System for factories

RFID vehicle gate and weighbridge management

Nine independent modules covering the logistics that happen inside your fence: vehicle booking, gate control, load identification, weighbridge automation, yard control, quality release, audit records, reporting and integration. You take the modules you need and configure them to the way your own site works.

The international names for this group of functions: yard management system, gate automation and weighbridge automation.

A truck on an electronic weighbridge deck, RFID reader posts either side, pole-mounted cameras capturing the front and rear plates, an automatic barrier, a signal tower and a weighbridge room with an industrial computer

Why this stage is the blind spot of an otherwise digitised plant

Plenty of plants already run management software for production and for accounting, yet the stretch from a vehicle reaching the gate to material entering the line still runs on paper and on conversations. The result is no data for the very stage that decides how much the plant can take in: nobody knows how long a load takes, where the time goes, or why.

It is also the first stage an assessor asks about when checking traceability of incoming material, because it is where the whole data chain starts.

Equipment inside the weighbridge room: the indicator on a stand, an open control cabinet with an industrial computer, power supply and network switch on rail, cabling run in trunking down to a floor junction box and out to the deck

Scope

Nine modules

Each module stands on its own. Most sites start with the one that produces a measurable result soonest and widen from there.

01 Vehicle booking and scheduling

vehicle booking · appointment scheduling

Suppliers and hauliers book ahead, and slots are allocated against what the site can actually take
An electronic queue in place of vehicles arriving and waiting
Drivers notified by electronic pass, with no paperwork

02 Gate control

gate automation · access control

Vehicle and driver verified at the entry gate and again on the way out
Barrier, signal lights and display boards driven by the result of that check
Photographs of the vehicle stored with the timestamp as evidence of the movement

03 Vehicle and load identification

RFID · ANPR

RFID on the open EPC Gen2 standard (ISO/IEC 18000-63) — no lock-in to one tag vendor
Automatic plate recognition, checked against what was booked
The form of identification follows the problem: a tag fixed to the vehicle, a tag issued per trip, or an electronic pass on the driver’s phone

04 Weighbridge automation

weighbridge automation

Weights taken straight from your existing indicator over serial or network, never typed in
A photograph of the vehicle at the moment of weighing stored with the ticket
Weight checked against the paperwork within a tolerance you set, with an alert the moment it is exceeded
Multiple weighings per trip supported for bulk and liquid loads

05 Yard and dock control

yard & dock management

A live map of the site: which vehicle is in which area, which dock is free
Docks and processing order allocated by rules you configure
Alerts when a vehicle stays longer than the time allowed

06 Quality hold and release

quality hold & release

Awaiting inspection, passed and failed states attached directly to the load
Approval points and who may sign them off are configured by you, not fixed by us
Inspection results stored with who carried them out and when

07 Electronic records and audit trail

audit trail

Who did what and when, recorded automatically, with no way for a user to switch it off
Records cannot be edited once created; every change adds a new record with its reason
Role-based permissions, with data access logged
Retention periods and who may view personal data configured to your own policy

08 Reporting and operating indicators

reporting & KPI

Figures by shift, by lane, by supplier and by haulier
Raw data exported so your analysts can build their own reporting
Feeds into the management reporting you already run

09 System integration

integration layer

Two-way exchange with your ERP through a web service interface
Field equipment connected: weighing indicators, cameras, barriers, display boards, controllers
Queued and re-sent when the connection drops; every message carries its own id, so re-sending never creates a duplicate

The management case

What this system is for, beyond the audit

Satisfying an assessor is the necessary part. What actually gets the investment approved is usually one of the seven points below.

More throughput before spending on more infrastructureBefore deciding to build another weighbridge or open another gate, the question to answer is what percentage of the time the existing one is actually weighing, and where the rest of the time goes. In most cases the bottleneck is waiting and paperwork rather than equipment — which pushes the infrastructure spend out by a few years.

What waiting time costsVehicles standing in your yard are a real cost that rarely appears as a line on any report. It sits inside freight rates that already price in the risk of waiting, in hauliers favouring other routes in peak season, and in the extra vehicles hired to make up the throughput.

