www.foodtechnology.co.nz 23 A FISHY PROBLEM For New Zealand fish products group Talley’s, maximising revenue for each container load has become more important as cargo receivers look constantly to drive down transport costs. But this has presented a unique challenge. The company’s seafood division - Amaltal Deepsea - runs a fleet of deep sea fishing vessels equipped with automated processing facilities. Fish are processed onboard within hours of being caught. Everything is used - including fish waste which is converted into high grade by-products such as fish meal and oil. When exporting fish oil, Talley’s has traditionally used a pump and hose to discharge the oil into a 24,000 litre flexitank. But the firm’s onshore logistics team faced a constant problem - how to maximise container loads of this liquid cargo? If the container was overfilled, the flexitank could be split, destroying tens of thousands of dollars worth of cargo, not to mention a rather smelly clean up job. But by underfilling the container, Talley’s generated less revenue from the shipment, plus the shipping cost per tonne of payload was higher than it needed to be. Talley’s tried using flow meters to optimise the load, but found this was inaccurate with air bubbles and other variables skewing the measurement. This meant the team was forced to ‘guess’ when the flexitank was full, disconnect the hose, then have the container hauled to the nearest weighbridge to check the weight. With the gross container weight, Talley’s could then calculate how much capacity was left inside the flexitank. Containers were at times under filled by more than 2000 litres. Once weighed, the container would be returned for the team to continue loading and to guess (again) if it was topped up to the right level. This process cost Talley’s time and money, including extra haulage costs, weighbridge fees and man-hours spent co-ordinating the checkweighing and top up. Check-weighing away from the loading point also caused delays and meant Talley’s sometimes had to choose between knowingly shipping an under- filled container, or missing a shipping cut-off-time. Talley’s was already familiar with BISON C-Jacks, having adopted them at a number of its meat processing plants for SOLAS VGM compliance. Talley’s logistics team quickly recognised that C-Jacks were not just a compliance tool, but an ideal solution for optimising the weight of containerised flexitanks during loading. The portability of the C-Jacks meant they could be easily moved to the different docks where vessels were discharged, allowing the empty container and flexitank to be weighed before loading, and giving Talley’s a precise tare weight and an accurate target for optimising the container payload. They also mean the container can be weighed in real time during loading, allowing the supervisor to gauge loading progress and most importantly, identify exactly when the flexitank is full. Talley’s is now optimising container loads of fish oil at the point of loading. Each shipment is now more profitable as, with fish oil sold by weight, revenue is maximised with each shipment and earnings are realised sooner. Shipping costs are reduced in two ways: first, the haulage costs, weighbridge fees and labour costs from check weighing the container are eliminated; and second, in the course of a year, more cargo is being shipped with less containers, reducing net shipping costs per tonne by approximately 10%. Being portable and trade approved, Talley’s is also using C-Jacks to weigh container loads of tuna, fish meal and other export fish products. These weights are used for transacting cargo by weight and for SOLAS VGM compliance. This saves Talley’s at least NZ$20 per container in weighbridge fees. It also reduces the time and distance travelled by Talley’s trucks, by not having to visit a weighbridge enroute to port. INDUSTRY EFFICIENCY
FT-eMag-feb18
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