RFID Based Business Process Automation

for Harbor Operations in Container Depot

Youngil Kim*, Jung-Woon Yoo**, Namkyu Park**

* RFID/Ubiquitous Sensor Network Middleware Research Team

RFID/USN Research Group
Electronics Telecommunications Research Institute
161 Ga-jeong-Dong, Yu-seong-Gu, Daejeon, 305-700, Korea

** Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Wayne State University
4815 Fourth St., Detroit, Michigan. 48202, U.S.A.

One of the most promising advantages in Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) application is
the ability to automate the business process (BP), with minimum human intervention, by
providing decision systems with accurate, real-time, and up-to-date data. This paper presents an
RFID based business process automation system for harbor operations in container depot. The
core system comprises RFID Event Management System (REMS) and Real-time Business
Process Triggering System (RBPTS). The REMS serves to reduce redundant data and aggregate
relevant data for minimization of data traffic. The RBPTS plays an important role in extracting
semantics from the refined data repository through rule-based inference engine and, at the same
time, automating back-end applications. Thanks to the RBPTS functions, one can achieve
automated harbor operations, such as checking scheduled incoming/outgoing items, issuing
shipment notices, and so on. The proposed system has been partially implemented, in a real life
application, to verify effectiveness of harbor operations in terms of reduction of work complexity
as well as business process automation.
Key words: RFID, business process automation, rule-based inference, harbor operations.

1. Introduction
Research on RFID applications, which was initiated by MIT Auto-ID Laboratory envi-
sioning a world in which all electronic devices are networked (Sarma, 2001), is rapidly spreading
out all over the world. Relative advantages of RFID technology to current “barcode” based tech-
nology have become widely known such as contact-less recognition, batch processing of data,
and reusability. Recently, RFID technology has drawn much attention from not only research
fields, but also private and public sectors. Furthermore, fast price drop of RFID tags makes a
progress of RFID applications to real world expedite. These days, there's a new trend to apply
RFID technology in a large scale to maximize or improve enterprise-wide system efficiency and
profitability,
As the RFID technology is being diffused and applied to real world systems, research di-
rection of RFID technology is accordingly changing from hardware development, such as chip or
antenna design, to business application areas. RFID hardware per se, including RFID tags and

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readers, can play a meaningful role in business applications only when they integrate with inter-
nal and external legacy systems, as well as other well-defined business processes. Having con-
sidered the importance of software and business processes in parallel with legacy information
systems, it is indispensable to have intelligent software systems designed for RFID technology to
deal with large amounts of data and complex contents.
From the viewpoint of business environment evolution, markets are being globalized and
transactions between business parties have become more active, semantically richer, more de-
pendent on each other, and faster than ever. Business process automation systems focusing on
improving internal transactions of an enterprise is not suitable any more for emerging markets
where external transactions become as important. (Park, 2003; Park and Nof, 2003) Sustainable
business-to-business e-commerce can only be made possible through the collaborative synchro-
nization of business processes among trading partners. (Forrester, 2000) Therefore, the concept
of collaborative business should be taken into account in designing RFID-based business appli-
cations.
In this paper, presented is an RFID based business process automation system for harbor
operations in container depot, which leverages semantic information extracted by rule-based in-
ference engine, so as to automate inter-organizational collaboration fully as well as an internal
one in the end. The reasons we chose harbor operations in container depot as an application do-
main are its potential to influence logistics companies and its wide range of applicability. (ETRI,
2004) Harbor operations companies collaborate with many related companies such as shippers,
ground transportation, storage, shipping and discharging companies, including domestic and for-
eign customs. Because of such a huge network of business collaboration, once the technology is
successfully applied in the gate management in container depot, the lessons we learned from this
application can be disseminated to other application areas with less effort, but with high adapta-
bility. Furthermore, harbor operations companies provide a good environment to apply RFID
tags to various types of tools to hold goods in small boxes for a single product, cases and pallets,
and containers. These companies also give an opportunity of applying different types of RFID
tags, in high or low frequency, with several types of batteries for the purpose of covering vast
outdoor yard areas as well as large indoor warehouses.
This research was initiated and sponsored by the Korean government. Participants of the
project consist of government funded research institutes, a number of enterprises ranging from
information technology to harbor operations and logistics service provider, a domestic standard
organization, and several universities from both Korea and the United States. To make this re-
search more practical and exemplary, we specifically considered diversity in the composition of
collaboration partners. Therefore, we invited companies from the airline industry, harbor opera-
tions, logistics, postal services, hospital management, and discount store similar to Wal-mart. In
addition to a pilot run for validation purposes, the result of this research is continuously being
tested to develop a better model of business process automation and to find further application
areas.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Following literature review of the next sec-
tion, RFID applicable business processes from harbor operations in container depot are intro-
duced in section 3. Section 4 proposes an RFID middleware architecture which supports interop-
erability between RFID hardware and enterprise information system and serves to implement
business process automation in the end. In addition, the proposed event control engine and rule-
based inference engine are presented in detail, respectively. Finally, a business showcase illustra-
tion is shown in section 5.

