SAMER

System SAMER^® is dedicated for automation liquid fuel distribution process in fuel depots. Main system tasks includes: control and monitoring of fuel trans-shipment, registering of loaded fuel amount, tank-truck traffic supervision, accounting system together with creating forwarding documents and transferring data to ERP system (e.g. SAP R/3).

The SAMER^® System has modular structure and can spread over all fuel depot installations (unloading and loading stations, storage tanks, pump stations, tank-truck scales, railway car scales, fire-fighting installations etc.).

To the most important modules of SAMER^® includes: 

• Tank-truck forwarding module – issuing entrance and departure's documents (loaded fuel proof, bill of lading, ADT/UDT, quality certificates), manual preparing the local orders, drivers, tank-truck and products database management, preview and archiving of tank-trucks transports (jointly with necessary documents), self-service driver's entrances and departures.
• Rail tank-car forwarding module – issuing of local orders, transport documents issuing (R27/R28, loaded fuel proof, bill of lading, quality certificates), preview and archiving rail tank transports, managing of rail tanks data, products data, client data. 

Tank-truck loading module – supervision of preset controllers (order code inspection), pump's start demanding, grounding and overfilling checking, printing parameters and quantity of loaded fuel (on the legalized printer), registering of loaded fuel quantity and loading parameters, tank-truck cells limit monitoring, on-line preview of orders, preview of loading terminal with animated tank-truck, valves control in remote mode, valve and preset controller visualization.

• Rail tank-car loading module – supervision of preset controller, pump's start demanding, grounding and overfilling checking, printing on the legalized printer parameters and quantity of loaded fuel, registering loaded fuel quantity and loading parameters, rail tank-car volume limit monitoring, online preview of orders, valves control in remote mode, valve and preset controller visualization, scales support.
• Technological process supervision module (SCADA) – visualization and control of fuel depot installations – equipment status and work parameters, meter readings, equipment control (e.g. auto/manual turn on/off), process signals recording.
• ERP and MRP system interface (SAP R/3) – orders interface (automatic orders receiving), automatically sending information about completed fuel loading and the current levels in storage tanks.

          
• Pump station module – supervision of product pump stations, monitoring of pipelines routing and the technological blockades, control of pumps and valves in local & remote mode, pumps and valves status visualization.
• Additive dozing module – supervision of additive dozing process, recording of loaded additive amount, monitoring of pipelines routing and the technological blockades, control of pumps and valves in local & remote mode, additive tank level visualization.

Bio-components module – supervision of bio-components dosage process, recording of loaded bio-component amount, monitoring of pipelines routing and the technological blockades, control of pumps and valves in local & remote mode, bio-component tanks level visualization (e.g. co-operation with measurements systems like Enraf, SAAB).

• Tank farm module – supervision of product storage tanks, monitoring of pipelines routing and the technological blockades, tank valves control in local & remote mode, valves status and product level visualization (e.g. co-operation with measurements systems like Enraf, SAAB).
• Laboratory module – issuing quality certificates, defining templates of quality certificates, automatic printing the quality certificates together with departures documents.
• Reports and balances module – printing various types of reports: “Loaded fuel report”, “Sold product report”, “Excise products report” and many other reports characteristic for specific module.
• Storage module – manually preparing and printing delivery documents, income and outcome reports, documents of product transfer inside fuel depot, tank measurement records, preview, recording and archiving all fuel depot documents.
• Module of excise documents – manual preparing and printing incoming and outgoing documents, recording and archiving all excise documents, automatic preparing and printing outgoing documents.

Diagnostic module – on-line communication connections monitoring among system's devices.  Administrative module - defining users' profiles with appropriate systems authorizations, defining groups of products, defining logical connections among loading controllers, pumps & tanks, application parameters changing: measurement ranges, warnings and alarms levels.

The individual modules of SAMER^® System are chosen regarding to existing infrastructure of the fuel depot and customer's needs.

Flexible selection of suitable SAMER^® modules enables easy adjusting the project to clients specify, as well easy System upgrading in case of technological structure modernization, applying new information technology or in case of changes in regulations.

System SAMER^® enables tank-truck driver self-service during their visit at fuel depot. In order to provide that functionality touch screen terminals are placed nearby entrance and exit gates, where the driver prepares an individual fuel loading plan for each cell of tank-truck – on the basis of the received from ERP systems orders. This solution has been implemented in many hard traffic objects end contributed to decreasing queues formed by drivers waiting for entrance and exit documents. Special procedures applied on loading stands enable accomplishing loading process by the driver without help from the local staff. Thanks to that in many fuel depots using SAMER^® System the loading time of 30 000 litres of the fuel (typical truck-tank capacity) takes less than 10 minutes. Decreasing time of a single tank-truck service has a direct impact on the growth of the loading capabilities.

System SAMER^® has been integrated with the w existing in fuel depots laboratory systems (LIMS, ELIAS). Thanks to that solution product examination results are immediately available in the System so quality certificates are issued and printed automatically and the tank-truck driver can receive a set of documents from one source. The electronic circulation of the data makes the new sets of calculation available in the system right after accomplishing necessary examination in the laboratory.

System SAMER^® enables remote updating of fuel depot software application. This functionality can considerably simplify software changes management. Additionally, in case of forwarding workstation failure the primary file structure and the client application can be simply restored.

The most important advantages of SAMER^® system:

• Automatic service – tank-truck driver self-service on incoming/outgoing terminal and print departures documents without fuel depot stuff attention,

• Increasing fuel loading safety level – thanks to tank-truck grounding and overfilling systems,
• Decreasing tank-truck driver service time – thanks to fuel loading process automation and automatic transport documents generating (bill of lading, loading fuel proofs, ADT/UDT documents, and quality certificates),
• Optimizing tank-truck traffic flow on fuel depot by reporting of tank-trucks time duration analyzing,
• SCADA system continuous supervising of technological process, which enables recording of process signals and alarms,
• Electronic documents transfer between several fuel depots and central ERP system (SAP R/3),
• Particular devices runtime registering for better maintaining and failure preventing,
• Protection against uncontrolled access to the system – suitable security profiles for operators and dispatchers,
• Supporting for storage management by archiving of products delivery and loaded product proof,
• Protection against uncontrolled products leak – thanks to reports and balances which shows the place and the time where products decreases occurred.

The first implementations of system SAMER^® took place in 1999-2000. Currently the System works in 21 huge fuel depots in Poland (12 ORLEN S.A. Tank Farms, 7 OLPP Sp. z o.o. Tank Farms and 2 LOTOS S.A. Fuel Terminals).

System SAMER^® is still developed according to the latest business & logistic needs and following to new legal and metrology regulations. The Company Merrid Controls regularly updated System software regarding to customer’s demands and System reliability. System SAMER^® was awarded with Grand Prix at ”Oil & Gas Trades“ in Warsaw.

Thanks to its open structure and modularity the System SAMER^® has been implemented not only at fuel depots but also at petrochemical product terminals (mineral and synthetic oils, asphalts, solvents, chemicals), biofuel terminals (ethanol, RME) and at various product bulk terminals (PE pellets, PP pellets).