Download PDF
Leveraging IoT for Sustainable Supply Chain Management: A Case Study of The Rainforest Alliance
Applicable Functions
- Logistics & Transportation
Use Cases
- In-process Traceability
- Supply Chain Visibility
The Challenge
The Rainforest Alliance, an international non-profit organization, is committed to conserving biodiversity and ensuring sustainable livelihoods by transforming land-use practices, business practices, and consumer behavior. Operating in 74 nations, the organization collaborates with various stakeholders in the supply chain, including producers, suppliers, brand owners, and retailers, to improve sustainability and livelihoods, and preserve wildlife and forests. However, managing such a vast and complex supply chain, especially for commodities like cocoa, coffee, and bananas, presents significant challenges. The organization needed a way to collect and analyze data from the start of the supply chain to the finished labeled goods, to manage processes more efficiently and maintain the credibility of the Rainforest Alliance Certified seal.
About The Customer
The Rainforest Alliance is an international non-profit organization that works to conserve biodiversity and ensure sustainable livelihoods by transforming land-use practices, business practices, and consumer behavior. The organization operates in 74 nations across the globe, working with forests and farmers, communities, governments, and companies to conserve forests and create sustainable livelihoods for millions of people. The Rainforest Alliance collaborates with all stakeholders in the supply chain, large and small, including producers, suppliers, brand owners, and retailers, to improve sustainability and livelihoods, and preserve wildlife and forests.
The Solution
To address these challenges, the Rainforest Alliance turned to ChainPoint technology. This technology allows the organization to collect data along multiple supply chains, interface with existing systems, and support multiple commodities and traceability objectives. The Rainforest Alliance Marketplace 2.0, built on ChainPoint technology, offers functions such as data collection along multiple supply chains, interfacing with existing systems, support for multiple commodities, and support for multiple traceability objectives. It also allows for the use of inventories and volume balances, automated transaction validation, registration of product conversions including ratio checks, and management and registration of license agreements and trademark approvals. Over time, other agricultural products will be added to the platform, enabling even more visibility and traceability in global commodity supply chains.
Operational Impact
Related Case Studies.
Case Study
Remote Temperature Monitoring of Perishable Goods Saves Money
RMONI was facing temperature monitoring challenges in a cold chain business. A cold chain must be established and maintained to ensure goods have been properly refrigerated during every step of the process, making temperature monitoring a critical business function. Manual registration practice can be very costly, labor intensive and prone to mistakes.
Case Study
IoT Gateway Enables Faurecia to Improve Traceability for Customers
While Faurecia has a long track record of providing its customers with exemplary products, the increasing need to provide customers traceability for the parts it was producing motivated the company to further support these efforts. The large automotive OEMs expected Faurecia to be able to both track the process of operations and production and to make that information available on demand. For example, customers wanted to know which airbags were added to which cars, as well as detailed data characteristics about how each airbag was installed, including torque and angle of installation.
Case Study
Retail Uses RFID to Enable Cold Chain Monitoring
Like most grocery retailers, Hy-Vee is faced with the challenge of providing the highest quality products to its shoppers. Shoppers want the longest possible shelf life from perishable products and expect a consistent product experience each time they shop. Controlling the quality of products sold leads to shopper loyalty, which is of paramount importance to the success of Hy-Vee. Before products arrive in stores, Hy-Vee's distribution centers (DCs) handle items including dairy products, fresh meats, seafood, deli items, produce and frozen goods, all of which have different temperature needs and sensitivities. During transit from suppliers to DCs, Hy-Vee has limited visibility and temperature management abilities due to large amount of supplier managed transportation. For instance, during a week-long transit, a supplier's carrier equipment may malfunction, causing an item to thaw and then refreeze once repairs are made. Hy-Vee sought help from TempTRIP, an RFID solution provider that focuses on shipping, storage, receiving, and temperature control. TempTRIP's EPC RFID tags use Impinj chips to monitor and report temperature readings throughout the shipping and receiving process. The tags can also be re-configured and re-used, a unique feature within the current market of temperature monitoring devices.
Case Study
Covisint Improves Mitsubishi's Collaboration With Its Supply Chain
Mitsubishi sought to improve supplier relationships on a global basis and to offer an easy-to-use solution to interact with them. In August 2004, Mitsubishi selected Covisint’s platform to help improve sharing of information and collaborative business processes with its global suppliers. Covisint enabled Mitsubishi to provide its suppliers with immediate access to information and applications to obtain more collaborative working relationships
