Manufacturers and suppliers utilize point-to-point transit trucking to transport their goods directly from source to destination. Depending on their scale of operations, this involves either having their own fleet of trucks, or retaining contracted vehicles, or hiring individual vehicles from trucking companies for their trips. In most cases, the manufacturers and suppliers are dependent on external transporters who often fall short of the high standards required for an efficient supply chain. Truck movement into and within the plant area is unsynchronized with loading and dispatch schedules, trucks take too much time within the plant premises between entry and exit, and there are either bottlenecks or a lot of idle time at various points. This results in loading bay underutilization, dispatch inefficiency and missed delivery schedules.
Overcoming this requires a solution that enables efficiency throughout the entire process of truck requisition, verification, loading, weighing and dispatch, without expending significant manpower resources required for detailed manual supervision. RFID technology provides such an automated solution that tracks and monitors these processes in real-time. Tracking technology also enables real-time monitoring and live mapping of trucks and cargo along their entire route from dispatch to trip completion and delivery confirmation.
RFID tagging of requisitioned trucks results in their automatic tracking at various locations within the plant premises - entry, waiting areas, loading bays, weighbridges and exit – by antenna and readers mounted at all these locations. The RFID driven automated solution manages the queuing, calculation of truck tare weight, assigning of loading bay, laden weight calculation and verification with order data, along with time logging at each stage of the process. The system enables remote monitoring of this traffic online in real-time, with individual truck status and delay alerts.
Trucks are also tracked on the move, en-route to their destination through onboard device integration with GPS/GPRS, providing live tracking and mapping data online back to the administrator. Stoppages and route diversions are instantly made known and alerted along with the exact GPS location of the truck. Cargo carried by the trucks can also be monitored online, if it is tagged and then tracked by the onboard device, which in turn sends this data back along with the truck location data. A cargo crate or carton gets tracked as long as it is within range of the device, thus providing an economical way of continuous tracking of goods in real-time while in transit.
RFID in trucking eases and improves management of goods transportation leading to quicker transit and adherence to delivery schedules. It is easily integrated as a cost-effective enhancement into an organization’s existing systems, providing real-time visibility of the entire dispatch and delivery process. This in turn leads to improved upstream and downstream efficiency in supply chain, agile replenishment, savings in time and manpower, and reduced cost. It benefits both, goods supplier and transporter, bringing them greater overall efficiency and competitive advantage. |
|
THE
XTENNA™
ADVANTAGE
IN TRUCKS |
|
 |
|
|
