PanPass Technology Co., Ltd, out of Beijing, China, provides “one item, one code” traceability and anti-counterfeiting solutions that rely on Cognex to help manufacturers safeguard branding rights, track products through the supply chain, improve operational efficiency, and make informed decisions based on digitally collected data. The partnership has already delivered successful results in 15 industries such as food and beverages, pet supplies, cosmetics, agricultural materials, book publishing, energy, and automotive products, medical care and health, 3C electronics, maternal and child supplies, and industrial products.
PanPass and Cognex recently assisted a Chinese liquor manufacturer in digitally transforming its manufacturing operations, enhancing traceability, building trust, and generating actionable insights from collected data.
Shandong Qingzhou Yunmen Wine Group, a large “sauce-flavored” liquor manufacturer based in northern China, selected PanPass’ product identity solution to help address counterfeiting and enhance product traceability. This solution uses text-based product identity (PID) codes and 2D QR codes on products and packaging. These PID codes connect the physical products to PanPass' cloud platform for verification and tracking. The 2D QR codes printed on the liquor bottles and packaging contain a web link, allowing consumers to authenticate their purchase and interact with the brand.
PanPass solves Yunmen’s product traceability challenges
Yunmen faced several business challenges from end-to-end traceability issues. Inconsistent code marking quality and verification, combined with the lack of a digital tracking system, created several challenges:
Product origin traceability
Yunmen found it challenging to trace key product information, such as the source of raw materials, production process information, and accurate supply chain transparency (i.e., geographic inventory and sell-through data). The lack of clear data in these areas made it difficult to make business decisions around forecasting production demand and optimizing marketing efforts.
Liability traceability and recall
Selling alcoholic beverages requires regulatory compliance. If one of Yunmen’s products has a serious quality issue or safety hazard, the company needs to recall the relevant batch quickly.
Historically, Yunmen had inspectors verify that the alphanumeric production date and manufacturing codes engraved on each bottle matched the assigned product code. However, as demand grew and production increased, this manual verification method yielded inconsistent results, which created a potential liability: recalls could be less effective if bottles got to market with unreadable product codes.
Liu Kaiqiang, Vice Minister of Digital Strategy Development at Yunmen, describes how increased line speeds affected their code verification process:
“In the past, if spray codes were distorted or defective, human inspectors could identify these problems. However, with the new production line’s tripled speed, human eyes cannot detect these defects. Only Cognex vision systems are capable of this rapid recognition.”
Enhance consumer trust
In addition to compliance and internal traceability issues, poorly marked production dates could create doubt about the brand's authenticity among consumers. Due to the presence of fake products in their market, Yunmen had to offer its customers a way to verify their purchases using a readable production code and other essential details.
One item, one code traceability solution
Yunmen needed a solution to overcome these challenges that enhanced its brand reputation, protected its intellectual property, increased its customer base and retention, and provided more accurate insight into its sales and marketing channels. PanPass provided the answer, working with Yunmen to implement a solution to identify, track, and verify each liquor bottle from production to consumption.
Each bottle is marked with a PID and a 2D QR code. Boxes and cartons are also labeled with 2D QR codes for full supply chain traceability.
Consumers can scan the QR code to access product details and authentication information online. The QR code weblinks include tracking codes that enable Yunmen to analyze sales and improve their digital marketing strategies.
In manufacturing, Cognex In-Sight 3800 and In-Sight D900 AI-based 2D vision systems use advanced OCR technology to verify PID codes and transmit the data to PanPass’ cloud-based traceability platform. While human inspectors can often decipher difficult-to-read codes, machine vision faces challenges reading PID codes on bottles due to low contrast, complex backgrounds, varying fonts, and inconsistent print quality.
Since any bottles with unreadable codes are either reworked or scrapped, maximizing readability at high throughput rates was important while minimizing false rejects. Kaiqiang said, “The OCR requirements are strict - no errors or flaws. Based on our comprehensive evaluation, the accuracy rate of the Cognex OCR solution was over 99.9%.”
PanPass chose Cognex AI-based OCR tools because they met the requirements for accuracy and throughput. Zhang Yonghong, Chairman and CEO of PanPass Technology, adds “Our customers’ main priority is reliability. Consistent performance and technology innovation are also important. Cognex machine vision technology addresses all these concerns.”
The one-item, one-code solution deployed at Yunmen will reduce counterfeiting, ensure product quality and safety, and enable more targeted digital marketing and customer engagement. It also provides Yunmen Liquor Group with 99.9% traceability of the liquor products that leave their facility.
According to Zhang, “With the support of Cognex vision technology, PanPass helps Yunmen resolve issues of traditional manual oversight, misdetections, and low production efficiency.”
Yunmen also values the collaboration between the two companies. “Our partnership with PanPass and Cognex has enabled us to achieve comprehensive product lifecycle management,” said Liu.
A strong partnership with a bright future
PanPass sees a promising road ahead for its partnership with Cognex. “The collaboration between Cognex and PanPass has set a benchmark in the industry,” said Zhang. “It showcases how a large international enterprise and a local Chinese brand can form a strong partnership in the local market, drive technological and product advancements across the industry, and enhance service for brand owners.”
PanPass utilizes 2D QR codes in its product identity solutions to improve supply chain management by encoding extensive information. These codes also enable consumer interaction with their brand through web links. Where it makes sense, PanPass suggests that its customers use GS1-compliant 2D QR codes and Cognex DataMan barcode readers for accurate decoding.
Zhang said, “With the help of Cognex DataMan barcode readers, customers can fully utilize digital encoding information within GS1 2D codes to create more growth opportunities and efficiency, helping them improve traceability, achieve supply chain transparency, and enable consumers to verify product authenticity through their smartphones quickly.”