Advances in the logistics of liquid goods
Self-loading of road tankers by the driver
In the chemical and plastics industry, speed and efficiency are of the essence. This applies not only to production, but also to the transportation of the products. Bayer MaterialScience has now developed a logistics system for the loading of road tankers with polyols in which the driver fills the truck himself. In the petrochemical industry, where few products are marketed but the volumes are large, this form of road tanker loading is already fairly common. Polyols, on the other hand, are a group of products with a large number of individual types and grades.
Bayer MaterialScience has now developed a logistics system for the loading of road tankers with polyols in which the driver fills the truck himself. The new system is so sophisticated that filling the tankers with the wrong product is virtually impossible. If the drivers load the tankers themselves, the logistic procedures can be speeded up considerably. This lowers costs and gives the haulage companies, their drivers and the employees in the production department of Bayer MaterialScience the opportunity to work more flexibly and freely.
Bayer MaterialScience AG
"Until now, these products have been loaded into the tankers by the production workers to be certain of avoiding any mix-up of products. The new system is so sophisticated that filling the tankers with the wrong product is virtually impossible," explains Dr. Ilias Mitulidis, production manager at Bayer MaterialScience, one of the world's leading suppliers of polyols. "If the drivers load the tankers themselves, the logistic procedures can be speeded up considerably. This lowers costs and gives the haulage companies, their drivers and the employees in the production department of Bayer MaterialScience the opportunity to work more flexibly and freely," adds Mitulidis. Polyols are used as raw materials in the production of rigid and flexible polyurethane foams, which are, in turn, used throughout the world in large quantities for the manufacture of high-performance thermal insulating materials, upholstered furniture, mattresses, car seats and shoe soles.
The loading procedure according to the new system is as follows: when the driver reports to Chemion Logistik GmbH - the logistics service provider in the CHEMPARK - he is given the usual freight documents. The truck is weighed to establish its unladen weight, and its maximum payload is documented. The driver then takes his truck to the loading bay, where he navigates the vehicle with the aid of a video camera so that the upper hatch of the tank is positioned exactly below the loading boom. The Bayer MaterialScience employee responsible for the loading procedure checks the delivery papers and hands the driver a chip card to activate the loading process at the relevant bay. On the loading platform, he swipes the chip card through an electronic reading device and receives the authorization to operate the unit. This enables him to fill the truck with the specified volume of the product. With the aid of a joystick, the driver then guides the loading boom into the hatch and begins the filling procedure. He can track its progress easily on the display and, if he wishes, can also take samples. When the filling operation is complete, he raises the loading boom, weighs the truck and exchanges the freight documents with the person in charge before leaving the company site. The introduction of this logistics system has proved so successful that Bayer MaterialScience is considering introducing similar systems to other production plants.
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