Inventory in the cruise hotel industry

The project

Cruise-related inventory for uniforms, table and hotel linen and restaurant items
Save time with stocktaking
Inventory and condition survey

RFID Lösungen Digitalisierung Lager - RFID Konsortium

The solution

RFID-based, automated, serialized inventory with immediate inventory posting in ERP
Digitized counting via handhelds / tablets without paper lists
Cruise-related controlling

Key Facts – The Goals Achieved

Inventory transparency for approx. 50,000 items in the hotel and restaurant business and approx. 15,000 uniform items

System-supported uniform issue and return

Reliable planning of stocks per voyage

Eliminate search times and over-ordering

Cost reduction per cruise and correct data for controlling

Blueprint project for the entire fleet

Project Requirements

Complete offline development on land. Time-critical implementation on board within one week with connection to the ERP Crunchtime during ongoing cruise operations
Simple usability for non-English speaking staff, incl. education and training

Special features:

On board a cruise ship, guests expect a very special ambience and excellent service. Maintaining this in restaurant and hotel operations has been a critical factor for the leading service provider in hotel, catering and crew management on board cruise ships. This is because the availability and cleanliness of tablecloths, napkins, glasses, bathrobes and towels must be guaranteed at all times. This requires the crew to know at all times where which equipment is located and in what quantity. In reality, this has so far been a gray area. The inventories that had to be carried out for each cruise were labor-intensive and involved searching for, retrieving and counting items. Paper lists were checked off in a time-consuming process. Errors occurred simply due to the incorrect recording of different tablecloth sizes. An automated inventory of laundry items and staff uniforms based on RFID tags and barcode labels should eliminate these errors and provide an accurate inventory overview. Always and at any time. The RFID-tagged table and cabin linen, the so-called housekeeping linen, is managed in ERP Inventory. The Used Equipped Inventory is used for staff uniforms .

The new housekeeping inventory

The on-board staff use RFID handhelds to record all items stored in cupboards for setting the restaurant tables. The laundry inventory in the on-board laundry is also recorded in this way. The housekeeping inventory also includes plates, glasses, cleaning products and other items stored in cupboards and storage rooms.
The inventory is identified using either barcode or RFID labels. Even unmarked items can be flexibly provided with barcode labels “on the fly” using a portable printer and thus added to the inventory. A target/actual comparison provides reliable information about the inventory status.

Management of uniforms

An issue and return solution should be programmed for the uniforms, which also records the condition of the garments, e.g. “new”, “used”, “cleaned”, for subsequent processes. The issue of a uniform is booked to the respective employee/per ship. If an item of clothing can no longer be used, it is marked as “retired” in the ERP. This is a quality assurance measure that keeps the uniform stock complete and tidy. As textiles are washed, the RFID transponder also had to be resistant to dry cleaning. The ship’s laundry irons the textile-compatible transponders into new uniforms. Labeled in this way, they are included in the ERP.

Implementation of key objectives:

1. Fast, error-free, digital stocktaking with exact inventories
2. Simple inventory process, without training. Transferable to the fleet
3. Cost reduction due to unnecessary reorders

"For a two-week sea voyage, we need to know exactly what we have on board eight weeks in advance in order to plan correctly. Now we have control over the exact number of tablecloths, glasses and cleaning products and don't have to stock too much. After all, our space is limited."

Service Manager F&B about the project

Potential use cases cruise

Incoming goods registration with RFID gates
Passport issue-return system with RFID for immigration
Intra-ship logistics: digitally supported goods movements, e.g. deliveries from storage to the restaurant
Temperature monitoring in catering
ERP as a single source of truth (away from isolated solutions)

Time and storage space on board are scarce

While the guests are looking forward to the shore excursion, the clock is ticking on the pier. In 6 hours - often less - hundreds of goods have to be brought on board and stowed through a hatch. Frozen goods, perishable food and non-food items that have been reordered for the hotel and catering sector. Customs documents have to be checked for everything and incoming goods have to be checked by security. Only a limited number of goods arrive on board within this time window.
However, loading is not only time-critical. The limited space poses a different challenge. This makes it all the more important to have exact stocks for precise planning, which prevents indiscriminate reordering even though the required materials are actually on board.