Negotiating on figures rather than impressionsOnce every load has a complete record, you have a scorecard for each supplier and each haulier: on-time arrival, time on site, weight discrepancy rate, share of paperwork that had to be redone. That is what price and contract terms get negotiated on.

Loss control and weight disputesWeight discrepancies are the most expensive dispute at this stage, because there is usually no evidence beyond a signature. An electronic record with a photograph taken at the moment of weighing turns the dispute from an argument into a comparison of data.

Safety and legal exposureFewer people walking in areas where vehicles move, and a record of who entered which area and when. If something happens, the movement record is what establishes responsibility.

Less dependence on the people who knowAt many sites, priority order and how exceptions get handled live in the heads of a few long-serving staff. Once the rules are in the system, a new starter is productive within days and staff turnover stops being a risk.

The data foundation for the rest of the digitisationIncoming material is where every data chain in the plant begins. If that point is still typed in by hand, the production system and the management reporting behind it are all running on figures nobody can verify.

A control room from above: a desk with two screens, one showing operating charts and the other a site map with a vehicle highlighted; a network cabinet beside the desk and a window looking out over the gate and weighbridge

Reference figures from international markets

≈3.5 hoursAverage driver detention time at a facility, per research by the American Transportation Research Institute

USD 25–90 per hourDetention charged by US carriers to shippers once free time is exceeded

USD 1.1–1.3 bn a yearProductivity lost to detention across the US trucking sector, per federal transport regulator research

These are US figures, from a market where detention is a separate line in the transport contract. In Vietnam it rarely appears on an invoice, but it is paid all the same — inside freight rates that already price in the risk of waiting, and in the extra vehicles hired to keep throughput up. We quote them so you have a reference point when estimating for your own site, not as a saving we are promising.

What becomes measurable

The first thing this system delivers is not automation. It is figures for a stage that had none. How much improves after that depends on where your plant is starting from — and these are the indicators it gets measured on.

Time a vehicle spends inside the plantFrom passing the gate to leaving, broken down by stage so the bottleneck is visible.

Waiting time before each stageWaiting to weigh, waiting for inspection, waiting for a dock — figures that simply do not exist before this is digitised.

Gate and weighbridge throughputMovements per hour and per shift, which is what real capacity is calculated from.

Share of loads outside weight toleranceCounted by supplier and by haulier, for negotiation and partner review.

Share of paperwork right first timeDocuments that have to be redone are the largest hidden cost in reconciliation.

Manual data entry still remainingHow many fields are still typed by hand — the most direct measure of how far the digitisation has actually gone.

What an assessor asks for

Most of what the standards below require comes down to the same thing: evidence that is complete, tied to a time and a person, impossible to alter after the fact, and producible within a set time. That is the part the system supplies.

Standard or regulation	Relevant requirement	What the system supplies
ISO 9001 — quality management	Clause 8.5.2 identification and traceability; clause 7.1.5 control of monitoring and measuring resources	Electronic records tie each measurement to a load and a vehicle; calibration certificates for the weighing equipment are stored, with an alert as they fall due
Vietnamese Law on Metrology, group 2 measuring instruments	Vehicle scales are subject to periodic verification under Ministry of Science and Technology rules	The system reads a verified indicator without touching the measurement itself; verification records are stored and tickets are blocked once equipment is out of date
ISO 22000, HACCP and TCVN 12850:2019	One step back — one step forward, with key data elements available	Every load entering the plant is tied to its supplier, vehicle, weight, inspection result and receiving point, and can be traced back within minutes
Decree 37/2026/ND-CP on traceability	An internal traceability system must be able to connect and share data through a programming interface	Incoming material data is normalised at the gate and can be exported in the structure that is asked for
ISO 28000 — supply chain security	Control and record of people and vehicles entering the site	Verification at the gate, photographs as evidence, and a complete movement log per vehicle
Decree 13/2023/ND-CP on personal data protection	Images and documents belonging to a driver are personal data	View permissions, access logging, retention periods and deletion, all set to the policy your organisation adopts

Configured per plant

No two plants run the same way, so the system does not fix the order of operations. The points below are parameters, settled during the survey.

