Xiangyun Tobacco Company eliminates Tobacco Grade Quality Defects with RFID

Chinese provider of high-quality tobacco, Yun Nan Xiangyun Tobacco Company is using a UHF RFID solution provided by Shenzen RPD Technology Co Ltd. to safeguard the quality of its products. By automating raw material classification, storage and sorting processes with RFID, the company is able to ensure customers get exactly the grade of tobacco they desire while also achieving considerable cost savings. The Xiangyun Tobacco Company uses UPM Raflatac’s ShortDipole UHF RFID tags equipped with NXP’s UCODE G2XL ICs.

Tobacco grade is the key element of a premium-quality cigarette, and as such important raw material that any high-end tobacco company does not want to compromise. As tobacco leaves are transferred several times before the end-product is ready, the Xiangyun Tobacco Company considered it essential to ensure that the process is not disturbed or the leaves tampered with in any way.

As the company buys tobacco leaves direct from farmers, its staff first classify the leaves and place them on metal frames. A label with an embedded RFID tag carrying information e.g. about the leaves’ origin, grade and variety, is attached to each frame. All frames are then sent to a warehouse where a reader at the entrance identifies the data of the labels. In the next stage, a reader installed on the assembly line checks that the grade provided matches the production order. This ensures that only the correct grades are used to produce cigarettes, and automatically rules out the possibility of quality defects caused by mixing unspecified grades.

By automating these processes, the Xiangyun Tobacco Company has also been able to achieve cost savings: the work requires a smaller labour force and is substantially faster compared to manual handling. From the brand perspective, the company enjoys the certainty of knowing customers receive exactly the grades they want.

“Xiangyun Tobacco Company are not only ensuring a consistent and uncompromised product quality, they are also achieving cost savings through process automation with RFID,” says Mikko Nikkanen, business development director, RFID, UPM Raflatac.

“Players in other industries manufacturing well-known consumer goods, that are highly dependent on quality, can achieve the same benefits. Coffee and tea producers are a typical example. The certainty of fast and reliable production processes, consistent product quality and a vastly reduced likelihood of expensive product recalls reinforces brand image, and makes it effortless to achieve ROI,” Nikkanen continued.