Lightning turn rounds on site
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DRIVING a truck into Redland Roadstone's new granite quarry works at Buddon Wood, Mountsorrel, Leicestershire, collecting a 10-ton load and driving out again is claimed to take only five minutes. This rapid turn-round is apparently made possible by computerisation of the load-out operation which incorporates closedcircuit television monitoring of truck loading.
The system, involving a complex network of closed circuit television cameras (CCTV), is part of a plan by Redland Roadstone to more than double output of granite to 2.4m tonnes a year.
A customer drives up to the computer control unit, states his needs to an operator, and moves on to the tare bridge. He then drives to the appropriate load-out bay to receive his truck load, from where he moves on to the gross weighbridge and gets his instructions from another operator at the control unit exit. All this in five minutes, it is claimed.
Loading of the granite into the truck is watched by one of the four CCTV cameras developed by Reliance Systems Ltd, a member of the GEC Group of Companies. Monitoring of these cameras takes place in the computer control unit. Additionally, a Reliance two-way sound broadcasting system is available between each of the four load-out bays and the control unit in case any customer gets into difficulties.