Ardmore monitor off-road consumption

Between them, BCL Plant and BCL Rail Services provide construction plant and specialist equipment to virtually every sector of British industry. Both operations are subsidiaries of the Ardmore Group, a national construction company with on-going development projects throughout the British Isles.

Set up originally to manage the group's in-house plant requirements, BCL's business now covers external clients nationwide, operating from strategically placed depots in North London, Birmingham, Newport, Heathrow, Glasgow and Docklands.. In addition to supplying specialist plant and machine operators, BCL is also responsible for the management of the group's fuel oil supplies, a large proportion of which is 'red' diesel designated for off-road plant consumption.

A typical large machine, such as a tracked excavator, takes around £250 worth of fuel per contract and with some 450 plus machines on its books, the plant hire business is a major consumer of fuel oil. For stock control and to manage usage, each of the BCL depots is equipped with Merridale Auditor FX units supplied by MIS Fuel Monitoring of Wolverhampton.

The equipment records all fuelling transactions and the data is downloaded daily by the head office for the production of management reports.

"Whilst its prime function is to capture the details we need for completing the controlled oil returns, required by Customs & Excise, the Merridale software also provides an important management information capability," explains Group Plant Manager, Mark Kennedy.

The Merridale system is set up to identify which member of staff is drawing fuel, how much is pumped, the time of the transaction and for which vehicle it has been dispensed. To authorise the transaction the vehicle mileage must also be entered and this is validated against the elapsed mileage from the previous top up. A limit on the amount of fuel allowed for each transaction can also be set.

"The system highlights anomalies including anyone overriding the system," says Mark Kennedy. "With an annual fuel bill of around £4.5 million, it is essential that we have an effective means for allocating costs as well as controlling access to the diesel supplies.

Plant hire operations are supported by nine low loaders and ten lorries equipped with heavy lift cranes. Additionally BCL has a general purpose fleet of over 400 service vans and company cars. Petrol is provided at the headquarters fuelling point and this is also being monitored through the Merridale system.

Each vehicle has a key to provide access to the pump and all personnel, authorised to use the system are allocated a PIN number. A key benefit of the Merridale system is that it allows managers to control the amount of fuel that is allowed for each vehicle and number of fills that individuals can take.

In operation it gives drivers the freedom to fill up at any time. The system identifies the driver and automatically updates the vehicle mileage record. This is then used to calculate mpg fuel economy performance figures. Any degradation in a vehicle's performance will be highlighted, allowing corrective action to be taken. Mileage information is also passed up to BCL's fleet management database where it is used to keep track of the scheduled service intervals.

Commenting on overall benefits, Mark Kennedy said: "Monitoring by Merridale is a big time saver compared to manual records. The information is collected automatically and we can see exactly who is drawing fuel. Another advantage is that it is easy to keep track of pool car usage and check who was using a particular car and at what time. This is an important security bonus when dealing with insurance claims."