Encrypta Electronics has devised an automatic load security verification system.
The 93/104/EC Working Time Directive could limit each driver?s average weekly working hours to 48. Working time will be classified as time when a driver is in his cab and available for work, driving, unloading/loading or other work related to administrative duties or vehicle safety. For those companies, such as major retailers, who need to operate a 24-7 a week supply chain, the choice is to improve efficiency or face higher costs from recruiting more drivers. Increasing efficiency by operating at night, when the roads are less congested, will be limited by the regulation that limits night time driving to eight hours in a 24-hour period. Encrypta Electronics has identified an area where efficiency could be improved and devised an automatic load security verification system. At present, manual security checks on each lorry entering and leaving a distribution site can delay a vehicle for typically several minutes even as much as half an hour when a large number of vehicles are trying to be checked at the same time. This waiting time is treated as working time under the new regulations and so reduces the amount of productive driving time that a driver can do. Encrypta?s automated Security Gate House System checks in seconds that each vehicle is still properly sealed between having been loaded and leaving the site. Returning vehicles are similarly automatically checked for the status of their seals. Human intervention is only required if something is unusual. As a result, vehicle throughput can increase from 20 vehicles per hour per lane up to 120 vehicles per hour per lane, as happened in the case of one of the first installations of this system. Another customer, who mainly operates a trunking fleet at night, had to get 500 vehicles through four lanes. Installing Encrypta?s system reduced this daily task from six hours to one to two hours, saving over 2000 man-hours a day and also eliminating police complaints about static vehicles congesting approach roads. Mark Hayward, Encrypta?s Sales and Marketing Director, says: ?This new directive is going to be a major headache. You cannot simply pay people overtime if you exceed the 48 hours. So you either recruit more drivers, which is an on-going expense that squeezes margins even thinner, or remove unproductive time by installing a system such as ours, which is mainly a one-off capital cost that can pay for itself in a few months. For example, a company operating a fleet of 1500 trucks that each experience a three minute delay going in and out of a site would find that our system pays for itself in ten months, whilst with a thirty minute delay this pay back period reduces to only two weeks.?
How the system works
Each vehicle is fitted with one of Encrypta Electronics? re-usable, Crypta Data electronic seals. These use solid-state electronics so that there are a minimum of mechanical moving parts, which are always the most vulnerable part of any design for tampering or even simply jamming. It has a high tensile, stainless steel hasp that is passed through the handles or securing apertures of the door or shutter to be guarded and then secured into the body of the unit. This operation automatically generates a four-digit seal number, which is shown on a large display that is easy to read to reduce the possibility of transcription errors and is illuminated for legibility in low light conditions. This number remains unchanged until the unit is opened, providing proof of the load?s integrity. If the original seal number, which was set at loading, changes, this clearly indicates that an unauthorised access has occurred meantime, as the hasp cannot be removed without changing the seal number. Seals are available without hasps, if required, that use a variety of remote sensors instead to seal and verify the integrity of the load. Each seal has an RF transponder built in that sends a unique trailer ID, sealing numbers, and date and time of the sealing operations to a receiver unit in the gatehouse. These are checked by the computer system, which determines if the vehicles are properly sealed and authorises them to pass the gatehouse or be diverted for a security check if there is something unusual. Visit www.encrypta.com.