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2. Literature review of related studies
RFID research area ranges from hard core technology such as tags, readers and antenna
to various application systems. Recent hard core technology research focuses on one of the big-
gest difficulties for RFID applicability. Ukkonen et al (2004) proposed a patch antenna for pas-
sive RFID of metallic objects. Flores et al (2005) presented a simply way of measuring the tag
performance for RFID technology based on their implementation experience and laboratory
measurements. Finally, Siden et al (2004) investigated performance degradation of passive RFID
tags due to bending of the RFID tag antenna.
When it comes to RFID applications, we can find applications from various fields such as
supply chain management (Ngai, 2005; Choy, 2005), logistics, library management (Smart,
2004; Boss, 2003), and factory automation (Brusey, 2003). Ngai et al (2005) presents findings of
a case study in a container depot aiming to keep track of the locations of stackers and containers
and to improve visibility of the operations data and the control process. Their research has dis-
tinctions in that they developed an RFID prototype system integrated with mobile commerce to
transmit the information from the RFID readers to the main computer system. On the other hand,
active RFID tags were used in construction sites to improve the efficiency of tracking tools and
their availability, (Goodrum, 2005)
Most of the research has focused on the identification and tracking of an RFID tag infor-
mation (Ngai, 2005; Goodrum, 2005), while there is a growing demand on paying more attention
to internal and inter-organizational business process automation and semantic inference to
achieve operational efficiency of a system and secure sustainable business processes.

3. RFID applicable business process for gate management in

container depot
Figure 1, especially the shaded areas, shows RFID applicable business processes from
among all the processes of harbor operations companies. (ETRI, 2004) According to ETRI’s
business process analysis result, the most significant bottlenecks are non-real-time data acquisi-
tion, data inaccuracy due to errors in hand written data, incorrect data entry into system, and ex-
cessive workload in data acquisition regarding container related information such as container
owners, contents, customs, and so on. (ETRI 2004) Non-real-time data acquisition causes ineffi-
cient business processes. In addition, inaccurate data incur inoperable planning as well as inevi-
table data correction. Therefore, RFID technology, which has real-time data transfer ability
without human intervention, is thought of as the most effective solution to solve these bottle-
necks. Besides data accuracy and real-time data acquisition, using RFID technology is expected
to help locate containers in container yards, and track past and future time and location informa-
tion of containers, of which customers have an interest in. In addition, accurate container infor-
mation such as destination, weight, and contents helps decide loading sequence and location,
which in turn affect the economy of unloading operations and ship balancing.

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 [Figure 1] Business process for harbor operations

Business processes of harbor operations companies have complex and regulatory charac-
teristics. In terms of complexity, a business transaction includes numerous big and small compa-
nies, such as ground transportation companies, warehouse companies, ship owners, and compa-
nies in charge of loading/unloading. Companies exchange complicated business documents or
EDI (electronic data interchange) messages for operational, financial, and legal purposes. Fur-
thermore, since the harbor operations business deals with exports and imports, regulatory quaran-
tine and customs procedures are tightly associated with this type of business. These characteris-
tics demand more automated systems by minimizing human intervention that is a possible source
of errors and/or low system performance as a whole. Motivation to apply RFID technology stems
from these requirements.

