What is it?
Liquid Loads is a program designed to make the loading of liquid tankers easy and more efficient. It tracks the calculated loads and compares with the actual loads to generate reports to help with NHVAS audits.
How does it work?
Once you have setup all your vehicles in the system all you do is create a load. You specify what liquids you are loading, at what densities and the system calculates the optimal load to maximize the allowed weights on all axles. No guess work!! Reduced admin time and peace of mind that you are getting the most out of your vehicles while doing everything possible to remain legal.
What reporting does it generate?
Mass Management Compliance Statement
This report shows the number of compliant trips for a particular month. It also has a drill down feature where you can find out why certain trips were non-compliant.
Load Breach Report
Use this report to see individual trip that breached their weight limits and why they breached. It shows if the operator purposefully overloaded the truck of if the overload was from variations between the calculated load and the actual load.
Case Study: Purtill Petroleum
Purtill Petroleum based in Deniliquin transports approximately 24 million litres of fuel per year. We have been able to increase the amount of litres we cart while reducing the number of trips per year hence producing an overall saving and increasing profitability.
Previous System: Purtills used an Excel spread sheet to calculate the loads of each truck.
Improvement in Efficiency: Purtills went to loading their trucks at approximately 98%[1] so were able to increase efficiency by 2% which was an increase of 480,000 litres carted per year.
Added Benefits:
1. Using the previous system there was no audit trail. Once a load had been calculated and printed, it was overwritten with the next load. Now there is an audit trail with every load that is completed saved.
2. Due to the audit trail reporting is easier. Reports can be generated at the click of a button and shown to auditors.
3. Spread sheets for each truck and trailer combination would have to be created. This would become confusing with only 3 trucks and 5 trailers totalling to 9 different spread sheets, all with similar measurements. With Liquid loads there is no need for multiple spread sheets. Trucks are independent of trailers and they can now mix and match on the fly.
4. Bill of Lading slips were often lost or faded over the months due to being printed of thermal paper. Now with the Bill of Lading being entered into the system this does not matter because Purtills can always go back and check the details from the system.
The Future
Liquid Loads is always evolving as requirements change or new technologies become available. Here are some of our ideas for the future of Liquid Loads.
Smart Phone and Tablet Integration
A load could be sent to a smart phone or tablet for a driver. When the driver gets to the terminal and the densities of the liquids have changed, the load could be recalculated to avoid overloading the truck due to these changed densities. This is currently the main reason for load breaches on vehicles.
Smart phone/tablet integration could also be used for data entry whereby the driver enters the details of the bill of lading. This will reduce office admin time and will also be useful for trucks and drivers that do not come back to base at regular intervals.
Seamless Supply Chain Tracking
Using additional features of tracking service station fuel levels and customer orders we could use this information to automatically schedule loads to make the most efficient use of the fleet.
Picture being able to see current fuel levels, predicted future fuel levels, customer orders and scheduled trips all on one interface and not have to worry about the scheduling yourself. Imagine the administration hours saved.
Wall Mounted Summary Display
Imagine waking into your office and there on the wall is a screen (as big as you want) displaying all the current information of your operation. I.E. where all your vehicles are currently, where each vehicle is heading, fuel levels at service stations, commitments about to be broken etc. and have it update automatically as information becomes available.
Not only would you be able to view all this information but with emerging technologies you could manipulate this data and even make corrections all by waving your hands.
These are just a few of the ideas we have in store for the future of Liquid Loads.
[1] Comparison between loads done by hand in previous system and loads calculated with Liquid Loads