Digital Asset Delivery and Project Management
Seamless Material Tracking for Cement Tankers
Challenge Statement Owner:
Background and Current Practice
In a concrete batching plant, it is important to measure the volume of cement that is entering the plant to plan and monitor operations. The conventional way of measuring cement volume is for the cement tanker to drive onto a weighbridge when entering and exiting the plant to calculate the difference in weight and derive the volume. The cement is enclosed in the tanker, so it is not possible to use visual means to determine the volume.
In Singapore, there is limited space within the concrete batching plants to accomodate a large weighbridge that can cater to larger cement tankers. Thus, these plants cannot accept deliveries from larger cement tankers or need to rely on poor estimates.
Opportunity Areas and Key Challenges
We are interested in solutions that utilise alternative methods to measure the volume of cement carried in a tanker. The solution may be deployed at the entrance and exit of the plant to measure the volume as the tanker drives past.
- The solution must be able to accurately calculate the volume of the cement based on the model or the shape of the tankers. It must be tailored to different models of tankers.
- It must be able to identify the licence plate of the tanker, in order to determine the delivery source.
- It should ideally not require the cement tanker to stop whilst the measurement is being made.
- It could adopt Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) scanners to inspect the content of the tanker to determine the volume of cement. The body of the tanker is typically made out of steel with a thickness of 5mm
- It should not require installation of devices or sensors in or on the cement tanker. This is not practical because Pan-United procures cement from different suppliers.
The solution should include a dashboard that reports on the volume of cement received from the different suppliers. The data in this report will be used to compare with volume indicated in the delivery order (DO).
Expected Outcomes
The solution accurately measures the volume of cement in a tanker to determine the volume in a way that eliminates the use of a weighbridge in a concrete batching plant. It can be for all deliveries by different suppliers.
If this solution is successful, Pan-United is interested to scale it for other materials that are delivered by dump trucks, such as aggregates, and across their 16 plants.
