In Japan, pallets are primarily used within the compounds of individual facilities. Accordingly, integrated palletisation is not as widespread in Japan as it is in North America and Europe. Because most warehousing and shipment operations are conducted manually, they entail considerable labour requirements. The streamlining of warehousing and shipment operations will require the creation of a system that will enable the shared use of pallets and their collection by different companies. We have been studying a dynamic status management method as a possible solution to this problem. This dynamic status management method employs a transportation unit consisting of a product and a pallet, to which an electronic tag is attached. However, since electronic tags are not yet commonly used, we need to clarify the technical and operational problems that their use will entail. With this background in mind, we have developed an experimental system and tested it under actual distribution conditions to verify its feasibility.
Abstract