01-03-2008, 12:04 AM
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Refueling Firm Sees 6-Month Payback from RFID
 Throughout New Zealand MiniTankers, a subsidiary of Shell, provides on-site diesel refueling with 45 tankers delivering over 60 million litres of fuel per year. It delivers fuel to customers’ vehicles, equipment and machinery on logging sites, quarries, construction sites and airports. A key advantage is being able to accurately identify the machinery that has received fuel, not always an easy task in a muddy and rough environment. Mini Tankers needed a process for quick and accurate vehicle identification, able to correlate it to the amount of fuel dispended, and provide cost information to customers. One additional concern was the elimination of fraudulent transactions and fuel theft.
The chosen system combined Tracient’s Padl-R HF reader which connected to the existing Psion WAPC. As a trial program, Mini Tankers applied a 30mm mount-on-metal RFID tag with adhesive backing to the fuel caps of 130 construction machinery items. The information from the tag was read, transferred via Bluetooth, and collated with the information from the tanker’s fuel meter. The operator was able to print a customer docket on the spot, with date/time/location of delivery and mount of fuel dispensed; this information was in turn transferred to the Mini Tanker HQ database via mobile phone.
The results: speedier and more accurate identification of vehicles receiving fuel; faster recording; reduced time spent dealing with account inquiries. For the customer this meant more accurate and efficient billing, analysis of fuel consumption allowing less time for reviewing fuel usage, and reduced customer back office administration.
The implemented solution yielded a payback in just six months, as pilot site operators consistently saved 30 minutes per 12 hour shift. The system was expanded over all tankers, with plans to have all customers with 20+ items of fleet signed up as soon as possible.
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