Electronic cane consignment at Isis Mill

摘要

Cane consignment is a critical link in the delivery of cane from the field to factory. Traditionally, this has occurred in paper form, completed by the haul-out driver, passing through several sets of hands before finally reaching the sugar mill weighbridge. The entering of consignment information into the mill payment system typically occurred as a just-in-time system, where cane was delivered to the yard and tickets eventually made their way to the weighbridge clerk for manual entry into the system. The direct cost of sugar cane transport is one of the largest unit costs of the manufacturing sector of the industry. Capital and operating cost components of cane transport are large. Under-utilisation of cane bins or delays in locomotive movements can add significantly to these costs. There are also indirect costs associated with cane transport and cane supply delays at the sugar factory. Cane deterioration losses when cane is not scheduled to pick up in a timely manner, as well as delays to harvesting caused by insufficient empty bins at the rail siding or truck pad, can also add significantly to stakeholder costs. Electronic cane consignment allows information to be relayed to a number of stakeholders immediately the cane is placed into the cane bin. This provides almost live information about haul-out deliveries to truck pads and cane railway sidings. This in turn allows for scheduling adjustments to both road and rail systems, reduces cut to crush delays, and avoids having locomotives and cane bins under-utilised. Due to the electronic consignment data being subject to a level of primary validation during field entry, the accuracy level of the information is usually superior to the paper ticket alternative. As a result, factory efficiency is improved by eliminating unnecessary stops due to bad or incorrect information and significantly reduces the time required by weighbridge personnel to correct errors in consignment data entry. Consequently, this role has been rationalised to incorporate both the duties of the traffic office and weighbridge.