies,
maker of bakery goods for major restaurant chains. Base
relies on SealTrac to improve efficiency and cut costs of
tracking 60,000 shipping container seals and to comply with
the 2002 Bioterrorism Preparedness Act.
On every shipment of Base products,
seals are affixed to every container access point, including
all loading equipment. Each year Base uses over 60,000
seals, checks each one at least three times – at placement,
stops or transfer points, and removal – and logs all seal
data.
“Our seal tracking used to involve a
lot of labor and margin for error,” says Jim Youngblood,
Base general manager. “Now SealTrac helps us reduce
expensive errors, labor costs, and the time it takes to
process shipment seals.”
Paper on the Tracks
Seal-tracking with paper was labor
intensive, prone to error, and costly. To check seals in a
rail yard, workers climbed over, under, and around every
rail car, writing down the number and condition of every
seal, then carried the checklist inside where a clerk typed
the data into a spreadsheet. If a seal number needed to be
traced later, a clerk would have to sift through the
spreadsheets before reporting.
The results were errors – data recorded
incorrectly or paper lost to wind, weather, or mishandling –
and rising costs. Workers spent too much time on the paper
trail, and an error could force a buyer to reject a
shipment, costing Base up to $25,000 per rejection.
Pressure to fix the situation only
increased with passage of the FDA’s 2002 Public Health
Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness Act.
The SealTrac Solution
Today when Base workers climb the rail
cars, they carry a lightweight handheld computer with
barcode scanner and SealTrac software. They simply scan each
seal’s barcode, tap the touch screen to record the seal’s
condition, and Send. Complete, accurate data wirelessly
uploads to the SealLog database. If a problem is detected,
alerts go out instantly.
Less time and labor, dramatically lower
costs, almost zero errors – it’s the SealTrac solution.
Track and Trace
The FDA’s 2002 Bioterrorism Act will
soon require that all food products and shipments be
traceable, throughout the supply and distribution chains, in
hours. With SealTrac, Base has its container shipments in
compliance now, leaving them more time and resources to
address other challenges.
Project Highlights
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Replaced paper-based, manual
seal-tracking with efficient digital scanning
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Lower costs for time, labor,
tracking errors, shipment rejections
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Improves overall data accuracy and
audit/reporting status
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Foundation for bioterrorism
reporting requirements
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Up to 200,000 scans of 60,000 seals
per year
Technologies
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SealTrac pre-packaged, customizable
forms, secure user interface
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Rugged handheld with barcode
scanner
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Wi-Fi communication via 802.11b
standard
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Microsoft SQL Server 2000 database
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