Butchery improves supply chain using trackable pallet boxes

Based in the United Kingdom, Baird Foods is a pork butchery producing approximately 300–400 tonnes of boned pork a week. Its product is transported using the Dolav Ace plastic pallet boxes, which are re-usable, returnable and stackable. The company now sends all its pork product and by-product in Trackable Dolav boxes to customers in the UK and Europe.

With a unique identification number, each trackable pallet box is designed to automatically report its location back to the company once a day using technology from Sirius Asset Solutions.

“Sirius provided us with its immediately ready-to-use system for any Windows, desktop or laptop,” said Kevin Horner, General Manager of Baird Foods. “The system automatically locates every Trackable Dolav. User training took 15 minutes and there is no data entry and no maintenance because the Sirius system does everything. That is why we like it. It is fully automatic and tracks everything by itself. We don’t have to do anything.”

Baird Foods completed a one-off set-up task using a spreadsheet screen to enter the addresses of their customers’ sites and the area around them. The trackable Dolav pallet boxes are shown on the system as either ‘at a customer site’ or ‘not at a customer site’. The system also holds and displays the location history of every box, for all boxes. Mislaid boxes can be easily located, as every trackable box has details printed on it to stop it going adrift.

“Now our Dolavs self-track and are returned. That cuts costs,” Horner said.

The trackable technology has reduced staff time and cost needed to recover stolen or lost boxes. It also prevents customers from keeping newer Dolavs and returning older, more worn pallet boxes. The Trackable Dolavs also identify routes experiencing box loss or damage, making administration easier. Each box is designed to ‘report in’ once a day with its location, and can do so for four years without requiring maintenance or recharging.

“The system is simplicity itself. We had our staff up and running on it in 15 minutes and immediately started to save money. We know where our Dolavs are, we can schedule them more efficiently and we can easily recover lost and stolen Dolavs. It’s win-win all around,” said Barry Baird, Director of Baird Foods.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Renar