Research And Design Of RFID-Based Tea Logistics Tracking System

Since China is one of world’s major tea growers, tea plays an important role in people’s everyday life. In recent years, due to the producing techniques, management issues and low awareness of quality, chemical fertilizers and pesticide are widely used in tea production, causing environmental contamination and leaving some pesticide behind on tea leaves. What’s worse is tea’s particular growing environment, complex processing procedures and lack of efficient information management method in its supply chain. Serious differences between physical flow and information flow make it difficult to trace the root of problematic tea, to recall inferior tea and to hold relevant parties accountable, all of which have severely jeopardized the reputation of tea manufacturers and customers’ confidence in tea industry. It is about time that we constructed a Tea Logistics Tracking System to insure the tea quality.The research mainly comprises four parts as follows:1. Design of the Tea Logistics Tracking SystemBased on the research made in tea companies including Fujian Anxi Bama Tea Company, the author studies and analyzes tea processing techniques, current manufacturing situation and level of logistic informatization, and then proposes a RFID-Based Tea Logistics Tracking System composed of five parts: growing management, processing management, logistics management, tea tracking and system management. With the aid of RFID technique, the information collected in every stage is shared in the database, which insures a smooth connection between physic flow and information flow during tea production, processing and sales.2. Development of Google MapsBy further developing Google Maps and programming with Java Script, a digital map is constructed to present the information concerning tea production, processing and sales. It provides a new, easier and vivid way for customers to obtain relevant information on the tea they bought.3. Development of Tea Tracking CodeConsidering the varying attributes of farm products, tea manufacture situation and traits of RFID tag, the author designs a RFID-Based EPC coding system which consists of six parts, i.e. regional number, company number, production line number, worker number, area number and certification. The coding system insures the code on each tea parcel is unique. Besides, the system can be universally adopted for its convenience and accordance with tea growing and processing.4. Research on RFID tag collisionTea is of high economic value added. It is usually packaged in iron boxes, wooden boxes and cartons. The author develops a coding system based on the RFID middleware. By comparing four different collision algorithms, the thesis discusses the selection of appropriate RFID collision algorithms in different conditions.The RFID-Based Tea Logistics Tracking System makes it possible to keep track of the tea from tea garden all the way to teacup. It improves the efficiency of tea quality responding mechanism and enhances the information management of tea manufacturers. The platform allows visualized tracking, which safeguards customers’ right to know about the tea manufacturing process and in the meantime provides a new user-friendly way to present the information.