Smart fuel tankers control costs and reduce losses
4 Minutes••August 18, 2017
A new way of delivering fuel is now available in New Zealand, offering users the latest technology aimed at driving down operational costs and improving customer service.
Lowes Industries Ltd managing director John Metcalf says they are proud to introduce the Alfons Haar PreciPURE range of tank truck dispensing and metering systems.
Traditionally, a tanker driver is given a list of deliveries every morning. The list includes the customers‘ details as well as how much and what kind of fuel to dispense. The driver then goes to the fuel terminal and loads the vehicle with diesel and petrol to match the delivery schedule, often only partially loading some compartments in order to dispense that compartment‘s complete volume to a customer‘s tank.
For example, a compartment‘s capacity may be 6000 litres but is only loaded to say 4,500 litres as that‘s all a customer‘s tank can take. This means the vehicle often leaves the terminal only partially loaded, which is inefficient and costly.
With PreciPURE the driver no longer has to worry about dispensing a partially full compartment to a customer, as all the compartments can be fully loaded and PreciPURE ensures only the required quantity of fuel is dispensed to the customer regardless of which compartment (or compartments) it comes from. This applies to both pumped and gravity drop deliveries.
The end result is more fuel can be delivered each day. The system also removes the need to have two sets of pumps and meters and all the associated equipment in order to deal with petrol and diesel – now only one pump and meter is necessary, which means a huge weight saving so more product can be carried.
The first system in New Zealand was placed into service with NPD at the beginning of May 2017. Metcalf says NPD is so delighted with the system that Lowes now have further orders in the build programme and are in discussions with other customers about integrating this system into their fleet.
The PreciPURE system is an extremely well tested and proven international product that has been in service in Australasia since 2014 and in Europe for more than five years, with hundreds of tanker installations to date.
Metcalf firmly believes the PreciPURE range of equipment is a complete game changer for the fuel delivery industry. Through its technology the system allows complete live control of the delivery schedule which can be managed and updated in the office ‘on the fly‘, sending any changes directly to the tanker while it is on the run. At the same time, it offers the driver a complete range of control options from full manual control through partial control to fully automatic ‘hands-off‘ where the computer controls what is dispensed and all the driver has to do is connect up and push the start button.
The system uses the internationally recognised open interface EN standardised FTL (Fuel Truck Link) for two-way communication with other on-board fuel management, data capture, GPS tracking and computer systems.
PreciCONTROL systems also offer integrated Sealed Parcel Delivery System, Cross Over Protection and Retained Product Monitoring for a totally secure end-to-end fuel delivery solution.
Metcalf says this means no more missing product, as everything can be accounted for, with full records going back thousands of deliveries able to be recovered from the system should any queries arise.
