Oct 26, 2016Throughout the past year, U.K.-based minerals company Longcliffe Quarries has been employing radio frequency identification technology to manage the movements of vehicles onto and off of its property. By providing a low-frequency (LF) passive RFID tag to each driver, as well as installing an RFID reader at the gate, the company says it can identify every vehicle that arrives, display instructions to the driver, and alert equipment operators at the loading site that the truck is arriving, as well as what product that vehicle requires.
The solution, including hardware and software that manages the collected read data, is provided by Command Alkon, a U.S.-based integrated solutions company for construction materials producers.
Longcliffe supplies high-purity calcium carbonate, limestone powders, granules and aggregates. It sells as many as 100 different products for a variety of applications, including construction materials, animal feed and landscaping, and as an ingredient in plastics, rubber, glass and ceramics.
It's a busy facility, the company reports. Typically, the quarry receives 200 visits daily from tipper trucks and pressurized tankers—and some vehicles might return for six or seven loads within a single day. Some of the vehicles are owned by Longcliffe, while others belong to private contractors.
Since 2011, Longcliffe Quarries has been using Command Alkon software to manage the dispatching of its own vehicles, as well as contractor trucks, management or workforce onsite, and materials distribution, according to Clare Roobottom, Longcliffe's sales coordinator. Approximately 18 months ago, the company began investigating ways in which the software's use could be expanded to automate the movement of traffic into its facility.
The existing process for drivers once their tipper trucks and pressurized tankers arrived onsite, Roobottom says, required having them exit their vehicles in order to collect the necessary paperwork and instructions, then return to the trucks to drive them to the loading spot. When a vehicle arrived at that spot, heavy-equipment operators would speak with the driver to confirm which materials he needed. After his truck was loaded with the appropriate materials, he would then drive it to the scales for weighing, and the resulting weight measurements would be forwarded to the Command Alkon software, after which the vehicle would leave the site.
This process sometimes forced drivers to wait in queues at the entrance. In addition, it could pose a safety hazard since the drivers needed to exit their vehicles in an area where heavy machinery was moving around them.
With the Command Alkon solution, some drivers have been given HID Global ProxCard II 125 kHz RFID cards, enabling them to proceed to a dedicated, RFID-enabled lane. Each driver's plastic card has an embedded RFID tag encoded with a unique ID number linked to data in the Command Alkon software regarding that individual, his vehicle and the company for which he works.
Upon arriving at the gate, drivers stop beside a kiosk with a built-in HID Global ProxPoint Plus RFID reader. The driver need not leave his vehicle, but instead can simply hold his tag within a few centimeters of the reader, which captures the tag ID and forwards that data to the software residing on Longcliffe Quarries' server. The software confirms that this particular vehicle is expected onsite that day, as well as the type of load it has arrived to collect. The kiosk's video screen then displays authorization to enter, along with instructions indicating where the vehicle should go to receive its load.
At the assigned loading location, a quarry shovel operator has a tablet mounted in the cab of his equipment, which uses a Wi-Fi connection to access data from the Command Alkon software. Once the driver's tag has been interrogated and authorized at the gate, the system sends a message to the shovel operator's tablet indicating that a truck is en route, as well as information about the kind of product to be picked up. In that way, he can be ready to load the material as soon as the vehicle arrives.
Once loaded, the truck proceeds to the scale, which determines the vehicle's weight. The RFID tag is not required at this location, Roobottom notes, since the quarry already uses a license plate detection system to identify the vehicle being weighed.
To date, 24 tipper truck drivers have had RFID tags assigned to them—17 contractors and seven of Longcliffe's own drivers. In the future, more vehicles are expected to carry the tags, including pressurized tankers, some of which must be closely monitored to ensure that they are not loaded up with the wrong ingredient. For instance, some product is provided to customers that produce livestock feed, and any truck carrying that material cannot have previously stored a substance that might contaminate product that will be consumed by animals.
The technology has provided two key benefits since its installation, says Mick Barkley, Longcliffe's sales director: improved safety and increased efficiency. Safety, he adds, was the primary goal.
"Drivers have to be extremely careful," Barkley says, when they leave a vehicle and could potentially find themselves in the path of a moving truck or heavy equipment. Because Longcliffe is using the RFID system, he adds, fewer people walk around the quarry site. The second benefit is greater efficiency. Anecdotally, Roobottom says, drivers seem to be moving through the gate faster, and bucket operators seem to be loading vehicles more efficiently. The drivers have indicated that they can complete their visit to the quarry faster than they did before the system was deployed, she says. Some have reported being able to complete an additional visit per day due to that added efficiency. For the quarry, Roobottom explains, that means potentially greater sales on a daily basis.
By the end of the year, Roobottom predicts, all of Longcliffe's own vehicles, and more of contractors' trucks, will have the tags for use during each load.
