Synonyms

Wood object coding/decoding system

Related expressions

Luminescent nano pigments, RFID

Explanation

Marking and reading systems are essential for establishment of traceability in supply chains. The identifiers can be of different types, eg. paper notes, bar codes, RFID tags. To establish traceability the different actors in the supply chain must either use the same identifiers, or they must relate new identifiers to the ones used further upstream in the supply chain. This can enable complete traceability from origin to consumer.

In many supply chains today, traceability is only established in small parts of the chain. Typically a company can only trace products and raw materials to its vendor or customers. Traceability typically stops when a product changes ownership, or in manufacturing operations.

Application/usage in Indisputable KEY

Coding/marking of a wood object is essential to be able to trace a consumer wood product back to its origin. Firstly the log has to be marked in the forest by a mobile coding/marking unit. The marking unit will be integrated in the harvester machine out in the forest. A mobile coding/decoding device could also be hand held. If a human tags a log with a RFID transponder and reads it with a portable reading device it would be considered to be mobile.

When the logs arrives at the sawmill a reading/decoding device detects the code on the logs, applied by the harvester. This is a stationary reading/decoding device mounted for example at the measuring station at the sawmill. During the logs refinement through the sawmill, the original code will vanish and be replaced by a new code. So marking and reading will take place several times within the sawmill. The code marked in the sawmill will probably be different from the code marked in the forest. The marking at the sawmill is performed in a more controlled environment. The marking device can be a printer that prints specific characters on the end surface of the boards. The detection device can be a digital camera together with appropriate software.

Institutions with teaching capabilities

Several publications about traceability codes come from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC, Spain)

Available text books and training material

“ Labeling of Present and Future Ex Equipment ” Tomkins, T.J. Henderson, C., 2007: paper from the 4th PCIC Europe Conference.

“ A generalization of traceability codes using ideal-based codes ”, Fernandez, M. Soriano, M., (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya) Information Theory Workshop, 2003. Proceedings. 2003.