When the folks at Dole Fresh Vegetables, a division of Dole Food Co., Inc., began brainstorming ways to trace fruits and vegetables back to the point of harvest, they had no idea they would be setting a new safety standard in the food industry.
While government traceability regulations require companies to track the raw material stream from the "field to the fork," finding a way to quickly pinpoint exactly where in the field a specific vegetable came from has been next to impossible — until now.
Under the leadership of Steve Robinson, vice president of business process development at Dole Fresh Vegetables, the company devised a way to combine existing technology — scanning equipment, cell phones, RFID tags, and global positioning system (GPS) navigation — to create a harvest management system that follows product bins from the fields through the processing steps, which include weighing, cooling, and cold storage. If, for some reason, contamination of the foods is detected at any point in the cold chain, the system, using device management and dashboard displays, provides traceability down to the GPS coordinates of the field — within a few hundred square feet — where the product was picked.
If there ever is a contamination problem — and Dole hasn't had one since it deployed the system a year ago — the company can look at the environmental conditions of the field at the time of harvest to make assessments, Robinson says.
"The critical difference is the ability to incorporate the GPS capabilities into harvesting such that we can trace not only back to a specific field, but a specific location within the field," Robinson says. "We know when the harvest starts, when it stops, when it was put on the truck and arrived at the cooling warehouse location, as well as how long it takes us to get from the receiving station through the cooling system and into cold storage. That allows us to manage the cold chain, which not only enhances quality, but minimizes food safety risk."
Dole's clever creation of a track-and-trace solution that increases efficiency through the cold chain process as well as protects the consumer won the company recognition as the High Achiever in the category of Operational Excellence in Managing Automation's 2008 Progressive Manufacturing Awards program.
"While this project was voted on months ago, the recent tomato recalls perfectly illustrate why this project was so important and deserving of the High Achiever award from MA," says PM judge Bruce McKay, who is executive vice president and director of Livingston & Haven, winner of the 2007 Progressive Manufacturer of the Year award. "Dole's ability to provide quality and traceability checks throughout the process has set the standard for all other food companies. The real winner of this effort is the consumer."
Dole collaborated with its RFID providers, including Lowry Computer Products and InSync Software, on issues related to reading tags on bins and refining the process to ensure that the information received is consistent and accurate. Now that the trial-and-error period is over and the system is working effectively, the project is moving into phase two — plant processing.
Dole's products include pre-bagged salads and packaged vegetables. Robinson and his team are in the final stages of developing shipping and receiving technology that will track those raw materials as they move through manufacturing facilities to specific packaging lines.
"The vision is exciting," Robinson says. And though it is difficult to put a dollar value on the ROI of the project, the Dole executive team understands the significance and importance of the effort.