U.S. marine transportation and logistics company adopts RFID to save time and money
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Edison Chouest Offshore (ECO), a marine transportation and logistics company, has begun to use RFID technology provided by Mojix to track tools, equipment, food, and other consumer goods and oil rigs that travel back and forth.
This system is designed to transport goods to the oil drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico more efficiently and reliably, and to obtain real-time information about the location and status of leased equipment, thereby reducing costs. For example, if a piece of equipment is returned from an offshore drilling platform, ECO will know it immediately and can return the equipment before incurring additional costs. Dane Vizier, the company’s C-Logistics department manager, outlines the system.
ECO’s C-Logistics department orders or leases equipment and supplies, including consumer goods, tools, and heavy machinery, on behalf of their oil drilling customers. The company then transports the items to the oil rig from the Port Fourchon plant in Louisiana.
In order to track the location and movement of supplies (from a box of soap to thousands of feet of pipeline), the C-Logistics department of ECO used pen and paper to manually record information, scan barcodes, and unload, stand by, and ship equipment and supplies. Take pictures when The company also uses this process to record the equipment returned by the customer. Before installing the RFID system, the data in this process was mainly recorded manually, and the data was stored in the company’s proprietary software system called Triton.
In Port Fourchon, ECO owns a 24 acre storage yard, where it receives and stores supplies and equipment for offshore platforms. The company uses a 500-ton aerial crane to load cargo onto the vessel. This storage yard includes 9 lanes, where trucks unload the ordered equipment and goods, and then supply ships to load the goods. Approximately 130 semi-trailer trucks transport equipment and supplies every day, and they are restocked by barges. The lanes where the ship arrives at the yard will be loaded with water, fuel, soil (consisting of water, soil and mixed chemicals, used to lubricate and cool the drill bit and wash the rock particles), and various other supplies and equipment.
There are 9 lanes in the storage yard of the C-Logistics department
ECO wanted to find a solution that would make the delivery process more visible, reduce labor, and ensure that the goods are delivered quickly and accurately.
Vizier said: “What we want to do is to make our cargo more visible, to be able to confirm when the cargo is unloaded from the truck, and to know the location of a particular piece of equipment.”
In 2008, ECO invited Mojix and four other RFID companies to demonstrate their technology. Then the ECO company conducts tests on RFID technology in the yard and attaches passive tags for metal to equipment or supplies boxes. It is a challenge to locate passive tags that can be read in such a large space. The yard is very large, 135 feet wide and 30 feet high, so the tags need a large reading distance. Vizier said that in the first quarter of 2010, ECO chose to use Omni-ID’s EPC Gen 2 RFID tags, which showed the best reading distance among the test tags. The company installed Mojix electronic nodes and antennas on each side of the yard lanes, and installed a separate, central STAR reader on each lane.
The electronic node transmits ultra-high frequency (UHF) radio frequency signals to the Omni-ID tag like an exciter, sends the unique ID number to the STAR reader, and then the reader sends the data to the ECO back-end system. Robert Kowalik, vice president of sales at Mojix, explained. He pointed out that the Mojix software uses algorithms to determine the location of the label and the orientation of the label as it is loaded and unloaded. The system then sends the information to the Triton software.
The goods were transported by truck to two locations. If a truck delivers cargo to a customer of a specific oil drilling platform, the truck can go directly to the standby area of the yard lane. If the goods on the truck are to be delivered to several customers, the truck will unload the goods at the unloading yard.
In both cases, when the goods are unloaded from the truck, workers in the C-Logistics department attach RFID tags to the equipment or supplies box. Then connect the ID number of each label with the data of the labeled item (or the item in the box or the container) by scanning or reading the bar code or the alphanumeric serial number of the product supplier with your eyes. Then, these products are transported from the unloading yard to the warehouse, where the RFID reader on the door reads the tags, and the location and status of the products are updated in the back-end system. However, some larger items are still stored in the unloading yard.
Before loading the goods on the ship, the workers remove the supplies and equipment stored in the warehouse or unloaded from the yard and transport them to the standby area near the ship’s lane. Warehouse employees can use handhelds equipped with PCMCIA card RFID readers to read tags at a distance of 20 feet or less, thereby verifying what goods the workers move out.
When the item is loaded on the supply vessel (larger equipment uses an aerial crane), the Mojix system reads the tag again, confirms that the item is loaded on the correct vessel, and sends the information to the Triton software to update the order status. Then, the software connects each ID number with the items on the loading list. If the wrong cargo is loaded on the ship, it will send an alarm, and if a certain batch of cargo on the ship is lost, it can also send an alarm.
Vizier said: “This system will save oil companies time and money.” He said that the system can also reduce the risk of mistakes. If a piece of equipment is not installed on a ship, it will delay the progress of petroleum products on offshore oil platforms. It will also help the C-Logistics department manage the transportation and return of leased equipment.
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