Citrus fruits project

Management of the air-conditioned palletized citrus fruit depot

Challenge

In 1999, an importer of citrus fruits from the Middle East was deciding between the already specialized seaport for citrus fruits Marseille (FRA) and the services of the new Citrus fruits terminal of the Port of Koper, which has a logistically shorter distance to central Europe.

The condition for rerouting ships from Marseille to Koper was to guarantee a suitable information support which would be in line with the importer’s requirements by daily electronic data interchange in the form of formalized messages:

• sending daily specifications of palettes which were unloaded from the ship;
• receiving electronic orders for the shipment of palettes based on the calibrations of citrus fruit;
• controlling the selection of palettes to be shipped from the warehouse based on requested calibrations and the FIFO method;
• sending specifications of shipped palettes by means of transport codes, calibrations, dates of the arrival of citrus fruit in the port;
• daily electronic interchange of summary reports on the storage status by calibrations and dates of arrivals in the air-conditioned warehouse;
• electronic interchange of messages on the shipped citrus fruit with the recipient (announcement of the arrival at the recipient) at the time of the truck leaving the port.

Solution

With the JSAD project we developed a system for recording all movements of palletized citrus fruit using barcode readers, from unloading the ship to shipping to land and controlling the selection of goods to be shipped based on the storage time and the requested calibration of citrus fruit.   On the basis of the received electronic shipment orders the warehouse manager created a palette checklist, uploaded it to the barcode reader and forwarded it to the warehouse keeper. After the conclusion of works the status on the reader (actual quantity by calibrations) updated the record of the stored goods, not allowing the shipment of unsuitable palettes.  Services for back-end electronic data interchange daily generated required messages at set dates and exchanged them with the computer system of the citrus fruit importer and the recipients of citrus fruit across Europe, to which the goods were shipped from the Port on that day.

Results

Ships of this citrus fruit exporter from the Middle East have started regularly coming to the Port of Koper.

(photo B.V.)