P.PSH.1317 - Livestock transport recording system to improve animal traceability

Summary

The red meat integrity system provides traceability from paddock to plate with an essential role in collecting and collating data from all participants in Livestock Production Assurance (LPA) via National Vendor Declarations (NVDs) and the National Livestock Identification System (NLIS).

One of the key challenges is autonomous verification of information that is submitted by vendors in the NVD. The key goal of this project was to determine whether the Livestock and Transport Recording System (L.T.R.S) could streamline the transition process from completely paper-based and manual verification to a fully digital waybill and NVD that will automatically cross-verify.

Objectives

• Minimum of two trial sites established at commercial saleyard or processing plant operations (beef or sheep).
• Trial site eNVD consignment data is available via the Livestock and Transport Recording System (L.T.R.S).
• Real-time commercial consignment data captured via the Livestock and Transport Recording System (L.T.R.S) and cross referenced with eNVD.
• L.T.R.S consignment information is supplemented with data captured from the eNVD.
• L.T.R.S establishes a connection with the National Livestock Identification System (NLIS) to facilitate the recording of livestock movements to the trial sites.
• Evaluation of system benefits vs cost completed with secondary/unexpected benefits accounted for.

Key findings

• Paper based and handwritten NVDs can cause problems in load verification so ongoing transition to eNVD is important to ensure optimal integrity of the system.
• Ongoing refinement of L.T.R.S. software and infrastructure of the mounted cameras etc which will be achieved by installing L.T.R.S. at more commercial facilities.
• Licence Plate Recognition (LPR) software can only identify the licence plate of the vehicle or trailor reversing to the unloading ramp. As NVD asks for the truck registration details. This workflow needs to be considered if the technology is to be deployed commercially.
• Development of cattle counting algorithm that enabled the number of head to be verified on the NVD when animals were unloaded at the saleyards.
• Potential for improving data capture and analysis of data within L.T.R.S. base infrastructure provides incredible flexibility to adapt to ongoing industry standards.

Benefits to industry

The benefits to the red meat industry of the L.T.R.S. are significant. The system has the potential to reduce a labour-intensive time-consuming job in manual checking of NVD information into an automated streamlined process. Records of delivery that were a mismatch to the NVD can be cross checked with minimal effort using the L.T.R.S. Time date, video imaging, LPR, animal numbers and EID records will leave the commercial facility with unequivocal information about the actual delivery despite what may be written on the NVD. The eventual aim of the L.T.R.S. technology is to have everything cross validated autonomously and issues flagged autonomously and immediately.

MLA action

It is recommended that the trailer number plate holding the livestock is captured on the LPA NVD/ eNVD so it can be matched with the load.

Future research

Further steps are in place to develop a commercial application of L.T.R.S. As the L.T.R.S. is adopted throughout Australian commercial facilities any improvements to either software or hardware will become apparent and any research into implementing those improvements will become the priority of Livestock Track. Following on from the prototypes at Tamworth and Carcoar saleyards the plan is to expand installations in line with software and hardware improvements.