TERMINAL AUTOMATION
A great way to identify areas where automation might add value to your business is to start looking for all paper data input forms, spreadsheets, databases, paper reports and export files that you use in your daily operations. Even small marketing terminals often have a surprising number of these types of documents and files. Larger terminals and refineries can have hundreds. Each document and file is a potential indicator of a manual process that might be impacting efficiency and costs of operations.
Paper forms & Spreadsheets
Although truck rack
automation is ubiquitous for
today's terminals, many other
types of data, such as physical
inventories, receipt data,
shipment data and various
types of adjustments, are
sometimes still hand recorded
on paper forms and later
manually entered into the
system. Paper forms often
pose several problems: They
can be lost; There is no data
validation; Data needs to be
manually entered; Data is not
immediately available to
others. Today's terminal
automation systems support a
variety of data input and
collection methods, including
handhelds, kiosks and
industrial operator interface
terminals. These solutions
enable validation of the data
immediately after the
transaction has completed.
Data is immediately available
in the system and the system
can send email notifications
where applicable.
If someone is typing data
into a spreadsheet that also
exists in the terminal
automation software, it is
probably because the system
does not support the data
fields. A good terminal
automation system will
provide transaction data fields
that can be configured to
meet unique needs. These
might not have been turned
on when the system was
originally commissioned.
Rather than having someone
manually type in data or send
an export file, the terminal
automation system could be
extended with an interface to
automatically send the data at
the appropriate time or based
on an event.
Databases & Reports
It is very common for a
terminal to have one or more
external Microsoft Access
databases that provide
functions not available in the
terminal automation system.
Data is often imported into the
external database by manually
exporting a file from the
terminal automation software.
This process results in
redundant data, which can
lead to problems when data is
changed in one database and
not the other. One method to
eliminate the redundant data
is to connect the Microsoft
Access database directly to
the terminal automation
system database, but this
method can dramatically
increase the complexity of the
Microsoft Access database and
still results in a system with
two disparate user interfaces.
This solution is also prone to
problems when upgrading the
terminal automation system
and may be considered a
security risk.
