beverage test

Created on 26 October 2012

i-Track is the first complete and state of the art solution intended to manage a complete set of business processes in the beverage industry.

Full-scale asset tracking and process optimisation significantly reduce costs and improve customer satisfaction and therefore loyalty to the selected brand.

Beer is always kept fresh, a drinker's delight and a brewer's pride.

Beer Keg Life Cycle

Tracking beverage dispensing and cooling equipment, as well as the life cycle of beer kegs and casks has always been essential. By using i-Track it becomes full scale and highly efficient.

Modern breweries have tens or hundreds of thousands of beer kegs, casks, and bottle crates in circulation; managing such large investment flows successfully keeps customers satisfied and allows you to have a cutting-edge advantage over your competition. From now on beer kegs, casks, and bottle crates can be traced more precisely and transparently than ever before.

i-Track improves draft beer quality, error frequency drops to a minimum, and stocks of beer kegs are optimized.

i-Track can be integrated into every modern business environment and production facility.

i-Track comprises three basic parts:

Modular software solution
Tracking terminals, and
RFID tags.

The i-Track solution enables you to monitor the entire process effectively and efficiently, from production, maintenance, and sales, to distribution and draft beer consumption. With RFID tags data about the assets' movement are stored in a central i-Track data warehouse. Their true value even improves when using i-Track application software integrated into the existing ERP system.

Proven implementation methodologies provide control over deployment in order to reduce risks and ensure reliable results. The best practices integrated into i-Track anticipate your business needs, reduce costs, and give you fast ROI (return on investment).

i-Track quality is ensured by ISO 9001 standard regulations; the required traceability can be ensured almost automatically.

Schematic presentation of the beer keg identification system on the racking line and the integration into the central i-Track system

Modular software solution

		Using the i-Track solution in production phases and warehousing offers the following advantages: Quality Enhancement of production capacities due to automated beer keg, cask, and crate elimination and supervision Complete traceability Reduction of unsuitable products delivered to the consumer Identifying unsuitable suppliers or critical spots in production phases Production data Total amount of filled kegs and casks according to different criteria Racking line statistics Line productivity Errors on the line Precautionary identification of weak spots on the line Media consumption Warehousing Checking best before dates Optimizing the pallet stack Keeping permanent records about stock availability and its location Maintenance Kegs and casks maintenance cycle

The set of software modules included in i-Track offer full scale support for business processes in the beverage industry.

Production and Warehousing

Connecting software with special hardware solutions for beer keg identification on a racking line makes the process traceable in real-time. All entered events are saved in appropriate records. This ensures complete traceability of the product.

Kegs are controlled from the point of entering the racking line onwards. A keg or cask that does not meet the determined criteria is automatically eliminated. There are up to four control points on the racking line:

Entrance Air-tightness control Weighing Palletization

Thus high quality filling is ensured; no keg or cask can skip any of the production phases unsupervised. The system also eliminates all kegs and casks which have been labelled as unsuitable.

The system also tracks every product throughout warehousing. The provided tracking optimizes warehousing and keeps track of all best before dates.

For this purpose, all pallets with products are labelled with a suitable barcode, and all fork lift trucks with automatic reading devices.

Although i-Track offers a specialized solution for warehouse management, integration with the existing warehousing software is an option as well.

Distribution and Sales

Traceability is ensured throughout distribution, both wholesale and retail channels, all the way to the final customer. The system gives us an accurate picture of the market route of the traced kegs, casks, and crates.

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Statistical tracking of the entire distribution flow gives a clear picture of product movement and sales channels. Valuable and accurate information about market routes are more transparent and readily available for producers. Sales become manageable, and the producer's dependence on retailers and distributors is reduced considerably.

The system can offer the following information at any moment:

The current location of each and every specified asset,
The last known location of any missing asset,
Inversion of assets, especially beer kegs and casks,
Grey market analysis.

i-Track supports field sales as well as classic sales. Integration into the ERP system ensures transparent transfer of all data.

i-Track field sales is a modern on/offline system, creating equal opportunities for field work in comparison with other sale venues. It provides your customers the convenience of paying with credit cards and using bonus cards. The immediate results of using this solution are time savings and the complete satisfaction of your customer's needs.

Selling with the i-Track system also enables you to monitor your customer's behaviour, and offers CRM support, project management, and analytical instruments, which constantly improves your sales results.

By implementing the i-Track solution you gain:

Remarkable traceability of distribution and sales channels,
The ability to identify most final customers,
Lowering dependence on big retailers and distributors,
Valuable feedback on market behaviour,
Just in time delivery possibilities.

Consumption

One exceptional innovation in the i-Track system is the ability to track consumption for every sales microlocation. Adequately equipped beverage dispensers with installed sensors can monitor a multitude of data, depending on your needs and wishes. A beer keg, cask, or crate connected with a beverage dispenser can be identified and monitored, it can count the amount of liquid poured out, identify cleaning cycles, etc.

Remarkable traceability is ensured by special sensor equipment installed on beverage dispensers. It enables complete traceability of sales channels and beer kegs. Sales channels of goods and the grey market are monitored to the last detail. The producer strengthens its position on the market and significantly enhances its competitive advantage due to a thorough understanding of market mechanisms.

By being acquainted with exact data about sales at certain microlocations, the producer can effectively stimulate those sale outlets which need more attention according to the producer's sales policy.

Monitoring consumption at various events and parties is now easier than ever, even if there are hundreds of thousands of guests in a short period of time. Individual sales outlets can now also be rewarded and stimulated accordingly.

Data transmission to i-Track is automatic. The obtained data is of crucial importance for:

Analyzing customers' habits,
Effectively stimulating customers,
Identifying the grey market, and
Correctly defining market channels.

Tracking terminals

If the software represents the nerve system of the i-Track system, then the tracking sensors are its antennae. The system employs:

Basic RFID and BARCODE sensors
Mobile sensors, potentially combined with RFID sensors

The first type of sensors cover tracking within individual buildings of the provider's business' system – the solution involves warehouse operations and the tracking of assets throughout the production processes of refilling.

Mobile sensors provide information of the status in field. They can be used for mobilesales maintenance tracking. Special versions of mobile sensors are intended for tracking beverage consumption. A special upgrade of dispenser tracking even enables measuring the liquid poured out, both with respect to the type and amount of liquid. Such sensors are also able to identify the type and kind of beer cask connected to the individual dispensing point.

RFID

The operability of the whole i-Track system and its uparalleled efficiencyis enabled by tiny, barely perceptible, passive elements. These are RFID tags, which are able to identify the assets to which they are attached, by means of radio waves.

Analytics

At any moment large amounts of particularly accurate data are entered into the i-Track system, with regard to:

Production
Warehousing
Sales

Distribution
Asset management
Maintenance

Data only becomes truly valuable after processing it with the analytical tools integrated into the i-Track system. i-Track reports and analyses are easily adaptable to the needs of individual users. Virtually all reports can be prepared in text and graphic form. The main analysis areas are the following:

Employees and contractors
Market channels
Sales and consumption
Warehousing
Beverage dispensing and cooling equipment
management and inventory

i-Track automatically builds a data warehouse from the gathered information. Reports are instant and are supplied from transaction data bases as well as from the data warehouse, with consideration of the features of the analysis in question.

Notifying and Messaging

The system automatically sends out notifications regarding important events and escalations by e-mail, SMS, or automatic voice messages. i-Track offers remote diagnosis and remote error correction.

Integration

Standard and prepared interfaces encourage quick integration with existing ERP systems in the user's environment. Data flow between i-Track and ERP systems enables analysis with combined data from both sources, the results of which are highly efficient business analysis and reports.