4. System Configuration
A configuration of information systems by which harbor operations companies can bene-
fit from the introduction of RFID technology is presented in Figure 2. Dashed boxes represent
legacy information systems and bold-faced boxes show the proposed RFID application systems.
Legacy information systems comprise transportation management system (TMS), yard manage-
ment system (YMS), terminal operation system (TOS), navigation management system (NMS),
and container management system (CMS). The proposed RFID application systems consist of
RFID event management system (REMS), real-time business process triggering system
(RBTPS), container tracking system (CTS) and RFID information repository (RIR). Except the
CTS and the RIR, the REMS and the RBPTS are general purpose software, so that they can be
used for not only applications in harbor operations, but also other applications. Functions of
these systems are described in detail below.

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 [Figure 2] Proposed system configuration for harbor operations

4.1 Legacy information systems

Table 1 shows a list of common information systems and their functions in harbor opera-
tions companies.
[Table 1] Legacy system description

System Name Functions

Transportation Manage Cargo booking, shipping order processing, truck dispatching, truck ou
ment System tsourcing, payment, gate operation procedures.
Yard Management Syst Cargo check in/out, facility location planning, yard monitoring proces
em s
Terminal Operation Sy Check in/out management function, on-dock management, CFS mana
stem gement and EDI system
Navigation Manageme Stowage plan, manifest management, special container management,
nt System ship stability calculation, bay plan
Container Management Container owner management, container purchase/lease management,
System container damage management

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4.2 The proposed RFID application systems for harbor operations
4.2.1 RFID event management system (REMS)
The architecture of the proposed RFID event management system (REMS) is presented in
Figure 3. The REMS consists of three components; application interface component, RFID event
processing component, and reader interface component. The reader interface component and the
application interface component connect the REMS with readers and applications, respectively,
while the RFID event processing component filters out redundant data and aggregates associated
data.

[Figure 3] REMS architecture

(1) Reader interface component (RIC)

The REMS is designed to support heterogeneous types of RFID readers. To be interoper-
able with different types of readers, the RIC has an abstraction layer which plays a key role in
standardizing interface methods. This layer allows the REMS to be compatible with various
readers no matter what standard(s) they adopt, such as EPC standard
(http://www.epcglobalinc.org) or ISO standard (http://www.iso.org), and whatever communica-
tion interface they use such as TCP/IP or RS232, etc.
To increase operational efficiency, the REMS is designed to support multiple readers
which are geographically distributed. In order to manage the readers, the RIC has four sub-
components. They are reader profiler, connection manager, reader controller and reader monitor-
ing system. Reader profiler manages specifications of readers which are controlled by the
REMS, for example, location, usage, power, radio frequency, and so on. Connection manager
checks the connection status. Thus if it is disconnected, it generates an alert to the central moni-
toring system. Reader controller issues commands to operate readers, such as reader reset and
configuration change. Finally, reader monitor observes the readers to verify normal operation
and displays the operation status through a graphical user interface (GUI).

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(2) Event processing component (EPC)
The EPC component has a primitive event processing (PEP) module and a compound
event processing (CEP) module. The PEP function filters redundant or invalid tag reading of
events. When a tag moves into a reader’s range, readers are working in a cyclic mode for read-
ing. Thus the reader sends redundant data to the REMS if an item with tag stays in a reader’s
range. Therefore, the REMS should have a function of detecting redundant data. The PEP mod-
ule does the function with reference to a state transition matrix. (Cheong and Kim, 2005) On the
other hand, the CEP module aggregates related events. For example, suppose that there are ten
products in a box and RFID tags are attached to each product and the box. According to circum-
stances only the box information may be needed by backend systems while all individual product
information inside the box is not stored in a database. In this case, the CEP module performs
such a role of ignoring uninteresting data or aggregating associated data.
(3) Application interface component (AIC)
The AIC component connects RFID tags and readers with backend systems, such as
warehouse management system and inventory management system. To deal with various sys-
tems, which might have different communication methods, the AIC component is designed to
support multi-protocols such as XML-RPC, SOAP-RPC, Web Service etc.
4.2.2 Real-time business process triggering system (RBPTS)

