Patent ID: 6148249
Filing Date: 2000-11-14
Classification: A22B,G06K,G06Q

Abstract:
A method of identifying and tracking carcass primals comprising:(a) providing a database holding respective records relating to a multiplicity of carcasses;(b) moving a carcass comprising a multiplicity of primals into which said carcass is separable to a marking station prior to separation of said primals from said carcass and applying a respective different identifying machine-readable mark to each primal of said carcass, records of said carcass being included in said database, each primal being marked prior to removal from the carcass;(c) moving said carcass to a disassembly area and removing at least one marked primal from the carcass;(d) moving said marked primal to a reading and assessment station;(e) reading the mark on the marked primal at the station and recording the mark;(f) identifying an appropriate carcass record in said database from the mark read at step e; and(g) passing information about location of the marked primal to a central unit.