It is not often that we talk about “going green” on this blog. We usually focus on the immediate financial or infrastructural benefits produced by RFID. However, Mission Foods (a Gruma Corp. subsidiary) has been able to leverage both benefits.

Mission Foods is primarily a producer and distributor of tortillas and other corn flour products (providing about a quarter of the tortillas used worldwide). As you can imagine, they use a lot of corrugated boxes. Or at least they used to.

It wasn’t only environmentally friendly though, it was also financially friendly. Each single use corrugated box cost approximately $1. The new plastic container cost $7. So as every business minded person can see, the plastic containers must be used at least 8 times to increase profitability.

Mission Foods completely surpassed this. Their boxes are used 20 times on average. This initiative has saved the company an estimated $700,000 so far. This is not bad considering the system only cost about $100,000 to implement, and the implementation is a story in itself.

Three fixed readers are erected throughout the monstrous warehouse. One near the shipping area to record pallet and container ID’s as they leave for another facility. A second is near the receiving area for when empty pallets and containers are returned. The third is set up in the middle of the warehouse and is used when either of the other areas is experiencing high traffic.

The system had to be tweaked of course. Readers would pick up tags laid to close to the shipping or receiving centers. However, the data could be disregarded if the tag was read multiple times over a period of time.

All in all, Mission Food should be set as an example of how RFID can be used to increase profitability, environmental conservation, or both. If a problem is plaguing your company, a little creativity combined with RFID could create a very company friendly solution. Contact Ron Pulvermacher at Matrix Product Development to utilize his RFID expertise for your business.