[Figure 4] The RBPTS architecture

The RBPTS is based on a rule-based inference engine which can automatically extract
semantic information from tag read events through event-condition-action (ECA) type rules. The
semantic information is extracted by domain-specific knowledge of domain experts or business
collaboration partners, which is embedded in rule definition. After extracting semantic informa-

219
tion, the RBPTS instantaneously takes appropriate actions which are defined in the correspond-
ing rules. The RBPTS facilitates automated interactions between RFID hard core systems, such
as RFID tags/readers, and enterprise information systems, such as enterprise resource planning
(ERP) systems, inventory management system (IMS) and yard management system (YMS). The
RBPTS enables internal and external applications to be automated without human intervention,
so that it maximizes the level of business process automation.
Figure 4 (Cheong and Kim, 2005) shows the RBPTS system architecture, including inter-
nal message flow and external interfaces. Client interface receives a SOAP (Simple Object Ac-
cess Protocol) message from the REMS or other clients, which follows a predefined format and
sends it to the event manager in turn. The event manager looks up the event registry and checks
whether the event is registered. In other words, it confirms whether it has associated rules. If
true, the event manager passes the event to the rule manager. Otherwise, the event is discarded.
The rule manager searches possible information sources, such as RFID information repository
(RIR), and provides all associated data to the inference engine. Then it evaluates conditions of
each rule, whose structure is shown in Figure 5, and sends the results to the action manager sub-
sequently. It is during the evaluation procedure in the inference engine that business semantics
are disclosed. Types of conditions range from a simple form, such as value comparison, to a
complicated form, such as calling predefined java classes. Finally, the action manager sends a
query on required actions list to the action repository, and then receives necessary information
for web service initiation and invokes web services. These predefined actions have different
types from one atomic action, such as DB transaction, notification or alerts, to a series of actions
which should be managed by workflow systems, such as Electronic Business Extensible Markup
Language (ebXML), Business Service Interface engine (http://www.ebxml.org) and Business
Process Execution Language (BPEL) based workflow engine (http://www.w3.org).

[Figure 5] XML schema for rule definition

4.2.3 RFID information repository (RIR)

The RIR is a database system where selective data from RFID tags are saved. The type of
RIR’s database management system, relational or object-oriented DBMS, depends on the charac-

220
teristics of each application. Although the RIR stores domain-specific information that legacy
information systems, such as container tracking system and yard management system, should
have, it is designed as a separate system with the consideration of system performance issues
caused by heavy RFID data traffic.

4.2.4 Container tracking system (CTS)

The CTS is an industry specific system, whereas the above-mentioned three systems are
for general purpose business applications. This system, as a kind of resource management sys-
tem, is designed to track and trace containers, chassis and trucks so that it can locate them and
predict available resources as well as estimated delivery time. This system is tightly coupled to
customer support systems to handle customers’ inquiries. It is also connected to company deci-
sion support systems to set up planning and scheduling in detail.

4.3 Semantics evolution process

[Figure 6] Semantics evolution process

A principal characteristic of the proposed system is the capability of extracting real-time

semantics. The real-time property comes from RFID technology and the semantics extraction
results from the rule-based inference engine. Figure 6 shows how raw data evolve into contextual
information through the proposed system. RFID tags store primitive data such as container ID,
product code, etc. When the primitive data is transferred to RFID readers, time stamp, antenna

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ID, and reader ID are added to the primitive data automatically. The data set can be represented
as a 4-tuple record, R(r, n, g, t), denoting a record that the antenna n of the reader r reads tag g at
time t. Actually the records generated directly from RFID readers are a series of records. With
the aids of the two data processing modules, the PEP and CEP, a series of records are cleansed
and aggregated. However, the processed data doesn’t have enough meaning yet. Using these
processed data, domain knowledge in the inference engine of the RBPMS extracts semantics
from the tag read records following the way explained in the previous section. As a result, the
proposed system can possess data with semantics. This semantics evolution process is drawn
schematically in Figure 6.
The harbor operations companies have relatively well-formed business processes since
they are highly related to regulatory works of government, such as customs and law enforcement.
These well-organized business processes provide a good environment for successful application
of the RBPTS because all planned or expected works can be represented as rules in the RBPTS
and data gathered from RFIDs can be evaluated by the rules. In the next section, a showcase ex-
ample is presented.