Number of gates and weighbridgesOne shared gate or separate in and out, one deck or several, with or without a check weigher.

Type of goodsBagged, bulk and liquid loads and their packaging differ in how weight is calculated and how many weighings are needed.

Quality inspection pointsWhether there are any, whether they sit before or after weighing, and who has authority to release.

How automatic the barrier isFrom recording the movement and telling the guard, through to fully automatic on the result of the check.

Form of identificationA tag fixed to the vehicle, a tag issued per trip, or an electronic pass on the driver’s phone.

Extent of integrationStandalone, connected to your management system, or connected further down to line control.

Site conditions to establish first

Close view of one gate lane: the barrier and its drive cabinet, antenna posts on both sides of the lane, a pole camera aimed down at the lane, signal lights, an outdoor control cabinet on a concrete plinth, a lightning mast and buried cable runs linking the equipment

Item	Why it has to be settled before the design is fixed
Network to each station	Every weighbridge, gate and office needs a stable wired connection. Network infrastructure is usually a job to be done first, not something that comes along with the system.
Power and lightning protection	Outdoor equipment needs backup power and surge protection. Gates and weighbridges take more lightning than anywhere else on site.
Where readers are mounted	Read range depends on mounting height, angle, what the vehicle body is made of and where the tag sits. It has to be tested in place.
Conditions for plate recognition	Enough light at night and a workable camera angle at both ends of the vehicle.
The existing indicator	The protocol and data port of the indicator in use have to be established.

Where the system stops

Certification against the standards above is granted to an organisation after an assessment body has reviewed the whole management system. It is never granted to software. The software supplies the evidence and records an assessor asks for; the rest belongs to your process and your people.
The system does not replace verification of the measuring instruments. Weight accuracy is determined by the deck and the verified indicator.
Plate recognition is not absolute in every weather condition or on every state of plate. Every design includes a manual path that records who handled it.
UHF tags are affected by metal and water. Read zones and tag placement have to be established by testing at your own site, not inferred from a manufacturer datasheet.
The system records and reconciles data. It does not detect physical interference with weighing equipment — that is the province of verification and on-site supervision.

Questions we are asked

What is this kind of system called internationally?

Moving vehicles around the site is yard management, the gate part is gate automation, and the scale part is weighbridge automation. The large platforms sell these three as modules that clip together, and that is how we build it too: you take the modules you need instead of buying a suite and leaving most of it unused.

Our plant works differently from everyone else. What then?

That is the normal case, and it is why the system is built as modules rather than one fixed sequence. Order of steps, approval points, who has authority, tolerances and allocation rules are all configuration. Anything beyond what configuration covers is developed, and that is established during the survey.

What does this give us for a customer or certification audit?

What an assessor wants is evidence: records that are complete, traceable, impossible to alter after the fact, and quick to produce on request. That is exactly the part the system supplies — automatic activity logs, photographs as evidence, calibration records for the measuring equipment, and the ability to trace a batch of material back to the vehicle that brought it.

Do we have to replace the weighbridge we already have?

No. The system reads your existing indicator, provided it has a data port. What gets added is the identification equipment, cameras, signalling and the software.

What is the lowest-risk way to roll this out?

Start with one module that produces a measurable result immediately — usually the weighbridge module — accept it on real figures from your plant, and only then widen the scope. That way you can stop after the first stage if the result is not what you expected.

Where is the data held and who can see it?

On a server inside your plant. We keep no copy of your operating data, and the system does not need an internet connection to run. Access is by role, and personal data belonging to drivers has its own retention period and access log.

Related: batch-level warehouse control with QR codes — the modules that pick up once material is in the warehouse. How we work and the budget bands are on software built to requirement. Field equipment: industrial cameras and industrial computers.

What we do

Talk to us about your plant

Tell us where you are: how many gates and weighbridges, how many vehicles a day, what kind of goods, which indicator you run, what management system you already have, and which standards you have to maintain. An engineer will call you back to work out which module to do first and which budget band it falls into.

A straight answer on feasibility during the call
The budget range that matches your requirement
An engineer who has built this kind of system before