Marknadsundersökning av tänkbara system för fordonskontroll på Pan Nordic Logistics

by Ramstedt, Linda

This thesis was made at Pan Nordic Logistics (PNL) in Bromma, Stockholm. PNL is a concept company, which offers their customers to send parcels to, from and within the Nordic countries and these transports are bought from PNL’s suppliers. In this case the meaning of concept is the fact that PNL does not have any physical distribution but the distribution takes place after agreements with its partners. The company today sees a problem in the fact that it does not have complete control of how the suppliers manage with their commissions of transport to PNL. The main problem is that PNL does not have control of the departures and the arrivals of the trucks at the terminals in the standard flow of PNL. Today the terminal personnel should report in the terminal reports if the trucks have arrived and departed in time, but because the personnel does not have complete control of all the trucks the safety is insufficient. The task consists of proposing a number of systems for control of vehicles, describe these and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the systems. An analysis of the situation today was made regarding how the company works and how its tracking system is working. A specification of the demands of the system was made. The proposals have been analysed according to the classification of Gunnar Stefansson (1999) complemented with a number of attributes. The systems I consider most suitable as control systems for this purpose are in order of preference the following: 1. IR-technology 2. Phone reader 3. Nordic VLSI 4. Smart cards The IR-technology works in the following way: A cell phone with IR port is directed to a unit (located at a terminal), which through an IR signal generates an SMS message that is sent from the phone to a server where the information is stored. I consider the IR-technology to be the most appropriate proposal for the purpose of PNL, mainly because of the ease of use, the security of the technology and because it is relatively cheap. The phone reader means that a small bar code reader can be fixed at a cell phone, get current from it and then read a bar code which gives information about which transport it is about etc. This type of reader is still in the prototype phase. Nordic VLSI means that when a button is pressed, a radio sender and a radio receiver get in contact if they are close to each other. The information is sent with a so-called microcontroller with special protocols for the purpose. Smart cards consist of a plastic card with a transponder, which carries a unique number. The smart card is held up in front of a reader and is then registered. The technique is safer than for example card technique with magnetic stripes. There is a risk in all proposals that the driver will forget to register the departure and arrival. To be absolutely sure that a registration really is taking place the system should be automated. An example of such systems is RFI systems. The problem with automated systems is that they are relatively expensive. Förord Det här examensarbetet har utförts på Pan Nordic Logistics, PNL, i Bromma. Det har varit lärorikt att få vara på ett företag under en så lång period och få en inblick i hur det fungerar. Personalen på företaget har hjälpt mig med mina frågor och att förstå procedurer och samband i företaget. Dessutom har jag haft kontakt med en hel del andra företag som har hjälpt mig med kreativa förslag och diskuterat fram alternativ som skulle kunna passa i PNL:s fall. Utan dessa, min handledare Börje Nyman, min examinator Thore Hagman och alla andras hjälp hade slutresultatet inte blivit lika intressant, så jag skulle därför vilja tacka alla som har hjälpt mig. INNEHÅLLSFÖRTECKNING 1