Automated Pallet Tracking Monitors Packaging And Distribution

Located in the Midwest, a large food processing facility produces more than 200,000 boxes of one cereal-type alone. As a part of their automated production, the facility needs to monitor how many boxes of cereal are actually shipped from their facility each day. To accomplish this, three Microscan MS-890 bar code scanners are mounted onto each post-packaging line.

The first two MS-890s are mounted near a turntable at the shrinkwrap station. Each corrugated cardboard box containing cereal boxes is pre-printed with a 20 mil, I 2 of 5 bar code on each side. After the automated system has stacked 30 boxes into a block formation, the station spins the block 360 degrees.

As the block is spinning, the first MS-890 scans the bar codes on one of the boxes on the bottom row of the block. If the bar code labels on the boxes are only visible from the top, a second MS-890, mounted above the turntable, scans the bar codes on the top of the block. The bar-coded information is sent to the host computer via RS-485 multidrop to register the block.