Electronic seals for trailers
Nisa-Today, one of the UK’s leading buying and distribution companies for independent retailers and wholesalers, delivers 1.2 million cases each week to a total of 2750 delivery points. Faced with the need to increase security, the company is using RFID to seal its trailers.
The company had been using padlocks to secure the trailers but there were problems with lost keys, and matching keys to locks; more importantly there was no way of knowing what exactly happened if something went missing or was stolen. The new RFID system had to secure the 150 trailers for each of their journeys - both when in transit and when loaded and waiting for delivery anywhere in the 41 acres depot - and be able to check activity during a journey.
The seal works by automatically generating a four-digit random number every time it is closed and also records the time and date of each opening and closing, storing details of the past operations in its memory. Thus, at any time, the integrity of the load can be verified by checking that the original seal number from the initial loading operation is unchanged. The life expectancy of the unit is several years depending on the operation usage pattern, enabling it to easily pay for itself compared with the costs of disposable seals.
This provides a precise audit trail that shows exactly when any seal was opened so any suspicious incident can be pinpointed in time and tied into the tachograph information to give the location of the vehicle. Drivers particularly like this as it provides independent proof of their integrity and honesty.
This provides a precise audit trail that shows exactly when any seal was opened so any suspicious incident can be pinpointed in time and tied into the tachograph information to give the location of the vehicle. Drivers particularly like this as it provides independent proof of their integrity and honesty.
The collection of this seal data is done automatically. The seal transmission is automatically read as the trailer passes the gatehouse, transmitting its trailer ID and memory, including the current seal number, which is then displayed on a PC. This screen shows the name and picture of the driver, the run number, the vehicle ID, and status of the load - it automatically verifies the transmitted seal number with the one entered on loading. This makes it an easy process for the guard to visually verify the driver and vehicle number against the screen information to ensure that everything correlates and the load is secure.
The whole process takes a few seconds rather than several minutes. As a result, there are no long queues of vehicles waiting to enter or leave the depot, which would eat into drivers’ allowable driving time and cost fuel whilst the engines were idling.
The RF link also enables the load security to be maintained whilst in the depot. Once loaded, the seals are secured and the trailers moved into parking spaces to await the tractor unit and driver. If any seal is opened whilst the trailer is parked, it sends an alert to the system, via strategically placed RF readers, which are on a wireless network. An alarm immediately flashes up on the display showing exactly which trailer is being opened and its exact location on the site.
The system display also provides the real time status of each trailer showing which are on site, which are loaded and which are empty.
Supplier: Unisto
Product: Crypta Data Tag, GateSuite software.
Product: Crypta Data Tag, GateSuite software.
