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Closing the gap

5th January 1985, Page 38
5th January 1985
Page 38
Page 39
Page 38, 5th January 1985 — Closing the gap
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Technology on the move

EVERY DAY we spend several million pounds on getting information and Fleet Street is very glad we do! Satisfying people's insatiable appetite for news is a highly sophisticated business. Part of that sophistication relies heavily on world communications by satellite and uses computers to save time and ensure that each story is up-to-date.

The newsagency, Reuters, has taken things a stage further: for the globe-trotting executive it will supply a calculator-sized portable computer that can provide current stock market information.

The lure of technology Advertising and marketing men have never been squeamish about exploiting people's soft spots. If you doubt that technology has become a powerful marketing ploy, then reflect on the recent advertisements you have seen: no self-respecting washingmachine manufacturer would say his electronic circuits merely make it semi-automatic or more reliable — it is, of course, computer-controlled;

while in my own field, the designers of the most expensive cars often seem intent on imitating the flight deck of Concorde. It is intriguing to note that in the past when vehicle producers were still trying to make reliable engines, oil pressure gauges and other instruments were only found on the more expensive and theoretically, more reliable models. Now that engines are more reliable and need less servicing, more cars have oil gauges or 'full instrumentation'. Essentially, more information is available than we need to drive the vehicle.

Our success in producing good vehicles has raised our expectation. The journey from A to B must now also be cheap, quick and comfortable as well as safe.

In the road freight industry we are concerned with all these things. Whether your customers demand speed of service or service reliability depends on the type of business. But the cost of meeting customer demand is something all operators need to know accurately. Just as new manufacturing methods enable us to produce things like reliable electronic ignitions and fuel injection equipment, so the techniques of miniaturisation have affected the size of the 'black box' controls as well as their performance.

Shrinking has reduced machinery which weighed around 30 tons and needed a room 60ft by 25ft in 1946 to a chip one-eighth of an inch square and opens up considerable potential on the vehicle as well as for business machines in the office.

Vehicle applications In our work at Cranfield we are often invited by companies to discuss and advise on the use of modern equipment to help run fleets of vehicles. Sometimes, our suggestions of additional electronic equipment on vehicles raise comment.

Most of us with experience of operating vehicles know the electrics to be a most common source of trouble. However, things like the present solid state flasher units and alternator controls now have much lower failure rates.

The wiring harness is often a source of trouble, but Salplex of Staffordshire believes this could be eliminated using modern micro-electronics.

Its system replaces the multitude of wires in the . harness with one wire. The company asserts that everything functions even better than before with the use of some ingenious black box technology.

Of interest to those responsible for vehicle repair and maintenance, the system can diagnose faults in the units that it connects. Such a system must be useful not only in reducing the uncertainty associated with sending trucks in for electrical repair and not knowing when they can be back in service, but also in having the capacity to handle any future additional electrical equipment. There are also a number of systems which can use computer-like electronics to provide drivers with more information about the vehicle as well as the road network.

Driver information

The truck industry has benefited from the experiences of aircraft designers and space research. Dashboards have instruments which are much more easily seen and understood than in the past. There are a number of ways that information can be presented in the cab and the merits of each presentation. method are fairly narrowly defined — deciding what the driver needs or wants is far more difficult.

It is surprising that for a vehicle primarily designed to carry large quantities of goods, the lorry has not received more attention as regards weight. Admittedly, many vehicles cub€ out before going overweight. But with drivers being legally responsible, accurate systems like Loadax, produced by TRW Probe of Cirencester, would appear to answer an obvious need. Such technology can provide significant business gains, particularly in the area of bulk commodities.

Devices which can display such things as remaining driving time either in the day, the working week, or before a rest period, will soon be available from many manufacturers. While such information can be useful in deciding whether to continue with the same load plan, it is not complete. To make the best decision we need to be able to get details of the roads and the prevailing traffic conditions to any vehicle anywhere on the network.

Route guidance has received considerable attention. Scientists working for the Traffic Automation Unit of GEC at Boreham Wood have been researching ways of transferring information of routes and traffic activity for some time.

In Germany, a traffic advice system has been operating successfully for several years and this scheme may be expanded to cover many more routes, In America, experiments are in hand with maps stored on laser discs. We will return to discuss the details and different methods for route guidance in February, as well as looking at on-board systems.

More effort has recently been put into producing equipment for commercial vehicles; developments in trucks often follow trends started in the car market. Car production is attractive to makers of high technology products because of the volume. An example is speaking dashboards and fuel consumption computers. These have a gimmicky marketing value, but eventually the power which these electronic toys possess will generate more useful functions.