5. A Business Showcase
The mechanism of this system is described using a simple business showcase of “Delivery
Confirmation Notice”. A customer, who is a business collaboration partner with a harbor opera-
tions company, ships an RFID attached container full of products. In the RFID, a globally unique
identification (GUID) number, called EPC (Electronic Product Code), is recorded. At the same
time, the customer sends shipping information, such as contents, delivery date, etc., to the harbor
operations company. If the customer and harbor operations company have been in a reliable col-
laboration, the customer could directly register rules with the RBPTS in the harbor operations
company using secure network systems. Otherwise, harbor operations company registers rules
after receiving shipping information from the customer. The rule may be written as Figure 7.
When the container arrives at an arrival gate of the harbor operations company, the RBPTS
will receive the tag read event from the REMS via RFID readers in the gate. Then it will search a
rule related to the tag event from the event registry in the rule database. After checking whether
the event meets the conditions of the rule, in this case "arrival", it should be checked whether the
reader is installed in one of the cargo arrival gates. If the condition is satisfied, the RBPTS will
execute the registered action, namely sending notice of delivery confirmation by e-mail. This is a
simple business case which usually happens in harbor operations. According to the extent the
rule is described in detail, this system can deal with much more complex business cases though.
Figure 8 shows the sequence diagram of the illustrative business showcase.
From this showcase example, based on the pilot run, the proposed system gave operational
efficiency for inter- and intra-organizational business process automation, and reduced data
processing errors which have been caused by manual data processing in treating complex busi-
ness processes. In terms of applicability, the proposed architecture is not limited only to harbor
operations companies, but can have extensive immediate potential of adaptability to other indus-
tries. Consequently, the competitive advantages through operational efficiency increases can be
entertained in other industries.

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 [Figure 7] An abridged version of rule definition

6. Concluding remarks
As is mainly studied in this paper, the key to the success of the proposed system hinges
on how to extract semantic information from raw data automatically and do prompt and appro-
priate actions to maximize business efficiency. Both RFID technologies for real-time, accurate
data gathering and rule-based inference engine for incorporating domain specific knowledge are
major elements of the proposed system. To deal with domain specific knowledge, taking advan-
tage of external business collaboration partners, as in the business showcase, and internal domain
experts is highly recommended.
The pilot project of the proposed system yielded a number of significant results to
achieve competitive advantages of harbor operations. Waiting time in gates, lead-time for the
issuance of loading/unloading certificate, and lead-time for locating containers were decreased.
Even more promisingly, business document processing time between a harbor operations com-
pany and customers or inside the company is significantly reduced. In addition, some paper
documents were replaced with electronic ones. We strongly believe these improvements in op-
erational efficiency contribute to reducing business process complexity ingrained in the harbor
operations companies. In addition, if the rule-based inference engine extends to the detail con-
tents in RFIDs attached to containers, the inference engine is expected to play a role of a smarter

223
detector on regulation violations which is one of the major tasks in harbor operations taking care
of export and import.

[Figure 8] Sequence diagram of the showcase business

On the other hand, several technical problems that may have influences on operational
efficiency were raised during the pilot project including reader location, effective recognition
range and limited degree of freedom in rule definition. A container yard is a huge area. Thus a
number of readers should be located with due consideration of recognition range. That will di-
rectly affect the efficiency of harbor operations relying on the data acquired from container
yards. In addition, since containers are made of metals which reflect radio waves, attachment lo-
cation of RFID tags to containers should be carefully considered and special treatment should be
considered. Based on what we observed and found from the implementation, we address further
research issues, such as optimal location and number of RFID tag readers and optimal partition-
ing of a large RFID zone, such as a container yard, into several sub zones to increase precision of
reading while refraining from reading unnecessary data. In addition, rule representation methods
in the inference engine could be improved so as to have a maximal degree of freedom.

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