RFID Tracks Newfoundland Petroleum Company Containers and Shipping Vessels
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A. Harvey, a Canadian offshore and offshore oil and gas extraction service provider, uses an active real-time positioning system (RTLS) to locate and track the movement of containers (such as container storage and loading to the North Atlantic Ocean oil exploration well The process of the vessel). The company has tested active tags and readers for four months in the harsh climate of the coast of Newfoundland to ensure that the tags can withstand the impact of maritime climate and container movement or vibration.
IDBlue is responsible for the installation and integration of this system. The system is provided by Zebra Enterprise Solution and consists of active 2.4 GHz RFID tags, readers and ZES Visibility Server Software (VSS). A. Harvey hopes to implement a terminal-to-terminal container management system at the Port of Newfoundland, where the company loads and unloads containers on or off the ship, and places empty containers and containers that need to be repaired or repaired in warehouses.
A. Harvey container waiting to be loaded onto the ship
A. Harvey is responsible for transporting all equipment and goods to and from offshore oil exploration wells, including conduits, food, tools and garbage. A. Harvey’s business area covers an area of 13 acres, including the A. Harvey Newfoundland offshore base and container warehouse, where the company stores, loads and unloads containers sent to five oil mining customers. The cargo containers are transported from the coast to the well (approximately 220 miles), and back-it takes about 14 hours to go back and forth, and the transport environment is cold, humid, and windy. Before the new system was installed, A. Harvey manually tracked the containers that were shipped and returned and where they were stored at the base, and also manually listed the contents of each container. A. Harvey has a total of 1400-1500 containers with 30 different shapes.
The company stated that IDBlue needs to provide an RFID system that can track the location of containers at the base and monitor the process of container loading or unloading. The system must also withstand the harsh environment of the Canadian coastline. In the end, the company chose the ZES system (including tags, readers and software).
In the fall of 2009, IDBlue and A. Harvey set out to design this system and held a test in February this year. The test used 50 Zebra WhereTag IV adhesive labels that comply with the ISO 24730-2 RTLS standard. The tag was applied to 46 containers, two trucks and two ships of a customer of the company, sending signals at a rate of once every 4 minutes. During the test, IDBlue also installed a ZES WherePort activator (which sends a signal to activate the tag) and a reader on the top of the security post. The reader receives the transmitted signal from the active tag, including the tag’s unique ID code and time and date. The tag reading distance can reach 5700 feet, but in order to accurately locate the container (within 10 feet), the tag reading distance must be adjusted to 3,200 feet. The VSS software running on an independent, dedicated server compiles the location of the label and forwards the information to A. Harvey’s ERP system.
WhereTag installed on the oil tank
In the test, the truck was labelled. A. Harvey can judge whether the system can track the vehicle when the vehicle is passing the base and loading the container. IDBlue also installs tags on both ships, and the tags are read when the ships enter the port. In this way, when the system detects the arrival of a ship, it can send a notification to the management and provide a record of the ship’s entry and exit.
Due to the great success of the test, the company is now beginning to label all containers, trucks and ships of participating customers (the target is all customers), said Jeff Brown, IDBlue’s service director. “Tests have proven that the equipment, including tags and readers, can be used in harsh marine environments,” said Paul Baboian, Zebra Enterprise Solutions’ business development manager.
After the test ended in June, A. Harvey began labeling the company’s 1,400 containers, ships and vehicles. The VSS software will display the map of the base and the container warehouse, and provide the locations of the labeled containers and vehicles at the base.
Brown stated that the system provides visibility of the container at the base, and the transportation information of each container is automatically confirmed when it is loaded on the ship and when it returns. The system helps the company track the storage time of the container in the warehouse and the time it goes to sea. “This system is mainly used for rapid positioning of containers,” Brown said.
A. Harvey plans to fully integrate the VSS system into the company’s existing EPR system this fall, Brown said. After the integration is completed, the company will not only be able to track the containers, but also correspond to the ID codes of each container with the contents inside. In this way, the system can automatically generate invoices. At the same time, this system can also be used for inspection management. For example, A. Harvey employees can use the VSS software to search for containers that need to be inspected in the next few days, and generate a list of container items and locations. Ship tags can also be used to identify which containers should be loaded on which ship.
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