Optrak Lubricants is a set of modules specifically designed to meet the vehicle routing needs of the lubricant and chemical industries, delivering bulk and packed products on bulk tankers, IBC (tote) vehicles, flatbeds and combination vehicles. These facilities have been developed from our experience of working with companies such as Wincanton, Shell, Fuchs and Reynolds Tankers. Optrak can be quickly and easily customised, enabling your particular distribution requirements to be accurately modelled for optimum performance.

All the facilities of Optrak for operational load planning are available. The specialist facilities for dealing with lubricant or chemical delivery vehicles are described below.

Multi-compartment bulk loading can be used for lubricants, fuel oil or chemicals. Optrak can deal with different compartment types and different pumping rules, for example fully metered or Unmetered compartments.

Cleaning

With lubricants and other chemicals, special attention needs to be paid to cleaning to prevent contamination. But cleaning is expensive. Sometimes it is not necessary. For example with lubricants you can often follow a hydraulic oil with gear oil without the cleaning – but the reverse is not true. And cleaning operations are different depending on the products involved.

Optrak models this. It knows which cleaning operation is necessary when going from one product to another and how much it costs. The optimiser intelligently selects the best product to compartment allocation to minimise cleaning cost. Fuchs used this and cut the most expensive wash and dry by 13% while increasing "no action" and "drain only" by 4% and 7% respectively.

Loading

To help load the vehicle, Optrak produces a loading diagram.

In this diagram, the compartments (tanks) are shown in proportion to their volume and the products are colour-coded by product family. The diagram includes order codes, product grades, previous product and cleaning operation required prior to loading. These diagrams can be printed out and given or emailed directly to the loading staff.

Pump sequencing

Another bulk loading challenge is to sequence product through the pumps on the vehicle. There may be several types of product on board but only two pumps. Some product sequences are permitted, others require a roadside flush , others are not permitted until the pump and hose lines have been properly cleaned back at the cleaning station.

Optrak ensures that the route sequence will not cause pump contamination and gives pump instructions and a diagram to show the driver which pumps must be used and in what sequence.

 

Packaged Product Deliveries

Packed lubricant deliveries come in containers from small tins through different sized drums to IBC containers and shrink-wrapped pallets of smaller items. Optrak can implement stacking and packing rules and deal with different container types and sizes as the loading diagram below illustrates.

Another factor in the delivery of packed goods is the handling of large drums. If there is a drum on the vehicle then mechanical handling equipment (a dollie) will be required – which itself will take up space on the vehicle.

Finally, delivery via pumped IBC may be possible, using a portable pump.

Optrak has been adapted to meet all these real-world delivery issues. Contact us to discuss your delivery problems.