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Huktra: solar-powered tracking solution
The customer
Huktra NV offers intermodal transport of bulk liquid and powder materials by means of tank containers. The company is specialising in combined transport using a variety of road, railway and sea transport across Europe. The Huktra fleet, which currently has 900 tank containers, is managed and controlled by four offices in Europe.
The challenge
Huktra was looking for a customised solution for accurate location detection of its containers when they are in motion. This solution had to be maintenance-free. Aucxis was engaged to elaborate a concept which should allow Huktra to systematically control and optimise the logistic business processes.
The most important challenge in the project was the good monitoring of the fleet of 900 containers moving across Europe. In order to guarantee an optimal asset management, it is necessary that Huktra knows always and anywhere the containers’ exact location.
clear overview of the
tank containers’ positions
The solution
Aucxis has elaborated a concept taking into account the following objectives:
- Asset management: location detection and follow-up of the containers.
- Traceability of the containers and content in Europe.
- Data integration in an overarching platform.
Each container was equipped with a highly sensitive active GPS tracker with integrated antenna, solar cells and battery. This durable tracker, selected by Aucxis, has already proven its worth at several large trailer projects and has an installed base of more than 30 000 units.
Aucxis is the integrator and uses the MecSolar plus tracker of Mecomo, a company who has a leading role in terms of non-powered tracking solutions. Mecomo and Aucxis are working very closely together and can always offer the most appropriate solution to the customer, both for hardware and software.
Aucxis is responsible for collecting and processing the event data by means of middleware. These data are sent to Huktra by means of a centralised database. In this way, Huktra can optimally control the fleet in its own developed ERP with track-and-trace functionality.
The customer has also chosen to link a temperature sensor to the GPS tracker for specific containers in order to be able to keep and monitor the temperature of the product.
The result
- Every 5 minutes Huktra receives an up-to-date location determination of all containers in motion. They also receive every start and stop movement of a container.
- Huktra uses more than 3000 geofences and can therefore execute automatic shipping arrivals on the basis of location events. The complete logistic planning is organised now on the basis of exact information about the location.
- In case of theft, the container’s location can be detected very quickly.