Performance increase and benefit compensation in supply chains by partial information sharing and billing based on identification of returnable transport items

Abstract

The hypothesis of performance-increase and benefit compensation within supply chains by partial information sharing and billing based on radio frequency identification (RFID) is verified within this paper. The concept is evaluated in a pilot project within the beverage industry. In supply chains, partial information sharing can be achieved based on RFID tags. In the pilot study, the tags are used to identify returnable transport items (RTI), because identification at item level would be too costly. The proposed integration of a billing system shall enable a compensation of benefits throughout the supply chain. In a first step, the billing model of the RTI pool operator is based on the proposed infrastructure. This approach is generic enough, though, to be adapted to many other scenarios and industries. A detailed description of RTI is given within the first paragraph. In the second paragraph, the technical applicability of ultra-high frequency (UHF) within the beverage supply chain is evaluated, and the modelling of the beverage supply chain is described. After logistical evaluation in Section 3, the fourth section describes the integration of a billing model. The pilot project carried out by the Bremen Research Cluster for Dynamics in Logistics was started in April 2008 to validate the proposed model in a real scenario within the beverage industry.