Fuel-management systems

Fuel management systems are used to maintain, control and monitor fuel stock in any type of industry that uses transport, including rail, road, water and air, as a means of business.

There are two main aspects in any fuel management system. Firstly, all fuel coming to, stored on and leaving the businesses site is measured accurately, ensuring any discrepancies are quickly highlighted, allowing short deliveries, leaks and theft to be addressed. Secondly, the system produces extensive reports based on the stock and fuelling transactions, saving time and improving accuracy.

Upon delivery to a site, the fuel is metered off the delivery tankers into the on site storage tanks. This data is automatically fed in to the fuel management system. Next, the tank levels are monitored using an electronic tank gauging system. This gives a clear picture of the current tank stock ensuring timely reordering of fuel. The gauges can also carry out leak detection analysis. Again, the data from the tank gauge is available through the fuel management system, allowing multi site systems to be managed as easily as a single site.

At the point of fuelling, the various types of dispensing equipment are interfaced to the fuel management system. The customers identify themselves to the system using a non contact tag, swipe card, chip and pin or pin number, and are then prompted to enter the Locomotives number on the keypad. The customers and locomotive ID are then checked against an internal list to ensure that only authorised vehicles are fuelled, and only by approved staff reducing the risk of fuel theft to almost zero. Fuelling then commences with the flow monitored by the system. On completion, a time and date stamped transaction is formed and stored for later retrieval.

Finally, the transaction data is polled back to the fuel management system from the various fuelling points and reports generated. These reports show the stock in the tanks, the received stock, the amount of fuel delivered at each fuelling point and through each pump. By grouping the vehicles fuelled, reports on the fuel drawn for each individual driver/vehicle going through the site can be easily and quickly generated.