6. Conclusion
Real-time tracking and tracing are of great importance to ensure the safety and quality of the prepackaged food. Based on IoT technologies, this paper proposed an integrated tracking and tracing platform for the prepackaged food. The contributions of this paper can be summarized as follows. First, the technical architecture of an IoT-based tracking and tracing platform is developed. It could not only realize item-level tracking and tracing for the prepackaged food, but also cover the whole process of its supply chain. Besides, the platform is flexible enough to be extended into many other areas. Second, an economical solution of integrating the QR code and RFID is proposed which could greatly reduce the implementation cost of the platform. The corresponding management service, smart prepackaged food lifecycle management service, is also proposed to support the execution of the integrated solution. Third, through adopting XML, this platform enables the information sharing among all the involved stakeholders, which will further facilitate their cooperation on guaranteeing the quality and safety of the prepackaged food. Finally, the casual factors could be identified in time when safety incidents happen, which facilitates the timely responses to avoid the impact of consumer health. In the future, this work can be extended from the following three aspects. First, the scalability and compatibility of the proposed platform should be further evaluated in more real-life cases. Second, the data analytics tools should be further explored to support the operational optimization during prepackaged food supply chain. And third, an effective warning system should also be developed to prevent the occurrence of food incidents.
