Cimko Cement Plant Loads Up on RFID

The project cost €300,000 ($414,000). Not included in that sum are staff resources from Cimko's IT department, which had to write much of the software to integrate the scales and the RFID system itself.

So far, Tokat says, he and his colleagues have been happy with the project's performance. As the system has been running less than a year, he declines to provide a return on investment at this time, but says the project was important for Cimko "because it lets us use the factory more efficiently."

After a truck is filled with cement, it returns to the scales, where an RFID reader is activated automatically by the loop sensor, in order to identify the truck.

Meyer RFID's Onur Bayindir estimates that Cimko saves as much as €100,000 ($138,000) annually using the system, because it eliminates the work of four full-time employees.

Other benefits cited by Tokat include the ability to replace various parts of the system for maintenance or repair extremely quickly—which is vital, given that the factory operates at full capacity. The new system also creates detailed reports for the company's sales and finance units, enabling those divisions of the firm to have a greater level of detail and insight into its operations.

The company plans to roll out similar systems at its other concrete factories throughout Turkey, though a timeframe for widespread deployment is currently unavailable.