July/Aug 2005

Staff at 45 operating sites used by logistics contractor Christian Salvesen will in future no longer need to perform a time-consuming trailer audit every day. Instead, the 1,500 trailers will report their own depot locations automatically by GPRS wireless network.

This is one of the benefits of a 'new-generation' RFID-based site location system adopted by Salvesen. The supplier, Secureseal, maintains that the system costs 75 per cent less than a conventional trailer tracking system, and says this is probably the biggest order for such product to be placed in the UK so far.

Active RFID (radio frequency identification) tags are being fitted to Salvesen's trailers, each powered by a five-year battery. These transmit their trailer ID wirelessly to a cellular GPRS hub (a glorified mobile phone), which is mounted securely on the premises, and this transmits data about the trailers' identity over a GPRS data network to a secure web server used by Salvesen.

Secureseal says the system works on a simple plug-in basis, and involves no special installation procedure. Even on sites owned by customers rather than Salvesen itself, the company says it will be able to get the system up and running literally in minutes.

 

Salvesen's business support manager, Simon Woodward, says the new system will help prevent errors that crept into the old manual checking system, as well as providing more information. The data will be analysed with the help of some supplied software, which offers features such as searching by depot and trailer, time analysis and maintenance alerts.

Usually trailer tracking is handled by means of on-board equipment that can be interrogated anywhere at any time - but this requires on-board GPS location equipment and wireless communications on every trailer. The Secureseal argument is that such flexibility is seldom needed, and that the real priority for many operators is simply to be able to check on which trailers are at which depot at any given time.