Merridale depot fuelling for NFT

A Merridale fuelling installation has been selected by NFT to meet the operational requirements of its new multi-temperature warehouse and distribution facility on the DIRFT Logistics Park, Northamptonshire.

Supplied by MIS Fuel Monitoring of Wolverhampton, the Merridale dispensing equipment has been integrated with a 100K litres dual stock (diesel/gas oil) storage tank installed by Pump and Tank Services of Rotherham. As a full fuel management package, the Merridale diesel dispensers provide total supervisory control and data acquisition capabilities for oil storage and fleet management.

What impressed me immediately was the simplicity of the Merridale application.

The tank is equipped with twin fuelling points at each end of the tank. One of the four dispensing positions is allocated to gas oil for forklifts, plant and refrigeration units. The Merridale FT tank management package features highly accurate content probes and overfill sensors for each tank compartment, plus a leak sensor for the overall bund. The information is presented on individual control panels and displays incorporated into the front panel of each twin pump. This information is relayed via the fuel management system to the office computer, thereby giving up-to-the-minute  information required for re-ordering stock. The alarms provide an additional safeguard to prevent any possibility of spillage by overfilling the tank.

Access to the pumps is controlled by the use of smart keys allocated to each vehicle. Each fuelling transaction is then authenticated by the Merridale monitoring system which validates the vehicle’s elapsed mileage by comparing the current and recorded odometer readings.

Details of all fuelling transactions are captured and downloaded as required to the central administration office computer. On the receiving end is Dave Langley, NFT Fleet Administrator who uses the information to manage stock and produce regular management reports.

Although Dave has previous experience with a contemporary fuel management reporting system this was his first encounter with the Merridale software.

You just select the report that you want to run and the information is there in a couple of clicks of the mouse – job done.

“What impressed me immediately was the simplicity of the Merridale application.” says Dave. He adds: “In my experience, fuel systems are usually a nightmare. I like the Merridale equipment it’s much easier to access and process the data that you need.

Commenting on the administration facilities Dave Langley said: “You just select the report that you want to run and the information is there in a couple of clicks of the mouse – job done. You can see how much fuel is going in what vehicle, who was the driver and the date and time when the transaction took place.”

About NFT

NFT is the UK’s leading provider of time critical logistics solutions for the food retail and manufacturing sectors, providing primary, secondary and warehousing solutions through their nationwide multi-temperature infrastructure.

NFT delivers over 100,000 pallets and dollies of chilled food each week, traveling to almost every UK retailer every day. NFT has more than 1,600 employees, and runs more than 370 articulated vehicles across the business, covering over 1.4 million kilometres every week.

NFT‘s flagship 215,000 sq ft warehouse in Northamptonshire is its largest shared user storage facility in the UK - and the company has invested in innovative system-controlled logistics capability.