Another case in point is computer-assisted engine control and gear changing, which can improve the driver's job, improve fuel consumption and component life.

Much of the technology we require to prepare the information for display in the cab, or in the store for workshop and diagnosis, or for management analysis, is already available. The change is really occurring in equipment performance, ie, the information we can buy for a pound.

But irrespective of the cheapness of the computers which are buried in the facia panel, the answer coming from the device is only as good as the measuring devices. Whether microphones are fitted into the cylinders to listen for impending bearing failure or for adjusting injection timing, inaccurate microphones produce bad results. The same must apply to using any measure of starter voltage during cranking to indicate cylinder compressions — it must be done accurately for the results to be reliable.

It is the measuring devices which are required to monitor fuel flow, oil pressure, etc, that can limit the applications. One leading manufacturer of vehicle electrical equipment has estimated the need for perhaps 40 sensors to monitor adequately the performance of a heavy lorry.

Partly because of the low production volumes and the scepticism of the market, vehicle manufacturers have been slow to offer on-board equipment. Operators have been compelled to look to the after-market producers.

They have tended to purchase equipment for monitoring weight, fuel consumption, speed, refrigeration temperature and similar factors made by such companies as Cowlard Computers and Centaur, and systems such as VEDAC.

These devices are essentially recorders and can be fitted to monitor a variety of activities. Also commonly recorded are the operation of tailgate lifts, discharge pumps, security locks and other ancilliaries.

The maximum number of items which can be recorded varies, but is commonly 10 to 15 channels. The facts which the devices record could be of value to the driver and, many would argue, should be available to him, but the recording is usually carried out for some management purpose. The cartridge on which the data is retained must be connected to a business computer in the office before the electronically stored facts can be printed in an understandable form.

These devices bridge the gap between on-board systems, which display what is happening in the cab of the vehicle, and those which record the type of facts helpful in managing the working of the vehicle, for instance for cost monitoring, cost allocation, or fleet utilisation and planning.

Business Systems Wages, accounts and sales departments have been using computer systems for a number of years. Except for a few large distribution companies, few transport people have tried to use these electronic machines to help handle business paperwork. Many articles have been written about the "paperless office" — certainly a technical possibility

— but the written word is still very popular and, occasionally, legally necessary.

The cheapness of home computers and office machines has spawned a new industry — software. Some companies are producing products to assist in transport operations. Products that will operate on the smaller cheaper computers can be used by operators with one or two vehicles or linked together for bigger fleets.

My colleague in the Centre for Transport Studies, Tony Cross, has been studying the kinds of problems transport operators solve using computers. The table shows how the operators we questioned use their machines — for obvious reasons of cost and time this is only a snapshot of approximately 400 operators in the East Midlands. Just because the list is broken down into separate operational areas does not mean that one computer cannot be doing more than one of the tasks. The layout was arranged in this way because the 130 or so computer software companies (on which we have details) group their products like this.

Several new companies are moving into the area and no doubt because of a few rags to riches stories, some

undesirable problems have emerged. The magazine, Which Computer listed them thus:

* 696 different kinds of computer * 4,000 general business software products * 2,000 compute consultants — 1,900 financially tied to a computer or software company * 50 per cent chance the computer purchased doesn't work * delivery delays * 2,000 unscrupulous, dishonest, technically ignorant and financially unstable dealers. Although the above information looks bad for the reputation of the computer boys we, the buyers, cannot claim total ignorance. In road freight a number of the companies have introduced their own problems by buying inappropriate products. But many of the new products are more easy to use.

Good computer companies with experience in transport operations will survive to provide the advice, value for money and back-up service — all the things you require of your truck manufacturer. But the way we buy these product or new tools must be the samt as the way we choose lorries to do a job, not to make the jo fit the tool.

Getting It Right

All I can do in this short article is to give you an idea a how technology is moving. In transport we have on offer more technology than we nee( to use today; we may be read) to use more tomorrow. Essentially, the problems in transport are related to knowing where costs are incurred and trying to reduce those costs without affecting the service expected by the customers.

A computer can help to find out quickly what is going on and so help in finding out accurately what the cost may be. Most current applications have been where the big costs are involved, such as warehouse location. But the new cheaper machines can be used in the lower cost areas, operational rather than strategic.

Before purchasing any business machine or on-board device we must be sure about why we need the information. How much are these facts worth? Remember the cost of the newspaper. The only logic way to do that is to examine each cost area in turn and then decide whether we know how are we doing, whether we can do better, and how we can do better.

Next month I will examine the on-board equipment on offer to see how these devices help answer these questions.


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