RFID technology to track a fleet of trucks
over Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia
By Jon Fernquest |
This week's Database section in the Bangkok Post has a article on the use of RFID technology (Radio Frequency Identification) to manage fleets of trucks in Thailand.
SCG Logistics Management uses RFID technology to manage a fleet of delivery trucks:
"With a total of some 3,000 trucks, the SCG Group transports more than 200 different products and has a total of over 7,000 transactions a day and RFID has improved the efficiency of its logistics and inventory management in the transportation of lignite.SCG Logistics Management system management department manager Vinit Vichittanaporn said the company provided distribution services to all regions of Thailand, including making international deliveries to Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia."
The company set up its RFID transportation management system (TMS) in 2001 because its network of delivery trucks had become quite complicated and difficult to track:
|
"In the original transportation model, SCG Logistics had faced many problems. Vinit cited the company's distribution of lignite which had to be taken from the mine at Mae Moh in Lampang to three cement factories in Saraburi at Taluang, Kangkoi and Tawong.Some 800 trucks made 150 trips a day transporting lignite for 15 carrier companies. "The trucks had to wait for one another and they often had to switch to other plants if the storage space at the plant they had gone to was full, and this had caused extra fuel costs," Vinit explained.
He added that before there had been no visibility to monitor fleet capacities, with long waiting times for trucks and a lot of documents such as shipping documents, courier invoices, weight reports that had to be filled out. Moreover, there was the problem of data delays and inaccurate invoices...
Thus, SCG Logistics had looked for a solution and had made a comparison between an RFID- and a GPS-based (geographic positioning service) approach. The company had decided on RFID and started implementing it at the end of 2005 and today the technology has been applied to lignite shipments and would be further expanded to manage the logistics of another two raw materials: gypsum and coal, he said."
(See photo below of a display providing visual confirmation of a truck's location)
It took some time to get the system working smoothly and automatically without costly human interventions:
|
During the pilot testing system, the company exploited active RFID technology at a 2.4GHz (microwave) frequency.The active RFID tags were attached to 30 trucks while the readers were placed at the destinations, such as at the entrances to the mine to read data from a distance while the trucks were moving and at weighing machines in order to compare the weights of products at the origin and the destination.
"We also integrated the RFID system with our ERP and the real-time enterprise application integration (EAI) systems," Vinit explained.
SCG's RFID web tracking was also connected to its customers' ERP system and thus customers did not need to key in the fleet data because this information would show on their monitors in real-time. It also could track the status of each truck during the transportation.
Initially, said Vinit, the company had faced network failures, a lack of integration of the systems, disconnections between weighing stations at the mine and at the plants, power failures, human errors, non-processed procedures and issues with new trucks and carriers.
However, the company was eventually able to get accurate information since RFID chips have a unique identifying number and the system was free from human intervention that would ensure that they would get reliable truck identification and arrival times, he said."
In the end, the benefits have clearly outweighed the costs of the system and the problems encountered along the way in implementing it:
"With accurate, real time information on individual vehicles, an operation plan that would maximise the usage of each vehicle could be worked out. All the information was in electronic format and this could easily support paperless operations, such as the calculation of fleet charges."Contractors are also happy because the information is in real time. The drivers can get their wages as soon as their job is done and need not wait a long time, as had been the case before," Vinit said, adding that the company could reduce the number of workers involved.
The company is now implementing RFID to track imported coal from Ayutthaya to its customers and will implement an RFID reader at the stockpile. SCG Logistics Management now plans to expand RFID to other fleets in the near future, such as to those shipping gypsum and rolls of paper."
(Source: Bangkok Post, Database section, 06-02-01, temp-link)
Vocabulary:
RFID - Radio Frequency Identification technology, electronic tags on objects that broadcast bits of information, for example a future refrigerator could read a milk carton's RFID tag to determine when the milk will expire, allows control and tracking of of goods along a supply chain, can be used to track inventory by attaching tags to stock to automatically locate the stock and record movement past sensor points, can also be used to track ocean-going containers onboard a ship or a truck (Source: Google Definitions)
logistics - efficient organisation of the flow of goods from the factory to the marketplace (See Wikipedia on logistics)
a fleet of trucks - a group of trucks that work together in a business
lignite - brown coal, is the lowest rank of coal and used almost exclusively as fuel for steam-electric power generation, mined at the Mae Moh lignite mine in Lampang (See Wikipedia on lignite)
track - follow the movement of something
monitor X (verb) - regularly check on the progress of some task X
fleet capacities - the greatest amount of goods that can be carried by a group of trucks
a courier - a person who sends letters, packages, or goods from one place to another
invoices - lists goods supplied to a customer and how much is owed for them
GPS-based (geographic positioning service) - a device that allows you determine your position on the map by communciating with a satellite (See Wikipedia)
implementing - turning a plan into action, doing a plan
gypsum - a soft mineral with many uses ranging from fertilizer, soil conditioner, a building material, chalk, cement, in the snack food twinkies, in tofu, in the traditional Chinese medicine Chi Gao, in plaster of Paris used for casts on broken legs, etc (See Wikipedia)
human interventions - when a computer does not do something automcatically, and humans who are much slower must do something before the computers continue working
ERP - business computer systems that integrate all data and processes of an organization into a unified system (See Wikipedia on Enterprise Resource Planning)
real-time enterprise application integration (EAI) systems - computer software that integrates business (enterprise) computer applications such as supply chain management applications (for managing inventory and shipping), customer relationship management applications (for managing current and potential customers), business intelligence applications (for managing internal operations), and other types of applications (for managing data such as human resources data, inventory, etc) (See Wikipedia on Enterprise Application Integration)
web tracking - follow the movement of something using the internet
monitors - computer monitors, computer screens
in real-time - computing that is done while something happens (for example, Fedex allows its customers to track the progress of their shipments in real time, so that they know where they are at any time)
the status of each truck during the transportation - know what is happening at anytime while it is transporting goods
network failures - when the computer network fails, no connection (for example, suddenly you lose your internet connection)
integration - closely linking together all the different parts of a system (See glossary)
integration of the systems - closely linking the systems together
reliable - can be certain will work in the usual expected way
X outweighed Y - factor X in the decision was more important than factor Y
problems encountered along the way - problems that happen while you are doing a task, before you complete it
maximise the usage - use as many as possible (for example, if you own many trucks you want 90% of them or more of them to be busy carrying goods and earning money all the time)
stockpile - large quantities stored for future use (See glossary)
