AI weighbridge solutions combat coal corruption

Weighbridge automation solutions provider JustWeighs recently developed and launched its new artificial intelligence (AI) and surveillance equipment to combat coal transportation corruption and illicit trading.

The company makes use of AI and data analytics to identify trucks with cloned numberplates or swapped trailers, with tonnages of the dispatched weight measured into the cloud system, alerting the supply chain to variances in tonnages being received.

Additionally, the cameras are able to pick up trucks that are trying to bypass weighbridges and alerts group security management.

With a large portion of coal moving from being transported by rail to, more recently, road, an illicit market and trading environment has emerged whereby truckloads of coal are weighed incorrectly, good grades are mixed with poor grades, or coal is removed in an effort by syndicates to earn a profit.

Oftentimes, the grade of coal ordered by a client is lowered, with the better grade being held by members of an illicit syndicate, which then resells the better grade coal at their own profit, while peddling poorer grade coal to legitimate customers.

JustWeighs explains that some of the larger coal-buying corporations within the bulk materials sector do not know that there are stock theft issues; whereas small- to medium-sized companies that operate with fewer resources have first-hand knowledge of stock being swapped, or stolen, as smaller orders are easier to audit.

JustWeighs posits that because coal theft from trucks amounts to billions of rands, it acted, creating a truck weighing system in an effort to help curb illicit trading and load tampering.

JustWeighs has since transformed weighbridge automation and unmanned weighbridges within the South African coal sector.

How it Works

The system features modern technology to produce encrypted and paperless data, thereby enabling coal producers to track tonnages all the way from pit to plant and port, without manual weighbridge receipts.

However, the system can also use paper-based weighbridge slips.

The company explains that another major advantage of using its system is that it reduces weighbridge congestion, with stock data being integrated into enterprise resource planning systems such as SAP, Oracle, Sage Pastel and others.

In a case study conducted by JustWeighs, corruption among truck drivers and weighbridge operators can occur during congestion, where truck drivers can hand money to weighbridge operators as a bribe to allow stolen loads to pass over the weighbridge as legitimate consignments, thereby laundering them.

JustWeighs explains that this, and similar scenarios, occur daily and weekly, across different time zones, country borders and industry boundaries.

The company notes that companies lose millions of rands of stock and endure both reputational and punitive liability damage as a result of illicit coal loads or poor-quality materials landing up in clients’ yards.

Any company using a weighbridge can make use of JustWeighs’ system for the automation and provision of additional security measures at stockyards, enabling bulk materials customers, in a variety of sectors, the benefit of the company’s encrypted supply chain solutions.

JustWeighs covers both the qualities and quantities of coal loads being delivered, with its sample encryption software being able to anonymously test qualities of bulk materials products and provide received qualities to the supplier and customer, simultaneously.

JustWeighs offers three package options for the weighbridge system to best suit a client’s operations and budget, with the company also offering financing options for all its solutions.