Project Involvement Statement

1. Background: The Project

During 2022–2023, Rackit Direct Ltd (Irvine, Ayrshire) undertook a research and development programme to design RFID-based physical security systems for warehouse and logistics operations, with a major global e-commerce logistics operator's European fulfilment network as the target customer. The programme comprised two principal product strands, alongside further RFID product strands:

• SealSecure X RFID Truck Seal System — a single-use anti-tamper RFID cable seal (built around a UHF RFID chip) together with the software needed to track every seal through its life cycle: an Android handheld scanner application for registering and applying seals, gate scanner software for verifying arriving trucks, and a cloud-based dashboard (Blazor Server, with an OpenAPI/Swagger interface) recording a full audit trail of every seal state change (READY, LOCKED, CUT, TAMPER, ERROR, ADMITTED, REJECTED).
• RFID High Value Transportation Cage — an RFID-secured cage for transporting high-value goods within and between fulfilment centres, with access control, live event monitoring, and reporting delivered through a management system.

Sam joined the project team in 2023, working alongside the project's technical lead (Gordon McLennan) and a fellow developer.

2. Sam's Contributions

2.1 Standard Operating Procedure documentation — RFID High Value Cage system (June 2023)

Sam researched and wrote three of the eight Standard Operating Procedure documents that formed the operational documentation set for the RFID High Value Cage management system:

• SOP — Reports — procedures for generating and interpreting system reports from the management dashboard.
• SOP — Managing Your Details — end-user procedures for account and personal-detail management.
• SOP — Managing Roles — administrator procedures for role-based access control within the system.

This documentation set was completed on 12 June 2023 and submitted the same day to the Managing Director for approval as part of the “Rackit High Value Cage System — Standard Operating Procedures” package. Writing these SOPs required Sam to understand the management system's user, role, and reporting model well enough to explain it accurately to non-technical operational staff.

2.2 Review of SOP training material (June 2023)

Sam was part of the small review group for the test version of the SOP instructional material (including the demonstration video embedded in the Personnel Access section), checking the documentation and linked material before the package was finalised for customer presentation.

2.3 SealSecure X software specification (June 2023)

Sam was brought in as a named editor on the Rackit SealSecure X Specification, the core software specification for the RFID truck-seal system. This document defined:

• the seal's state model (the A/B/C status bits stored on the RFID chip and in the cloud database, and the rules governing their transitions);
• the complete decision workflows for the handheld scanner and gate scanner applications, covering every combination of physical seal state and database record (including tamper detection logic);
• the cloud dashboard's database structure (the audit database) and its OpenAPI/Swagger interface.

Sam worked on this specification collaboratively with the development team as it was refined toward its finalised version (20 June 2023).

2.4 Prototype testing and hardware work (2023)

Sam assisted with the hands-on engineering side of the seal programme:

• participating in physical testing of RFID seal prototypes — exercising the seal's locked / cut / tampered states and verifying that scanner readings and database records matched the specification's expected behaviour;
• assisting with the setup and configuration of the RFID scanner hardware used in the test programme.

This test work fed into the project's formal RFID Truck Seal Test Analysis Report (July 2023).

2.5 Customer presentation (July 2023)

Sam was a contributing editor on the Rackit Presentation for the programme's customer (July 2023), the customer-facing technical presentation of the seal system.

3. Skills Demonstrated

• Technical writing: producing clear, structured operational documentation (SOPs) for a real commercial system, written for non-technical end users and submitted for executive approval.
• Systems comprehension: working with a non-trivial specification — RFID chip memory states, scanner workflows, state machines, and cloud database/API design — closely enough to edit and document it accurately.
• Testing discipline: methodical hands-on verification of hardware behaviour against a written specification.
• Collaboration: working within a small R&D team alongside experienced developers, to real deadlines, on material that went in front of a major corporate customer.

4. Verification

Sam's contributions are evidenced in Rackit Direct's project records, including the SOP document set for the High Value Cage system (June 2023), the SealSecure X specification collaboration records (June 2023), and the customer presentation collaboration records (July 2023). References are available on request from:

• Gordon McLennan — Technical Lead, RFID R&D Programme, Rackit Direct Ltd
• Jim Rae — Managing Director, Rackit Direct Ltd