Application of Rfid in Brazilian Harvest Facilities: Two Case Studies

Application of RFID in Brazilian harvest facilities: Two case studies Priscilla Cristina Cabral Ribeiro Production Engineering, Business, and Economy Department, Mines School, Ouro Preto Federal University Campus Morro do Cruzeiro, Bauxita, s/n. Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais CEP 35400-00, Brazil Mário Otávio Batalha Production Engineering Department, São Carlos Federal University Rod. Washington Luís - Km 235, São Carlos, São Paulo CEP: 13565-905, Brazil Annibal José Scavarda School of Business and Management, American University of Sharjah Sharjah, PO Box 26666, United Arab Emirates

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to evaluate the identification technology used in the two case studies presented in this work. One of the Brazilian industries studied is the largest exporter of meat in the world. Although Brazil has large companies in this sector, some of them do not use information technology (IT) to identify cattle. The Radio Frequency Identification is an IT that identifies cattle using electronic ear tags. This paper has a qualitative approach, two case studies, which were carried out with the application of a questionnaire (open and close questions). The companies studied use RFID only for their internal control, but they use barcode to trace and identify cattle and to send this information to their partners in their supply chain. Keywords: RFID, Evaluation, Beef chain, harvest facility. 1. INTRODUCTION According to [29], in 2007, Brazil exported 195.240 tons of meat in natura to the EU. In the following year, the amount exported was reduced to 36.218 tons. Such reduction can be explained by the trade embargo imposed at the end of January, 2008 which caused a bovine meat export loss of US$586 million. At that time, the EU detected some flaws in the Brazilian cattle tracking system, and so it reduced the number of meat supplier ranches. The Brazilian cattle tracking system includes producers, inspectors and certifiers, the Ministry of Agriculture, feedlots, harvest...