RASTRO - RFId technology based system for the bovine supply chain management and tracking

• Grant number: 07/01403-0
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Innovative Research in Small Business - PIPE
• Start date: July 01, 2008
• End date: December 31, 2008
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Computer Science - Computer Systems
• Principal Investigator: Arnaldo Ferreira Sima
• Grantee: Arnaldo Ferreira Sima
• Company: Sima Comércio e Serviços Ltda
• City: Cajobi
• Associated researchers: Arnaldo Ferreira Sima ; Marcelo Lima de Paiva ; Paulo Henrique Simas

Abstract

Brazil, in recent years, is established as the world"s leading meat exporter (in tons), conquering important markets and creating plenty of jobs in this sector. This market, however, has servant several requirements and barriers that make it difficult to Brazil to maintain this significant presence. Perhaps amongst them, the control and the tracking of the meat and the herd are the most important and restrictive ones. The Brazilian government has implemented several initiatives in the direction to promote greater competitiveness to the sector, with actions as the creation of the SISBOV system and the promotion to the certifier agents to the process, however, have had its effectiveness questioned because the form and amplitude of such actions, beyond the impeditive costs for the adoption by many of the involved agents in the process. The RASTRO project searches for the development of a low cost integrated system, based on the WEB, for the bovine logistic supply chain, integrating the registers of all stages of this chain, since the production, the purchase and the storage of row materials, passing by the stages of handling, including the flock genealogy, to the meat industrialization and transportation to the retail agents. This process will be based on the use of radio frequency micro chips (RFId) for the identification, aiming to the improvement of the identification, management and control processes, adding security and agility to the access to the information by the Internet, supporting the tracking and the accompaniment of all bovine logistic supply chain data, solving one of the biggest problems faced for the exporters of bovine meat: the requirements for the chains tracking, related mainly to the modern requirements of food security and consumption habits. The RASTRO System will possess the following modules: Agriculturist, Production, Cattle and Handling, Industry, Logistic and Retail, corresponding to the main stages of the bovine chain, where in each one of them the relative information to that stage of the process will be stored and can be retreaved. This system will allow that the consumer, at the end of the chain, will be able to have access to all process information, related to a determined batch, by simple typing in system the batch number, or that it brings the product near to a reading RFId station. The RASTRO system will also have a control of the conditions and times of storage for each stage of the process, with the objective of solving problems related to logistics and validity, providing reduction of losses and costs, beyond improvements as precision and security in the storage informations. The RASTRO system will have to be based on an open architecture, based on the WEB, that will have to operate in an way integrated to the management systems of the supply chain stages and to have, as basic characteristic, the low cost of adoption, involving the installation and the maintenance costs, the versatility and the easiness of use, associated to the security and robustness of the system, beyond being multi-languages. In such a way, the system must have to be adopted by the whole chain, not only because its participants (producing, supplying, industries and governments) desire it, but mainly because the final consumers will see it as an important tool in the purchase time. (AU)